If love is easily had, that child will not be driven. That child might be “lazy”.
If love is sparse, that child will grow up keenly aware of duties and obligations, failing to meet which will make them unlovable.
And of course, when dealing with emotionally defective parents, the guilt is there, but not the remedy.
But the point I wanted to make is that much of our anxiety in America, at least–although I think this can be generalized to many nations–is related to our felt need to protect an internal image of ourselves, which makes much of our emotional pain an abstract response to possible criticisms. Put another way, we beat ourselves up because we feel that if we don’t, we will lose the right to be loved.
This emotional contingency is what drives the modern world. It is what is propelling this mad rush for more, more, more, while we enjoy what we have less and less, and come to consider the voices arising from unconscious sensations within us as more important than the actual people in our lives.
Put still another way, fear drives our world.