A Loving Mother Teaches Her Child To Walk Alone

"The loving mother teaches her child to walk alone. She is far enough from him that she cannot actually support him, but she holds out her arms to him. She imitates his movements and, if he totters, she swiftly bends as if to seize him, so that the child might believe that he is not walking alone...And yet, she does more. Her face beckons like a reward, an encouragement. Thus, the child walks alone with his eyes fixed on his mother's face, not on the difficulties in his way. He supports himself by the arms that do not hold him and constantly strives towards the refuge in his mother's embrace, little suspecting that in the very same moment that he is emphasizing his need for her, he is proving that he can do without her, because he is walking alone." 

-Soren Kierkegaard