It is very difficult for a woman to be a perfect mother, or a perfect teacher of young children, unless she is sexually satisfied. Whatever psycho-analysts may say, the parental instinct is essentially different from the sex instinct, and is damaged by the intrusion of emotions appropriate to sex. The habit of employing celibate female teachers is quite wrong psychologically. The right woman to deal with children is a woman whose instinct is not seeking from them satisfactions for herself which they ought not to be expected to provide. A woman who is happily married will belong to this type without effort; but any other woman will need an almost impossible subtlety of self-control. Of course, the same thing applies to men in the same circumstances, but the circumstances are far less frequent with men, both because their parental instincts are usually not very strong, and because they are seldom sexually starved. It is as well to be clear in our own thoughts as regards the attitude we are to expect from children to parents. If parents have the right kind of love for their children, the children’s response will be just what the parents desire. The children will be pleased when their parents come, and sorry when they go, unless they are absorbed in some agreeable pursuit; they will look to their parents for help in any trouble, physical or mental, that may arise; they will dare to be adventurous, because they rely upon their parents’ protection in the background--but this feeling will be hardly conscious except in moments of peril. They will expect their parents to answer their questions, resolve their perplexities, and help them in difficult tasks. Most of what their parents do for them will not enter into their consciousness. They will like their parents, not for providing their board and lodging, but for playing with them, showing them how to do new things, and telling them stories about the world. They will gradually realize that their parents love them, but this ought to be accepted as a natural fact. The affection that they feel for their parents will be quite a different kind from that which they feel for other children. The parent must act with reference to the child, but the child must act with reference to himself and the outer world. That is the essential difference. The child has no important function to perform in relation to his parents. His function is to grow in wisdom and stature, and so long as he does so a healthy parental instinct is satisfied.