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In
the nearly 30 years that I’ve drawn the syndicated cartoon
“The Family Circus,” I’ve learned a
lot about love. I’ve found it in my own family, and frequently
what I’ve observed has provided the basis for a cartoon
with Billy, Dolly, Jeffy or PJ. But I make no secret about
it—when it comes to love, my greatest inspiration, and
the model for “Mommy,” has been my own wife, Thel.
We have five children (and now
four grandchildren), and when they were younger, people often
wondered how Thel managed with so many. I often wondered too.
Whether she was soothing the hurt of a scraped knee, sitting
in the audience at a school play, or helping with homework
at the kitchen table, Thel was always there for us. And the
more she did for us, the more she seemed to have to give us.
That was how I came upon one
of God’s paradoxical laws of love. Real love doesn’t
come in limited, finite amounts. It can’t be used up
so there is no more. Instead, in a manner that defies physics,
the more love you give, the more you’re able to give.
Like enthusiasm that fosters enthusiasm, kindness that inspires
kindness, cheerfulness that inevitably spreads, love increases
when it’s given away.
I tried to put all that in one
of my cartoons. There is Mommy, a full bag of groceries in
one hand, her purse in the other, and Billy, Dolly, Jeffy
and PJ tugging at her knees. The woman at the left asks the
question, “How do you divide your love among four children?”
And Mommy’s answer, real words to grow on:
“I don’t divide it.
I multiply it.”
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