Although children are the result of their parents making love to each other, it is a terribly tragic fact that all too often the parents don't love each other, or their children, enough.

After we get married, and have children, how can we ensure that our children will grow up to become men and women of unselfish and parental love? Isn't it true that in order to understand unselfish love to the point of being able to give it to others, a person must receive adequate parental love first? How can someone give to others what they have never experienced?

From this point of view, our responsibility as future parents is grave indeed. When a young man and young woman fall in love, they cannot ignore the topic of children. The ultimate, original result of the love of a husband and wife is a child. How then will their love influence the life of the child to be?

Let's assume that the husband and wife have decided to have a child, and the wife is not yet pregnant. What kind of child will be born from the couple? Just as it is obvious that certain trees produce a certain quality of fruit, doesn't it make sense that a child will reflect the heart, love, spirit and character of the father and mother?

It is not only the training of the child during his childhood years that will influence the child, but the very nature or character of the parents at the moment of conception that will be embedded in the core of the child's character. The internal inheritance of character and heart is similar to the external inheritance of certain physical features that the child will bear.

The concept of "education in the womb" illustrates the sensitivity of a child to the atmosphere of harmony and love that is present in the home, and between husband and wife, even before the child is born. (In Asia, doctors recommend that mothers who are pregnant listen to beautiful music so that the child in their womb can develop in the right way.)

It becomes the burden (although it is also a labor of love) of the new couple to make a sincere effort to grow in their ability to love parentally, even before their child is conceived. This is an additional reason that young men and women should wait to have sex until they are married and have matured adequately. If a very young, very immature girl has a baby, how will she love her child when she is still a child herself?

Building a marriage of true love with our future spouse, and raising children with parental love requires that we, as future fathers or mothers, prepare ourselves and train ourselves to become men and women of unselfish love.

Unfortunately, becoming a person of true love is usually not something that is taught in school. Young people often find themselves married, with a child on the way, before they have had a chance to gain a clear concept of marriage and parenting.

Marriages often fail miserably because the husband and wife don't know how to care for each other and therefore don't take the necessary steps to deepen their relationship of love. After thirty years, they look at each other and realize that they no longer like (or love) each other. The tragedy is that the distance between them was not what they started with, and could have been completely avoided.

After the couple gets married, parenting is far more than learning how to change diapers, feed the baby, and provide a comfortable living environment for the child. A child will grow up, perhaps physically well taken care of, and still wonder, "Do my father and mother love me?"

One of the beautiful aspects of unselfish love is that it cuts across all areas of our lives. Just as unselfish love is so essential to a successful marriage, and a wholesome sexual relationship, unselfish love is the primary qualification to be a parent. It makes life simple, in a way -- for we can focus our hearts and minds on a very beautiful, simple, and yet strong credo to love others unselfishly.

Yet, our task is not easy, is it? As teenagers, we may still be struggling to understand ourselves, and life in general, and still be wondering if we'll ever find our own true love. In the midst of all that, without much guidance, we must train ourselves to create beautiful marriages and to become good parents.

One might think that it's all vastly unfair, or entirely too quick for us to grasp everything in time to care for our future spouse and children adequately. In a way, our situation as we grow up throughout our teens is really too difficult. Part of the problem is that human history has been a history of people having children before they were ready and able to love them properly, so that those children couldn't receive adequate love or training. Each generation of children has been caught in the vicious circle of being unready and ill-prepared to have children.

Today's young people are in a special situation. Although the pressures of life might seem greater than ever, with the world becoming smaller every day, and the pace of life getting faster and faster, the opportunities to grow in new ways are unprecedented in human history.

Because the world is within each person's reach, and because cultures and other forms of knowledge are being shared throughout the world, young people have the chance to develop their hearts of compassion and true love in a deeper and more profound way than earlier generations. Young people have a chance today to establish new standards of true love and heart, no matter what field of endeavor, or career, they commit themselves to.

By vigorously striving to become a person of true love, we will be able to care for our future husband or wife and our children, as well as our friends, our families and our associates. It's really important to ask ourselves what kind of person we want to become. Besides deciding on our career goal or external life's ambition, we need to clarify our internal goal as a person. Two people can grow up and become successful, and one will be selfish and corrupt, and the other will be generous, humble, serving and loving toward others. Which do we want to become?

Isn't it an admirable goal to say, "I want to become a person who can give and serve and love, on a daily basis?" Yet, how many of your friends have that goal, think like that, or ever talk about living that way? If we don't lock on to that target, becoming a person of true love will be a long shot at best. It's just too easy to be selfish.

Mother Teresa once said, "Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile."

What a beautiful goal! Becoming such a person of kindness and true love is a gradual process that requires a lot of thought and reflection. It requires digging into ourselves with humility, to find both the good and bad parts of our characters. When we find a bad spot in our hearts or minds, we can act as our own "heartistic" doctors, and cut out the bad spots with the invisible scalpel of true love.

Having a realistic view of ourselves will give us the strength to be humble, and to apologize to others when we hurt them. All too often, saying sorry is an ability that is woefully absent from our lives as we grow up. The courage to repent to others will allow us to look our future spouse in the eye and take responsibility for the quality of our love.

The quality of our love is the central factor in determining the success of our marriages. It's not really our future spouse that will be the problem. Oh, it's true that our spouse will have his or her own responsibility to be a person of true love. Our ability to give love is what we must focus on. Which, as we discussed, is one of the reasons why abstinence is the true love thing to do. Saving ourselves until marriage gives us a chance to grow in our quality of love for others, so that when we do get married, we'll be more prepared to give our spouse true love, through thick and thin.

Then, as future parents, with a clear vision of the beauty and value of unselfish love, we will continue to develop in a good way. We'll be able to love our children, and teach our children to grow properly and become wonderful children of true love in their own right.

We will have become a person of true love, with a husband or wife of true love, and children of true love, forming a beautiful family of true love. What could be more inspiring?

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