In the book, God's Little Devotional Book for Graduates, the author has an interesting passage on mother giraffes that might help us. The first thing to emerge at a baby giraffe's birth, says the author, is its front hooves and head. "Minutes later, the newborn is hurled from its mother's body, falls ten feet, and lands on its back. Within seconds, it rolls to an upright position with its legs tucked under its body. From this position, it views the world for the first time and shakes off any remaining birthing fluid.

"The mother giraffe lowers her head just long enough to take a quick look at her calf and then she does what seems to be a very unreasonable thing: she kicks her baby, sending it sprawling head over heels. If it doesn't get up, she kicks it again and again until the calf finally stands on its wobbly legs. And then what does the mother giraffe do? She kicks it off its feet! Why? She wants it to remember how it got up.

"In the wild, baby giraffes must be able to get up as quickly as possible to stay with the herd and avoid becoming a meal for lions, hyenas, leopards, and wild hunting dogs. The best way a mother giraffe has of ensuring that her calf lives is for her to teach it to ‘get up quickly and get with it.'"

It makes me glad I'm not a giraffe. But the author's point is, of course, that the mother giraffe is engaged in tough love. There are certain demands that every parent must make for the welfare of his or her child. There are certain rules that must be enforced. No loving parent is going to accord a child absolute freedom. Such freedom could be deadly. Every loving parent has to say "No" from time to time. It's not easy. Sometimes it really does hurt the parent more than it does the child. But love sometimes says, "No."