Ceredo advance. [volume] (Ceredo, W. Va.) 1885-1939, 1910-12-14
NATURAL LOVE DOES NOT EXIST

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We hear a good deal about the love
and duty children owe rhsir parenta
and good deal also Of their recip-
rocal love and duty parents owe child
rem. but much less about what seems
quite as important a consideration the
mutual obligation of both to deserve
what they expect In the way Of love
| and duty.
In real life. we sometimes hear OF
instances where a parents conduct has
killed a. child's affection. Sometimes
| 1t II fathers cruelty or neglect of q
beloved mother. sometimes it = q
mans vices that ALLEVIATE his children:
sometimes the revolt of an honest and
| upright father. or one proud of an un.
suilied name and indignant at its dis
grace leads him to cast of the un-
worthy child
We blame the individual who thus
regulates the family tie-that blood
link that Is supposed to be so strong
In us, and which is, after ALL a pro-
duct of civilization rather than a bond
or nature. The family group was
FORMED, at first, for mutual protection
against common foes; later, an ethic
| significance became attached to the
relationship. Did Nero have any com
! FUNCTIONS OF conscience for having
| procured the assassination of his
mother. or the Borgias and Medic for
the wholesale murder of brothers and
sisters?
Separate child from a parent--a
mother, If you choose-before its ex
periences are sufficiently fixed to be-
come memories. and reunite them
when the child is 20 or thereabouts.
keeping both in ignorance of any re
iationship. Will there be any in
stinctive feeling making them aware
Of their kinship? Not bit of it, The
mysterious tie" out OF which novel
lists create some pretty sentimental,
situations, doesn't exist until it has
been formed by association. aided BY
sentiment. 1t is Il growth. develop.
ment and in its essence and apart
from sentimentality it depends as d,
all our worthy affections, upon tina
worthiness OF the object that asks our
love-
Ihe purport of all this is that II
parents want their children to love
ard honor them-though they some
times don't care so much about this
"heh they are strong and healthy as
'hey do when they're old and poor
hey must take care to lay the found
atoms OF affection themselves. and not
ely upon the relationship alone
| Nothing is more disgusting than a
'niteling old Silenus, past enjoyment
| Of The vices that have degraded him.
posing as a martyr because his child
ren have no love for him and provide
Tor him with reluctance, or as some
times happens, repudiate Kim entirely.
We have tact sympathy for the son
or daughter who denies the tie the
parent never took the trouble to form,
at the same time that long establish
ed habit of thought makes us accuse
them OF lacking what we call "natu-
raP' affection-said natural affection
being, as we have seen, non-existent
save as fostered
Children are presumed TO be CRATE
full to their parents for their care and
support during their helpless years.
But may not the child justly say to
mis- parents: Il did not ask to come,
I you brought the responsibility upon
yourselves. The debt is from you to
lie" True, certain reciprocal obli-
cation does exist, framed on gratitude
for benefits conferred but lar more
largely upon the worth of the parents,
the manner in which they have dis
charged the parental response bility,
the love they have won through de-
serving it,