Infantile love follows the principle: "I lovebecause I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I amloved because I love."Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you." - P38
The relationship to father is quite different. Mother is thehome we come from, she is nature, soil, the ocean; father doesnot represent any such natural home. He has little connectionwith the child in the first years of its life, and his importancefor the child in this early period cannot be compared with thatof mother. But while father does not represent the naturalworld, he represents the other pole of human existence; theworld of thought, of man-made things, of law and order, ofdiscipline, of travel and adventure. Father is the one whoteaches the child, who shows him the road into the world. - P39
Fatherly love is conditional love. Its principleis "I love you because you fulfill my expectations, because youdo your duty, because you are like me." In conditional fatherlylove we find, as with unconditional motherly love, a negativeand a positive aspect. - P40
Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it isan attitude, an orientation of character which determines therelatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not towardone "object" of love. - P43
tion. Honey symbolizes the sweetness of life, the love for itand the happiness in being alive. Most mothers are capable ofgiving "milk," but only a minority of giving "honey" too. Inorder to be able to give honey, a mother must not only be a
"good mother," but a happy person and this aim is notachieved by many. - P46
Only the really loving woman, the woman who is hap-pier in giving than in taking, who is firmly rooted in her ownexistence, can be a loving mother when the child is in theprocess of separation. - P48
|