Josef Pieper on Maternal and Paternal Love

Somewhat in relation to ideas I was musing about the other day, Josef Pieper (as quoted from the Anthology) has something interesting to say about the difference between maternal and paternal love:

It has always been said that mothers, as those who love most intensely, seek less to be loved than to love. A mother's love for her children is "unconditional" in a unique fashion; that is, it is not linked with any preconditions. Because of that it corresponds to the deepest longings of children, and indeed of every human being. Maternal love doesn't have to be "earned"; and there is nothing anyone can do to lose it. A father, on the contrary, tends to set conditions; his love has to be earned. But that likewise repeats a fundamental element peculiar to all love: the desire that the beloved not only "feel good" but that things may in truth go well for him. A mature person's love must, as has rightly been remarked, contain both elements, the maternal and the paternal, something unconditional and something demanding.