Love is meant to be amiable and no-nonsense. For example, love doesn't mean giving your child everything he wants, and, yet, at the same time, love is not stern. Love gives all it has to give. Give your child all the love you have to give, and that is a lot. Acknowledge your child's innate goodness and beauty a hundred times for every time you correct him. And hold him on your lap while you correct him.

There is no necessity for your being angry with your child any more than there is necessity to indulge your child's every whim. Whatever you do or say with your child, do it with love. You can over-indulge to your detriment and your child's, yet you cannot love your child too much.

If you over-indulge your child, though I realize that what over-indulging is is open to argument, yet if your child is not pleasant to be with, then, in all likelihood, you have been spoiling your child, spoiling him from growing up, spoiling him for life in the world, separating him from appreciation etc. As a parent, if you have been over-indulging your child, you have been over-indulging yourself. There may be issues you don't want to face, and you take the lazy man's way out.

You want to be nice. You want to be loving. You were not reared with enough love evident, and so you are going to be different, and so you may go too far. Your intentions are good, and yet you may be taking the road of least resistance.

There is something, when you are raising your children, you are also the child you are raising. If you could have been your own mother or father - if, somehow, you could have parented the baby and child you were, you would be so good to yourself. You would know how. And, yet, as you raise your child who is really yourself anyway, as it is, you find you are not so expert a parent as you thought you would be and would like to be.

And when you are not the parent you wanted to be, then pat yourself on the back for trying. Forgive yourself. Your child will forgive you a hundred times over.

And so must you treat your children with elegance. You can be firm and nice. You can smile.

In this world where We look to tear down boundaries, I am also suggesting that you put up a few. Loving does not mean you give away your brain. Loving does not mean that anything goes.

Now I am talking about all relationships. You are sovereign over yourself. Once you become independent of your parents, no one else is sovereign over you. You give, and you give a lot, yet you do not give yourself away as if you have to give everything in order to be loved. You want to be loved, you want to be adored, you want to be loving, and you want to be giving, and so there is give and take, where all those involved give and take. It is not just that you give, and the other takes, or that the other gives and you take.

At the same time as I say this, it is not for you to count what another gives. You are not keeping score. You are not counting. You are not assigning chores, nor are you assuming all the chores. You are a benefactor to all, and also to yourself. Keep yourself intact.