During adolescence imagination is boundless. The urge toward self-perfection is at its peak. And with all their self- absorption and personalized dreams of glory, youth are in pursuit of something larger than personal passions, some values or ideals to which they might attach their imaginations.

It is a human circumstance that when we are born we have not yet come into existence. We are lured into our special human existence by a mothering presence that gratifies our innate urges to be suckled, held, rocked, caressed. But that same gratifying presence puts limits on desire and rations satisfaction. In this sense the mother is also the first lawgiver.

Adolescents are the bearers of cultural renewal, those cycles of generation and regeneration that link our limited individual destinies with the destiny of the species.

Children, even infants, are capable of sympathy. But only after adolescence are we capable of compassion.

Hopefulness is the heartbeat of the relationship between a parent and child. Each time a child overcomes the next challenge of hislife, his triumph encourages new growth in his parents. In this sense a child is parent to his mother and father.

Fathers represent another way of looking at life - the possibility of an alternative dialogue.

It is not speech or tool making that distinguishes us from other animals, it is imagination....Of what use are speech sounds and tools without an inspiration toward perfectibility, without a sense that we can create or construct a history.