This is the first paper that I've done for school that I've been immensely proud of. It was a response to Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of Love. The general rundown: I mention what it's like to be a military wife and briefly explore how that love is different than what Ackerman has laid out. Also, I disagree with her belief in the difference of a father's and a mother's love. It is long (6 pages), but well worth your time.
A Love That Hurts: Alternate
Manifestations of Love
For a book that was written
twenty years ago, Diane Ackerman’s A
Natural History of Love does a rather outstanding job of gathering,
analyzing, and presenting a still relevant case about the subject that has
eluded definition for thousands of years: love. Humanity has experienced love
for millennia, but as she mentioned at the beginning of her book, her extensive
research about the history and complexity of love returned few results. Why?
Because love is hard to describe and define.
Love has many dimensions. It has
varying degrees and its definition is one that is constantly in flux. This ever
changing quality that love exhibits presents a problem for Ackerman’s book.
Although written about an eternal subject, today this work comes across as
dated because love has yet again evolved and is categorized differently by
certain factions of society. There are two important issues with this book: the
simple need for the work to be updated and Ackerman’s gross stereotype
overgeneralizations. Cognizant of these alternate, yet valid aspects of love, A Natural History of Love needs to be
updated to include the love experienced within military communities and it
needs to rework the “difference” of fatherly love.
Ackerman fancies herself as a
reliable voice on love—as she tells her audience, she is “a child of the
seventies.” Free love, peace signs, and hippies: that’s the image that came to my
mind. However, after doing a quick Google check on Ackerman’s birthday, I found
that she was born in 1948. “Child of the seventies” may have been a sweet
endearment she gave herself, but in actuality she was a child of the fifties
and early sixties and what I would actually classify as a product of the seventies. The reason this matters is because the
seventies brought about an important event that is a cornerstone of this
criticism: the Vietnam War. Ackerman was a young child when the war began, but
it raged on as she grew into a teenager and young adult. Without a doubt, she
must have personally known or known of
someone that was affected by Vietnam. These experiences would have served as relevant
material that she could have included in this comprehensive work about love.
Loving a soldier is a weighted
choice that is actually somewhat masochistic in nature. From the beginning of
the soldier’s career, a military spouse has to understand that regardless of
what they promised each other in their wedding vows, she is not first in his
life. He does not love her above all others. He simply can’t. His sense of
national pride and responsibility come before her; they will continue to do so
for as long as he is in the service. Don’t get me wrong: he may love her as
much as he believes he possibly can, but he will break a bit of her heart each
time he leaves—and he will leave again and again and again. Her input is
irrelevant. If he is called, he will answer. If he is beckoned, he will go. He
will fight in distant lands for foreign people that hate him and everything he
stands for, yet he will still go.
My husband and I met in high
school and forged a fast and strong platonic friendship. He attempted to join
the Army right after he graduated, but his mother shot down the idea. He stayed
in our hometown and we remained great friends; the summer after I graduated is
when we started dating. At 20, he decided that he was indeed going to enlist and
so he did. He left for basic training in October 2009, not even four months
into our fledgling relationship. We talked loosely about marriage in February
2010 and after a rather short “engagement” period of about two months, we got
married in August 2010. At 20, I quit school, left our friends and family
behind in Florida, and moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina to be with my
husband. The first year was a real period of transition for me—not just the
ordinary adjustment of living with him and getting used to married life, but
also to a life that was directly impacted by the military.
Experience has taught me that military
life both does and does not exist separate from civilian life. My husband and I
experienced a rough first year of marriage, but that seems to be a universal
truth for every kind of marriage. Similarly to many other young, newlywed
couples, we did not have any money beyond what covered our bills and groceries.
Also like some marriages in which a spouse uproots her life and joins her other
half in an environment that is foreign to her, I missed my social support
network back home. Although some of them had moved away, my closest friends and
family members were still back “home.” I was
the one that was somewhat alone in a place that did not feel like home although
it technically was. As I experienced in that first year, communication drops
off heavily once proximity is decreased. This geographical, emotional, and
social separation from the people back home was not easy and it still affects
me to this day, although not as badly as it did four years ago.
Herein lies the major difference between
civilian and military relationships: ordinary problems that every couple deals
with are only compounded by the military. Financial, emotional, and social
issues were already valid problems for us, but they only became exacerbated by
the fact that it seemed like he was always gone whether working late, spending
time in the gym, or doing various training exercises in the field that lasted
anywhere from a couple days to a couple of weeks. Absence is a major factor in
nearly every relationship that a soldier has outside of the military, but I
understand it is not unique to the military; it can affect any relationship at
any point. However, a major difference between civilian and military
relationships is the option of choice. Barring financial and time constraints,
civilian relationships have the leisure of being able to “meet in the middle”
so to speak when the absence becomes an issue. It goes without saying, but military
relationships do not have this freedom.
