Sir, - The archbishop may have expressed himself somewhat infelicitously, but he never said that the so-called "wanted child" is less loved or less valued. In fact, from my experience as a priest for nearly 40 years, 10 of them as a parish priest, I know that these children are, if anything, more valued and more loved in many ways than children who just arrived, in previous generations, as "gifts from God".
However, I have detected a subtle change in the attitude of parents to their children. I have heard parents say, particularly when there were problems with their children's education: "When we decided to bring these children into the world we expected to be able to offer them the best . . ." This emphasis on "we decided" is possible only in a situation where the arrival of children can be planned, to some extent at least, instead of simply being accepted as "a gift from God".
I can't claim that this change of attitude has led to the deleterious effects on children the Archbishop suggests. I suspect these are due much more, among other things, to the fiercely competitive atmosphere in which parents are forced to bring up their children today, than to anything to do with their origin. If, in the stress of trying to get their children to cope with this competition, parents were to invoke their "proprietorial rights" over them, as the ones who decided to bring them into this world, then children might well resent this and revolt. I have no evidence that this is the main or even a major cause of the teenage revolt the archbishop refers to.
What children need more than anything else is to know they are loved for themselves just as they are, whatever their achievements. Once they are assured that this is the main motivation behind whatever their parents do for them, including whatever discipline or pressure they may feel they have to bring to bear on them, teenagers will be less likely to "revolt". Of course they will always revolt to some extent, because that is simply part of being a teenager in any generation. - Yours, etc.,
Archie Byrne, OP, PP, DD, St Martin's Parish, Old Bawn, Tallaght, Dublin 24.