Love and Your Children’s Future

The American philosopher, Rollo May, wrote several years ago that today we live in the new puritanism. The old puritanism was no sex and a lot of passion and today we live in a time where there is a lot of sex and no passion. I have had reason to think about that whenever I am confronted with young people who explain sex by saying they love each other, but didn’t love each other enough to assume responsibility for what their sexual experiences produce. I also wonder what people mean when they say they love each other and then in their family or marital conflicts say and do things which injure each other. I know they claim to be reacting to the emotions of the moment, but then I thought self control was an undeniable form of love.

I am acquainted with three longitudinal lines of research being conducted in the United States about the consequences of divorce. All three suggest that while in some cases adults benefit from divorce children usually do not and we do not discover that until the children are themselves attempting to create intimate love relationships of their own. At this time when trying to form their own relationships they are fearful, mistrustful, and find great difficulty in believing in the possibility of loving and being loved.

All of this suggests to me that from time to time we ought to reexamine our ideas about love and its significance. In this article I want to take a look at what full and significant love means to your children and to their future success. We live in a time where children are concerned that many who claim to love children also injure them and people injure them who do know how to love them by organizing a form of care that promotes their success.

We seem to appreciate that when children feel and participate in loving experiences they are more likely to have positive self esteem, have healthy childhood emotions, and generally thrive better than when they do not. Having reminded us of that I now need to propose that this outcome only works if there is a form of love that includes some specific ingredients. These include love as attention, predictability, warmth, encouragement, limits, teaching, and companionship.

If we really wanted to promote our children’s future success, however, we would also recognize they benefit from seeing us as their parents communicate love to each other, resolve differences with respect, and work toward agreement about discipline without arguing and bitterness. Or, if we cannot do that, at least do not blame them for our sadness and hurt.

Some adults do not naturally feel love for their children. Some who do have emotional issues that make it difficult to handle the stress and pressure of child care. Others, of us may become too busy to care well. In the final analysis most children can adjust to and live through some problems. Where love is concerned, however, there is clear evidence that children who grow up around love in their families tend to feel more hopeful, do better at creating love relationships themselves, and do better and finding many different forms of success.