And your answer is?

~ Live & Learn

matthew-burke

Lesley Stahl: I know a psychiatrist who says the most important question she asks somebody is, “When you were growing up, who loved you?” Do you have an answer?

Matthew Burke: That’s very difficult to answer– who loved me– because there’s different types of love.

Lesley Stahl: Uncondition. I mean–

Matthew Burke: Yeah, unconditional–

Lesley Stahl: That’s what I mean.

Matthew Burke: I’ve never– I’ve never experienced that.

Lesley Stahl: So you– you have no answer for that question.

Matthew Burke: I have no answer. To this day I have no answer to that.

~ Lesley Stahl, Alive and Kickin’, 60 Minutes

If you missed last night’s episode of 60 Minutes, you can find it here at CBS: Alive and Kickin’.  There are many great human interest stories in this segment but I was particularly moved by Matthew Burke’s story (which comes on at 11 min 45 sec of this video).  He was abandoned two and half weeks after birth in a hallway.  Mother and Father unknown.

36 thoughts on “And your answer is?”

  1. I was loved unconditionally…since then till now..no one has ever put a condition on the love they showered on me..I never think..that “love” can be on conditions ..it would be then stating..a bird can fly but within a cage…but that is not a flight..it is the flapping of wings..don’t call it love…don’t make it caged..don’t let it bounce..don’t make mistake.

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  2. I wished to say for this question, “my mother”… I don’t know but as always hit me so deeply… of course I was loved unconditionally when I was growing up… He was my Dad… When he died, I didn’t accept that he had gone…… It took years to come back to the real world…

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  3. To be loved in the manner in which one needs to be loved – one of the things I have thought about a lot – was part of the the impetus for my doctoral thesis. Perhaps it’s good I never had to defend it.

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      1. No – had to stop at the defense of my dissertation and a year’s unpaid residency (ex and I split at the time, boys were not yet 2 & 4 respectively and I really didn’t think that trying to feed them on an unpaid residency would be very healthy for them. 🙂 ) Not a bad thing – I used what I learned throughout my career and it served me so well.

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  6. I have thinking a lot about this concept lately. Whether I have been/am loved unconditionally or whether I am loved only if I hold certain beliefs or behave in certain ways. Ultimately, I think it boils down to myself and whether I love myself unconditionally, especially in the face of self-perceived slights from other people. Isn’t it the ego that calls this into question?

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    1. Carolann, I read your comment yesterday and have been thinking about it. I happen to agree with your logic (and think that I land in the same place) yet I wonder if this view is a shelter from one who hasn’t experienced unconditional love as a child?

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  11. Loved unconditionally. Now that’s a question. I was raised with a whole heap of expectations heaped upon me that seemed like conditions, as every time I failed to meet those expectations the disapproval that ensued seemed like a withdrawal of love, but maybe the love was still there underneath, just not the liking.

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  13. I saw this interview and thought the fellow was very brave to be so honest. My next thought was how very lucky I was to have had that kind of love from all of my family. I’m so sorry for people like him who don’t have at least one person’s unconditional love in their childhood years.

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  15. Hmmm…not sure about this one…although I know that I have “loved” unconditionally…my three kids, you know. I’m really not sure I have ever really been the recipient of such love…except for maybe from my dog. 🙂 It’s really more important to me that I am able to give that kind of love…that is enough for me.

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  16. My parents for a host of reasons having little to do with me were unable to love me, and often unable to even contemplate my existence. But I can not remember a time when I did not believe the universe loved me. When I was little (by 2 or 3 certainly), I thought it was sunbeams. To this day, when I need to seek comfort I think first of a sunny window seat and being embraced by sun. Yet, I grew up to be a scientist, not a mystic, and I grew up able to unconditionally love not only individuals, but also human kind.

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