890. Is maternal affection a virtue, or is it an instinctive feeling common to men and to animals?

"It is both. Nature has endowed the mother with the love of her offspring in order to ensure their preservation. Among the animals, maternal affection is limited to the supply of their material needs; it ceases when this care is no longer needed. In the human race, it lasts throughout life, and assumes a character of unselfish devotion that raises it to the rank of a virtue; it even survives death, and follows the career of the child from beyond the grave. You see, therefore, that there is in this affection, as it exists in man, something more than as it exists among the animals." (205-385.)

891. Since maternal affection is a natural sentiment, why is it that mothers often hate their children, and even, in some cases, before their birth?

"The absence of maternal affection is sometimes a trial chosen by the spirit of the child, or an expiation for him if he have been a bad father, a bad mother, or a bad son, in some previous existence. In all cases, a bad mother can only be the incarnation of a bad spirit, who seeks to throw obstacles in the path of the child, in order to make him succumb in the trial he has chosen. But such a violation of the laws of nature will not remain unpunished, and the spirit of the child will be rewarded for surmounting the obstacles thus thrown in his way."

892. When parents have children who cause them sorrow, are they not excusable for not feeling for them the same tenderness they would have felt had their conduct been different?

"No; for the training of their children is a task that has been confided to them, and their mission is to make every possible effort to bring them back into the right road. (582, 583). Besides, the sorrows of parents are often the consequence of the bad habits they have allowed their children to contract from the cradle; a reaping of the evil harvest of which they themselves have sown the seeds."