"Treat your wife well," the minister said, "and everything else will fall into place."

During the hour of counseling my husband and I had to undergo before getting married, my minister uttered words I would not understand as among life's great truths until years later.

"The best thing a man can do for his children," he said, "is to love their mother."

With the big Love weekend preceding Valentine's Day behind us, I was reminded of the words the Rev. William H. Bishop spoke to me, and the fact that true love between a man and a woman should be celebrated all the time, not just once a year over flowers and chocolate. When you think about it, there is too much at stake not to understand that this single union, perhaps more than any other, defines the happiness and well being of not just the partners in it, but of their children, community and society as a whole.

"The best thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother."

I know now this is certainly true, although it is difficult to see it play out these days when so many women allow men who do not love them to father their children. But where there is real love in the beginning, its blossoming nurtures everyone touched by it. Its steadfastness strengthens those whose lives are defined by it.

Its erosion, on the other hand, can have devastating impact, especially for children, whether theirs is a public display of pain (known as acting out) or more private, personal suffering.

Divorce and its potential devastation on children are part of the national landscape. But here I'm not discussing the devastation when the actual relationship ends, but the damage done when love turns ugly. What woman, for example, can fully nurture and dote on her little ones when she's preoccupied with her man's whereabouts? Will she remember to ask about school if she's sad and depressed wondering where he's hanging his hat? Will she miss the fact that her son is out late and her daughter's grades have slipped?

How can a woman be the best she can be if she's disrespected by the one who should hold her above all others? Can she hold on to the sense of self-worth and confidence she'll need to take on her boss, an unfair landlord or a neighborhood thug?

A man who does the mother of his children wrong, who scolds, degrades or insults her, leaves his children to be raised by a woman who is less than she could be. And what she loses as a woman, her children lose in her ability to mother.

"Treat your wife well," Rev. Bishop chided my husband-to-be "and everything else will fall into place."

What Rev. Bishop was talking about works both ways, of course. A woman who disrespects the father of her children, degrades and belittles him, wrongs the children who need to admire and look up to him. They need his strength, direction and guidance even if she does not.

Children need to see both parents treating each other with love, dignity and respect. This is how they learn what to expect-and what to reject-in their own love affairs.

A young girl whom my husband and I had known for years, for example, knew we lived together and by then had one child. Yet she was puzzled and a little stunned to hear we were celebrating a wedding anniversary. "You're married?" the 12-year-old asked. She said, "I thought only old people were married." The product of teen-age passion herself, she talked of marriage with mocking disrespect. Maybe not surprisingly, she became a teenaged mother and struggled on her own.

Many of the problems plaguing children of all colors are directly linked to whether their parents love each other-and how well. I saw this clearly through a simple exercise I did while trying to breakdown the problems facing children today (in my continuing search for solutions). On a yellow legal pad, I listed a chronology of ills: poor prenatal care, preventable disease and birth defects, neglect and abuse, poverty, low-quality daycare and poor schooling. The list continued with youthful aggression and violence, crime, teenage depression, promiscuity and parenthood, and an unpreparedness to thrive independently in the world.

I was exhausted by the litany of problems until the simplicity of their origin became clear: They all begin with a man and a woman. The emotional and, yes, financial strength of the partners determines what kind of lives their children will have. Where the partners and the relationship are weak, society too often hears about it in one of the ways on my list. Where the relationship is strong and enduring, children have the best chance of growing happily and well.

I can hear the successful single mothers now. They'd note that the lack of a loving mate does not necessarily lead to female misery. And they might point out that legions of mothers do well, along with their progeny, without the sperm donor. And vice-versa.

They're right on both points. But it's wrong to believe that being loved and cherished and supported in the lifetime job of child rearing is not an ideal; not something to hold out for. Something "old folks" do? I wonder who today could not give more to their children with the full-time help and support of a second loving parent.

If you're a young couple just starting out, or single and planning to hook up with someone one day, think about what my preacher said. Think about it also if you're an established couple going through the hard times that are a part of life. Think about it this week, as you throw out the withered flowers and left-over chocolate.

Leah Y. Latimer is a mother and author.

B.E.T

The best security blanket a child can have is parents who love each other.
[Jan Blaustone]

John 5 : 39

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"Marriage is not a love affair. A love affair is a totally different thing. A marriage is a commitment to that which you are. That person is literally your other half. And you and the other are one. A love affair isn't that. That is a relationship of pleasure, and when it gets to be unpleasurable, it's off. But a marriage is a life commitment, and a life commitment means the prime concern of your life. If marriage is not the prime concern, you are not married." [Joseph Campbell] link: the abyss

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