“Young Love Ain’t Got Sh*t”: Singer-Songwriter Andy Grammer on Love After Kids

Love letters are wasted on youth. No matter what artistry and passion go into the prose you once laid out for your lover, the letters lack, well, life experience. When you devote yourself to someone, partner with them, and have a child together, then you have something to write about. Before, you were stumbling in passion. Now, you’ve truly found love. In Found Love, we celebrate the unique love partners feel for the mother of their children.

We live in a culture where youth is seen as the peak of life. Youth is so obviously the thing that we are supposed to desperately cling to, and by that assumption it would clearly follow that young love is the pinnacle of romance. I could not disagree more. In my experience with you my dear, young love ain’t got shit on older love.This is not to say that young love wasn’t good to us. We had an apartment in the middle of West Hollywood and ate wildly overpriced eggs on weekends. We traveled to far-off places, had ruckus game nights with friends, and forced sweaters onto our French bulldog. I loved you deeply. I loved your wit, your sass, and how you lit up a room with your smile. I loved our chemistry, I loved that we were both songwriters and could have in-depth conversations about hooks and bridges. I loved the common desire to be of service to others and our spiritual pursuits. I loved you the most that I possibly could within the limitations of young love. I am not attacking young love. It’s sexy, exciting, and intoxicating. But it’s also limiting. I now have a great reverence and honor for the beauty of older love.We are coming up on our nine-year anniversary. This year I watched you give birth to our second daughter in our living room. It was the single most powerful thing I’ve ever seen another human being do. I watched you nurse our babies and handle motherhood with grace. I watched you get on a Zoom call every Saturday without fail to discuss empowering women, and near the end shout for our three year-old-daughter to come in and be a part of it first hand. I’ve watched her watch you.

With a newborn, we have laughed, screamed, and cried together between the hours of 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. We have packed lunches with little love notes in them and tag-teamed time outs through toddler tantrums. We each have helped the other through depression. We have each been helped by the other through depression. We have gone to marriage therapy and became truly vulnerable. We have given each other incredible gifts, we have given each other terrible gifts. We have lifted each other up, we have let each other down. We have farted in each other’s presence.

And this older love? It is so much more than young love. The beginning of most relationships is a little bit like an Instagram feed. We were still sharing the best parts of ourselves with filters. I don’t think we were even consciously hiding things, it was just that we hadn’t even reached the stage where we are able to be honest with ourselves. The beauty of coming up on nine years is that so many of the filters are gone. All that’s left are the raw, beautiful, unique, awful, wonderful, honest versions of us. Love shared between two people in this context hits the soul in a different way. There is a depth to it that is undeniably more fulfilling. Young love says “I love everything I know about you.” Older love says, “I know everything about you and here I am, still loving you.” While the second one might not sound as sexy, for anyone who has truly felt it, there is no contest.

Andy Grammer is a multi-platinum musician and songwriter best known for the songs “Honey I’m Good,” “Back Home”, and “Fresh Eyes.” He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, singer, songwriter, and actress Aijia Grammer, and their daughter, Louisiana.