A child has to be prepared for both softness and hardness

The child needs both,because this is how life is: if a child only gets love he will suffer; if he only gets hardness, then he will suffer.

He needs both. That’s the function of the mother and the father:

The mother should go on giving love so the child knows that love is possible and the father remains hard so the child knows life is not so easy.

It is how life is!

There are thorns and there are roses and the child has to be prepared for both.

The world is not going to be a mother; the world is going to be a hard struggle.

So if you just go on giving him love he will not have any bone.

When life is there in reality he will simply collapse, because he will wait for the mother and [she] is not there; life does not bother about him.

Then he will be grateful to [his
father] because life will put him out the door many times, will shout at him, and then he will know that he can tackle that too; he has been prepared for that too.

A child has to be prepared for both softness and hardness, yin and yang both, and that’s the function of the father and mother.

The feminine and the masculine both have to be given so the child is ready:
whatsoever the situation he will be able to respond.

If life is hard, he can be hard too; if life is loving, he can be loving too; he will not have any fixation.

OshO 
CHAPTER 15.
The Zero Experience