Take Care of the Boys

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 6, 1907

Take Care of the Boys

Yes, fathers and mothers, it is your boys who need your most thoughtful care. It seems to be instinctive with parents to shield their girls from the sight or the sound of sinful things. What mother would rest if, when evening comes, her little daughter were at large in the street, frequenting the village store, or hanging about the door of a drinking-saloon? How many times is the son, only a ten-year-old, away from the sight and sound of the mother at nightfall, breathing in a worse malaria than that from stagnant pools, from the rude talk of older boys, or of coarse vulgar men?

Outgrow it, will they? Do they? Now and then a boy poisoned in childhood by vicious associates does live down the poison, and comes out a clean, pure man; but look over any community in search of the young men without guile, whose souls and bodies are clean, and are they the rule or the exception? Scrutinize the sisters of these same young men, and do you expect to find the spotless among them the rule or the exception? It is the curse of the world that its boys are cherished less sacredly than its girls, that they whose temptations to physical vices are strongest, have the least done to fortify them against evil.

Do not say that because of the difference in their natures, boys and girls can not be trained by the same standard of morality. It is a base libel upon manhood, fostered so long in the world that it has come almost to be believed. If boys have greater temptations, so have they stronger powers, were they only cultivated. But too often they are wholly neglected. Do not trust to the future to bring your boys out right, for it will almost certainly bring them out scarred. Neither trust to their being above temptation. Know always where they are, and what are their inmost thoughts; and this, not by prying, tyrannical oversight of their movements, but by such a loving, yearning interest for their well-being that they love to open their souls to you. Some day these boys of yours will be seeking out mates, and you expect them to bring you spotless, high-minded girls. In receiving them how can you think it honorable to give less in return than spotless, high-minded boys?—The Christian.