Extraordinary Discourse 130
Mothers and Fathers Mom! Dad! Can you hear me? Mother and Father stories At its very best the family can be what many people say it is: an island of acceptance and love in the midst of a harsh world. But too often within the family, people take out on each other all the pain and frustrations of their lives that they don’t dare take out on anyone else. Instead of a ready-made source of friends, it is too often a ready-made source of victims and enemies--the place where not the kindest, but the cruellest words are spoken. This may disappoint us, but it should not surprise or horrify us. The family was not invented, or has it evolved, to make children happy, or to provide a secure emotional and psychological background to grow up in. Mankind evolved the family to meet a very basic need, in small and precarious societies: to make sure that as many children as possible were born--and once born, physically taken care of until they could take care of themselves. “Be fruitful and m...