Question: Do you feel that having only one parent affects children, and if so, how?

Sri Chinmoy: Very often, having only one parent does affect children. Children want to have both a father and a mother. Only then do they feel that the family is complete. But again, in hundreds of cases we have seen that the father can show the children the affection and love of both father and mother, or that the mother has the capacity to offer the love that the children expect from their father as well. If the father is not alive, naturally the mother is expected to offer and bound to offer the father's love as well. And if the mother is not alive, the father has to play the mother's role.