405. (xvi) The love of small [and older] children is different in the case of spiritual married couples and natural ones. In the case of spiritual married couples the love of children looks much the same as it does in the case of natural couples; but it is more inward and thus more tender, because this love arises from innocence, and from its being more nearly received and so more obviously perceived in themselves, for spiritual people are spiritual to the extent that they are guided by innocence. However, after fathers and mothers have tasted the sweetness of innocence in their children, they love them in quite a different way from natural fathers and mothers. Spiritual parents love their children for their spiritual intelligence and their moral way of life, in other words from their fear of God and piety realised in deeds and life, together with their affection and devotion to purposes of use to the community, that is, their virtues and good behaviour. It is the love of these qualities which chiefly makes them care for and supply necessities. If therefore they do not see these qualities in them, they set their minds against them and only do what they feel obliged to do for them.
[2] In the case of natural fathers and mothers, the love of children is admittedly also derived from innocence, but when it is received by them it becomes wrapped around their own particular love, so that both of these factors make them love children, kissing and embracing them, carrying them and hugging them to their breasts and make a quite excessive fuss of them. They look upon them as a single heart and a single soul with theirs. Then later, as they advance from childhood to adolescence and beyond, when innocence no longer plays any part, their love for them comes not from any fear of God and religious feeling expressed in their way of life, nor from any rational or moral intelligence in them; and they pay little or hardly any attention to their inward affections, and so to their virtues and good behaviour, but only to the outward features which they find attractive. It is to these their love is attached, fixed and clings. This makes them also close their eyes to their faults, making excuses for these and favouring them. The reason is that in their case the love of their offspring is also a love of themselves; and this clings to the outside of the person loved and does not enter into him, just as neither does it into himself.
This page is part of 
© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church