Parents are the first role models for their children, providing love and security and significantly influencing their personal development. This is why developmental learning theory, social learning theory, and attachment theory (among others) lay more emphasis on the quality of children\'s early relationships with parents than on anything else. Following up on previous studies that examined the similarity of styles of love or affection between parents and their children, this study focused on the potential and actual influence of parents on forming styles of love that their grown-up children eventually demonstrate. It empirically examined how pivotal psychological mechanisms, described in object relationship theory, are involved in parental styles of love being handed down to children. The study found that children\'s concepts, values, and styles of love are acquired through the object relationship formed from their interaction with parents. Styles of love may be passed on to the next generation through internalization, breakup mechanisms, and projective identification.