ABSTRACT
There are many reasons why a couple, especially a loving couple, the focus of this chapter, decides to have a child. From a psychoanalytic point of view, sometimes partners have a child mainly for unhealthy narcissistic reasons. The wish to have a child can offer the possibility for a parent to have a corrective emotional experience. The "ontological category", along with "paternity", "the way of being other while being oneself", are conceptualizations that put into sharp focus the ethical basis of the parent–child relationship. Parent–child love, as well as adult love relations, is based on a fundamental obligation to make ourselves fully available, with boundless compassion, to the neediness, the suffering, of the beloved child and or significant Other. Forgiveness also encourages children to take responsibility for their wrongdoing, which makes it easier for the offended parent to reduce his hurt and begin the healing process.
