Natural Affection for Children

In centuries past most little girls enjoyed playing with dolls and looked forward to growing up to have “real live ones” of their own. Motherhood was natural. Women were viewed as having a certain “maternal instinct.” A book recently published in France, however, attacks this view, claiming it is simply a myth invented by men to ensure female subjugation.

Apparently many women today agree. Other interests easily override any affection they might have for children​—both before and after birth. And although these women may get quite upset when they see people mistreating children, yet they find it not at all upsetting that in many countries abortions are permitted almost on demand. But is abortion not child abuse at its very worst?

Our 20th century has seen such a decrease in natural affection for children that a Swiss newspaper, Weltwoche-Report, recently stated: “What 79 years ago Ellen Keya proclaimed would be the century of the child may well end up being the century of the abused child. An appalling increase in physical abuse of children is to be observed worldwide . . . Besides physical there is also mental abuse, which can be no less cruel.”

The harm such child abuse causes, be it physical or mental, may later come back to haunt the parents who inflict it. Imagine how a father, little inclined to show his children any natural affection, must have felt when his college-bound son told him “that if he had to live his life over again, he would like to try it as a Teddy bear​—so he could be hugged.”