“Bringing up Children. This is not merely the most important business of Christian parents. all members of the Christian church should lay it upon their hearts. the younger generation as a whole is brought up by the elder generation as a whole.
There are those who think they can achieve everything by educating children and there are others who expect nothing from it. Both must be told that in relation to children we must pay heed to the will of God and do it….
It is bad enough already that the fatal inclinations of the parents that slumber in the children are aroused by living with the parents and by their example, that older sin gives rise to younger, and that often new and individual sins will arise in children through opposition and antithesis to those of parents. all this is regrettable and humiliating….
Combating the faults of children demands that they come to us for healing, and that in their respectful trust we should find an ally in place of the enemy. What contact can we make with them if they are only bitter and hostile? This enemy, mistrust, must be starved out by the withholding of nourishment, by inexhaustible patience, by full self-control, by the purest self-denial….
We certainly do not get through to our children by force and we usually emerge resigned and defeated, leaving the children to their own devices and to God’s instruction. yet if only we see to it that they do not become withdrawn, the situation may easily be remedied. if that disaster befalls, all is ruined and lost….
Where can we find the needed forgetfulness of the world, where can we meet the original placid form of life, if not in the carefree and eager youngsters who, when we return home, see in us only our joy at being there and feel only that they have missed us. happy are we if this is our daily experience!
But woe to us if through our egotistic indifference or capriciousness, through the coldness or unevenness that we bring with us from outside, our children come to share our worldly cares and concerns, meeting us anxiously, hiding all kinds of things from us out of regard for our moods, so that we are responsible for continuing the unworthy features of the wider spheres of life in our own homes!
How can we believe in something perfect beyond the imperfections of society unless we can already see something of it, and where and how can we see it except in our children? we can see in them not only our own failings but also something of a hopeful future: “that the sons will be better, and because better, better off, than their fathers.”…
We … should be open to what is in our children. we should be able to see into the depths of their minds and perceive all the folds of their hearts. if through bitterness they become withdrawn in relation to us, then they will be closed to us and we shall be deprived of this joy.
For the children’s sake, therefore, and for our own too, sacrificial love above all.