Love is an evolutionary adaptation. People who don’t love don’t reproduce, or if they do, their offspring have a vastly reducted probability of survival. Millions of years of evolution have favoured species who copulate, protect the gestating females and protect offspring until they are old enough to look after themselves. Evolving man didn’t figure this out for himself. It was trial and error until a species evolved that registered pleasure when it did what was necessary to perpetual and protect the species. We call that pleasure, love.  

It is an easy step for love of group, protection of other group members and their offspring to become an evolutionary advantage in group selection. 

There is always an element of self interest in love.

I am fortunate to have two strong, successful, happy adult daughters. While it may be a bit soon to consider your job as a parent 'done' with a 14- and 17-year-old,  I congratulate you on your success so far.

Here are my thoughts on what makes good parents:

I believe a good parent never sees their child as an extension of themselves or their possession. Good parents understand each child's unique strengths and weaknesses, then supply just what is needed to make them stronger. They offer guidance, but let their children be responsible for their own work so they may enjoy their own accomplishments.

A friend once told me, "The child is the river and the parents are the river bank. We can guide them gently in the right direction. However, too much control and the river flows out of control and beyond its banks."

Even when they were very young, I found ways to give my children responsibility and encouraged them to make decisions for themselves. That's not to say they had no boundaries. They had many, including curfews. They could choose to follow the house rules or not. But my expectations and the resulting consequences for breaking the rules were always very clear. (You choose the behavior; you choose the consequences.)

Roakes, I'm not sure what today's child might say makes a good parent. But recently, my 25-year-old sales dynamo thanked me for setting limits and for holding her to high expectations. My youngest graduates with honors this week from a top-tier university and has her pick from a number of outstanding job offers. She credits my husband and me with helping her become a strong, ambitious, independent woman. (Remembering her as a head-strong toddler, I'm not sure we deserve the credit.)

I always felt being a parent was an enormous responsibility. There were times, especially in the teen years, when I looked forward to an empty nest. I am very pleased we are now friends and feel blessed to have these two exceptional young women in my life. Now comes the hardest challenge of all - not being the 'mom'. 

I am a parent of a 17 and a 14 year old, and I am trying to figure out what went right.

• They do their homework without being asked and are successful at school.

• They are capable of conducting conversations in words constructed of more than one syllable.

• They never seem to have the mobile phones turned on.

• They like the grunge and punk music.

• My son doesn’t gag when I ask him to play golf with me.

• They have both read Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris and pronounced themselves atheist, without any parental encouragement. (My son appears to have started an eighth grade Atheists Club.)

• They are into science.

• They worry about the planet.

The only conscious effort I have made to direct their thinking has been make sure they had lots to read, to tell them what I think, and to entertain them with stories of the stupid things I did when I was their age.

Maybe I have just been lucky. I hear too many horror stories from my peers to think this is normal. Can readers contribute their philosophies, thoughts and ‘war stories’ on this subject. I am particularly keen to hear the other side – what the kids think.

Richard Oakes

Wow! and thank you for taking the subject beyond the constraints humans impose upon their selves.

Let's leave it at, I agree with you in totality.

Whitman Moore

Connecting-to-the-Value-of-Why 2005-2008 ©

Love continually pushes me to succeed. It makes me want to take the hard road, tackle the most difficult task. It drives me to be more than I could ever be on my own. That’s the thing about love, it pushes and sucks one out into the glaring world, like a child at birth. Without love, it is so easy to cave in and turn away from the dazzle of life.

A woman writes that she enjoys reading this newspaper but she can’t find the words to explain why. I want to tell her that it is because the pages are bathed in love. That sometimes I think the love I have in my life overflows and touches everything that I do. But that sounds completely corny and a bit smug. Is it? My husband just has to smile a certain way and I’m filled with this belief that I can do anything. It’s as if I’m charged up, engines roaring and ready to take off, ready to soar. And then I do.

I know so many who are driven to succeed, and so focused on becoming wealthy that they actually end up limiting their personal growth. There is something that connects learning and growing to one’s ability to love deeply, feel more, and appreciate beauty more vividly.

Love has a way of making me feel like I have a huge debt to pay back to the world. I want to help more people now than is possible. I want to be good and do good things; perhaps I’m just superstitious, but I feel like the good I do will somehow keep this love I have safe from harm.

Love is like a cloak that protects me from insults or cutting remarks: Although I am told they are said about me, I never seem to notice them anymore. Love has given me the courage to act on my impulses, to trust myself, and to inspire others.

My youngest son is awake and my husband brings him down from his crib. They cuddle in the chair across from me. My husband brushes his chin over our son’s soft blond head, our eyes meet and once again I see that smile that makes me feel like I’m on top of the world.

Sarah Thomson is the publisher of Women's Post

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