Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Life isn't a love-in

I recently rented an old movie that I just love, "Yours, Mine and Ours". It's a funny but touching film about a widow and a widower who start dating before they know that together they have 18 children. Yes, they fall in love and end up married, despite the initial cold reception from each other's kids. And, as the title suggests, they end up expecting their own child.

But my favorite part is the night they head to the hospital for the birth. The oldest daughter is desperate for advice about the boy who is pressuring her to have sex. The boy has told her that she is ridiculous and old-fashioned, and that "all the girls are doing it".

The father's advice is right-on:

The same idiots were passing the same rumors when I was your age. But if all the girls did it how come I always ended up with the girls who didn't?

I've got a message for him...you tell him THIS is what it's all about...THIS is the real happening. If you want to know what love is all about, take a look around you...take a good look at your mother. It's giving life that counts. Until you're ready for it, all the rest is just a big fraud.

Life isn't a love-in - it's the dishes, and the orthodontist, and the shoe repairman, and ground round instead of roast beef. And I'll tell you something else - it isn't going to bed with a man that proves you're in love with him. It's getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful, everyday world with him that counts.


And that's the truth.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This old movie is one of my favorite. It is well worth watching, expecially for the scene where the father tells the oldest daughter what life is really about. Great movie and great advice.