Jonathanks

Of course there is a proper way to love - to put the interest and development of the loved person in perspective always. That becomes complex as you learn to love every other person in whose life you're invested, and to love humanity in general. The complexity increases as you factor yourself into the whole picture by loving yourself. However, the 'activity of loving' does not occur in those distinct parts sequentially but simultaneously: they all form the activity. Love is not so much an emotion as it is a decision, an activity. It is work in itself, not a feeling. Really, love starts when the feeling diminishes in the face of reality.

Good luck with your family. I'm glad everything seems to be on track.

I understand your point. It's a dynamic, lifelong occupation that demands your whole and its demands change with its stages. However, I was not really over-generalizing. I wrote "Most parents..."

So far, you have gone deeper than what I wrote to correctly guess what I intended. Thanks. I may reword my post to be more context specific. Or, maybe, I'll make a new article explaining my stance in the context I intend.

That should be "don't enforce on your children any values". I mean to criticize virulently demanding that one's children follow a predetermined set of values because their parents hold them to be true, especially when those values are mostly cultural assumptions.

The article reminds me of this:

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bow from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrow may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable." * - "The Prophet" (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951) p.17-18.

Most parents that enforce their own ideals and values on their children are narcissistic. They either do not love their children or have so poor an understanding of love itself that they cannot love properly.

I've never known him. I'm not from that side of earth and I never knew about Grooveshark. But I feel I've lost him; we've lost him. With teary eyes, my good wishes go to all who share this loss in substance or in spirit. Rest in peace Josh.