I love how This American Life forces me to think and ponder humans and life all before 9 AM. This morning: Unconditional Love. Apparently, pre-1950s, Love wasn’t even a part of psychology textbooks. Love was not considered an integral part of a parent / child relationship. In fact, parents were warned to not kiss their children more than once a year, lest the children become ‘overkissed,’ which I figure means too needy / fragile / sensitive. Then Harry Harlow came along with his monkey experiment which proved a baby’s need for its mother’s comfort and warmth. Sixty years later, after sixty years of our mothers loving and kissing and complimenting and cuddling and coddling and hugging us aggressively, opening, warmly, I’d say that people are more open to their feelings, more comfortable expressing themselves and expressing love; but also, crazier, driven to therapy, to broken relationships, to bad poetry. Basically, we have like 7,000 more feelings. I say this with the authority of a person who was not alive in 1950, and has never taken a Psychology Class, and who just yesterday learned how to put air in her tires. I of course had to call my Daddy about it, who talked me through it, after assuring me that I am the most incredible person who has ever lived throughout all of time.