Children are the luxury of marital life, the treasure of the parents, the wealth of the family life. Their presence develops a great number of virtues in the parents, the father and mother–love, devotion and self-sacrifice, the care for the future, interest in the community, the art of education. Children check selfishness in parents, reconcile the contrasts, soften the differences, bring the hearts of the parents ever closer to each other, give them a common interest that lives outside themselves, and open their eyes and hearts to their surroundings and posterity. They uphold to the parents, as if in mirrors, their own virtues and defects…Out of the family life there proceeds a reforming power toward the parents…Family life turns the selfish into servants, misers into heroes, coarse men into considerate fathers, and tender mothers into courageous fighters.

– Dr. H. Bavinck