The first real test came in 2012
when he went on his first deployment to Afghanistan. Without meaning to, he had
become the center of my world in Fayetteville and his absence did something
that I have a hard time describing. How does a twenty-one year old, childless
wife say goodbye to her husband with the constant nag that it could possibly be
for the last time? The paranoia that occurs because of indeterminate amount of
noncontact is tangible: heart sinking every time the phone rings, a strong
avoidance of the national news, and a great deal of sleepless nights.
Deployments change soldiers, but they also change the families of those
soldiers. This type of love is uncertain, self-sacrificing, and heart wrenching.
Yet like the soldier, it is expected to be strong, steadfast, and
unquestioning. While it is inherently difficult and at times just simply
unfair, it truly does have positive aspects.
Loving a soldier is rewarding and
it reinforces the foundation of the marriage: commitment. Our relationship is
constantly tested and still manages to come out stronger than it was, even when
I did not think that was possible. His absence gives me new ways to love and
miss him—from the alarming amount of bed space he used to occupy to the way he
looks at me every time we do finally reunite. Nothing makes me happier than
hearing his voice, no matter what time of the day it happens to be in this time
zone when he calls. For me, this type of love is a conscious choice and measurable
effort that I make day after day. It is not easy, but I choose to do it because
I love him—as my best friend, as my husband, and as a soldier.
While I would like to think I
have delivered a clean depiction of military love, I fully admit that it is incomplete.
There are a few aspects it does not address. What about the soldier’s own take
on love, in relation to his spouse as well as to his fellow soldiers? What
about the love that his parents feel toward him? The soldier to his children and
vice versa? Because of the instability and under-documented workings within a
military relationship, Ackerman should definitely have considered this type of
love as a distinguishable, important aspect that should have been included in
her work.
Another area where A Natural History of Love falls short is
the section about parental love. I have a cousin who recently welcomed his
first child with his newlywed German bride. My cousin is a network engineer
that works over seventy hours a week, but makes a very good living for himself
and his family. Without being asked, he took forty-five days off from his job
to be in Germany with his wife for the end of her pregnancy and beginning of
his son’s first weeks on earth. At the end of those forty-five days, he
returned to the States by himself with the additional paperwork he needed to
get his wife and son to join him here legally. Fast forward a couple months and
he is still waiting for the paperwork to process which is supposed to be
complete by April. I can honestly say that he is the most miserable I have ever
seen him. He has a faraway, detached look about him now; he pines for his wife
and son to be with him. However, since he is living by himself, he has
volunteered to work third shift which in turn provides a decent pay increase
that he is dedicating solely to his son.
Ackerman states that “[n]othing
is more absolute or unquestioning than a mother’s love, which is a gift freely
given, a last of last resorts to a troubled soul” (‘Mother Love, Father Love:
Third Paragraph). About fatherly love,
she states that it is “more distanced, and often has conditions attached to
it…[It] tends to punish and reward, to set limits, make demands, expect
obedience. A child may or may not deserve his or her father’s love. It is a love
that judges, and therefore a love that can be lost” (‘Mother Love, Father Love:
Fifth Paragraph). I agree with her assessment that there is a distinct
difference between a mother’s and a father’s love. However, as it is laid out,
Ackerman paints fathers as cold, standoff figures that can and will willingly
detach their feelings for their child if the child does not “deserve” it. This
is a gross overgeneralization that is not fair to make. Many mothers fall short
of providing their expected “unconditional” love; many fathers love their
children without reason or condition. There is a distinguishable difference between
how mothers and fathers love, but I do not think that qualifies a mother’s love
as more absolute than a father’s. To me, the difference is in perception and
motive.
Ackerman may not view my cousin as
being a hands-on, active, loving participant in his son’s life, but I adamantly
disagree. The love my cousin has for his son is evident. It hurts him, but it
also motivates him. I am not saying that my cousin loves his son any more or
less than his wife who gets to see, interact, and raise their son every day. I
am simply stating that I believe my cousin displays an equal form of love that Ackerman
does not give merit to.
As Ackerman tells her readers, the
nebulous nature of love makes it a rather difficult emotion to pin down. Giving
credit where it is due, she lays out an informative account of love in many of
its varied forms; in her defense, the definition and realization of love has
changed since this book was published in 1994. The wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, legalization of same-sex marriage, and cultural acceptance of a
stay at home dad are just a few of the recent changes that challenge this book.
I doubt this work could ever be presented as a complete, fully representational
narrative of love in its entirety, but for now, it could stand for at least a
couple important revisions.
