children are cherished, loved and protected - not for what they might become - but for who and what they are. They are sources of joy and affection and are wanted for the happiness they bring from moment to moment.
Ultimately, the reason we feel these positive emotions about our children is because it's a good biological strategy to look after our children.
I don't really think that any parent (except for a monarch concerned with propagating the dynasty) sees their child as a potential breeder.
Actually we do. It's not uncommon for parents to put pressure on their adult children to settle down, get married and produce grand children. And even if pressure is not applied, parents generally react well when the aforementioned events do happen.
But sex in homo sapiens is totally unlike sex in almost all other species - it is only matched by one of our closest relatives, the bonobo chimp.It has become an everyday activity from which reproduction has largely been eliminated.
Of course this is true, but the reasons still go back to biological reproduction.
