How Parents May Live With Their Children and What They May Do to Save Them
By Mary H. Moore
IT is not enough that parents provide food, raiment, shelter, and education for their children. The true family life, the real living of parents with their children, requires far more than this; for a man's life consists not in the abundance of outward possessions. To secure this ideal family life, this true living with our children, the parents must be agreed, must be united in purposes and plans, and must be one in an intense sympathy with their children. This is not a silly, sentimental sympathy that cultivates self-pity, “the basest emotion of the mind,” but such a sympathy as helps to endure the trials of life; such a sympathy as will rightly weigh in the balance the issues of life, and discard the fleeting pleasures of the present in favor of the immeasurably greater future good. The parents will be able by this sympathy to put themselves in the place of their children, and so to understand the workings of their minds as to take them by the hand and lead them in the way of life. Fathers and mothers, remember the days of your own youth, your own mistakes and follies, and deal accordingly with your children. Take for your model your Heavenly Father's relations with you. How do you wish him to deal with you in your weaknesses and shortcomings? Then deal the same, as far as sinful man can, with the children God has given you. By all your hopes of heaven, I implore you, make the ways of the Lord with you your ways toward your children. Study the temperament and disposition of each child. This study, pursued in humble dependence on the source of all wisdom, will enable you to understand the peculiar needs of each child, to meet its faults with the right form of discipline, to administer the right antidote for evil tempers, and to encourage the virtues and graces. A wise writer concerning the family relation has said that “in a Christian home the discipline of children is not so much a matter of exhortation as of contagion.” Our own lives are molded and determined by the ideals implanted in our minds in early life. If we as parents have, and hold to, right and pure ideals in our own lives, it will be easy to imbue the children with the same ideals. It is the girl brought up to desire as the greatest good, luxury, ease, gay clothes, and amusements who falls an easy prey to the tempter. It is the boy who grows up in idleness and in selfish indulgence, without the bracing tonic of self-denial and honest labor, who becomes the menace to society. We cannot teach what we do not ourselves know; and in order that we may help our children to be saved, we must first have a real, saving experience of the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation. Our lives must be daily a fresh experience of communion with God. It is our own lives that tell most forcibly for the religion we profess. A young man was once taken by a friend to hear Robert Ingersoll lecture against the Bible. As they came away, the friend said, “What do you think of that? Didn’t he overthrow the Bible?” “Perhaps,” answered the young man, “but there is one thing he did not overthrow,—my mother’s life.” Always set your children the example of regular attendance at all the means of grace,—the Sabbath school, church, and prayer meeting. Do not send them alone, but always go with them if possible, and by the help of God you can make it possible oftener than you think. Study the lessons with them at home, and take a real interest in what they hear and learn at Sabbath school. Question them on the sermon, and never criticize the minister or teacher before them. Read the Bible with them, and often kneel with them in prayer in private, besides the faithful maintenance of the family altar. In every way impress upon their young and tender minds that you expect them to grow up Christians. While your children are young, your attendance at their bedtime hour is a material necessity. But, mothers, this is your golden opportunity. Then you can teach them of Jesus and his love, and they will easily learn the tender words of prayer. There is no time when loving counsels find a more responsive chord. This is the time for sacred confidences, and the bond of unity between you and your child will become the threefold cord of love, trust, and obedience that will not be quickly broken. As the children grow older and do not need your material aid so much, they will still need the loving good-night kiss and the affectionate embrace and the helpful counsels. So do not lightly drop the bedtime visit. When adolescence approaches and symptoms of waywardness and impatience of restraint appear, do not grow discouraged. Renew your importunity at the throne of grace, and continue with love, faith, and patience to gently guide them and keep ever before them a practical illustration of the high ideals you wish them to follow. Study continually the workings of your child’s mind, and adapt your methods accordingly. God will show you how. Remember that as a man sows, so shall he also reap; and if you sow sparingly of your efforts in this direction, you will reap sparingly; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will of the Spirit reap life everlasting. It is worse than useless for you as parents to preach truthfulness while you practice deception in any form. If you teach your children that it is wrong to steal, your teaching will be in vain if you practice petty underhand meannesses. You cannot inculcate purity of heart and speech while indulging in low scandal-mongering. So we might go on through all the scale of morals. Be yourselves always what you want your children to be. Jesus tells us that if two or three are agreed on earth touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of his Father in heaven. No “ifs” or “ands” about it. What power, then, there must be in the united prayers of parents for their children. The salvation of souls is one of the objects for which we may pray with full assurance that our prayers are in harmony with God’s will. All power, then, of heaven and earth is on our side when we pray for the conversion of our children. But besides religious instruction, prayers, and holy examples, there are15certain practical hints which may be of value in training children to right habits of life. First, make companions, comrades, and confidants of your children, not to the exclusion of all youthful associates, but make yourself first, dearest, and best among their friends. Invite their young friends to your home, and carefully but unobtrusively watch over their intercourse, so you will be able to guard their associations with others. Let your children share in the duties of the home, and you yourself take a part in their recreations. All children love to help. Do not snub their early aspirations to learn to do things. Encourage them to take responsibilities. No more fruitful cause of youth going astray can be found than idleness. As the poet says:— “Idle boys and girls are found
Standing on the devil’s ground;
He will give them work to do,
And he will pay them wages, too.”
Habits of industry can be formed early in life, and a love for useful employment can be cultivated. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” is a trite saying, but none the less true; and parents must provide proper recreation for their children. Space will permit only one principle to be laid down here, one which is the foundation of all right living: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Any amusement or recreation, therefore, which leaves one in an unfit state of mind for the worship of God is to be avoided. The same rule applies to reading, and it is imperative for every parent to know what his children are reading, and so judiciously train them to love good reading; for one may become a slave to pernicious reading just as truly as to intoxicating drink or any other poison. Fiction truly intoxicates the mind, and unfits it to realize the solemn truths of life. Let me also lay down one simple rule for permissions and refusals, which form so large a part of parental discipline. When you consent, consent cordially. Do not fling the consent to the child as you would toss a bone to a dog to get rid of him, but graciously, as you would to an equal. When you refuse, refuse finally. Let your “No” have not one particle of “Yes” in it; and in order that you may be able to do this with justice, consider well before you decide upon your answer. What has been written applies equally to fathers and mothers. It is too often the case that the burden of child training is put upon the mother alone. This is not God’s plan. It was Abraham, not Sarah, that commanded the household. But if through the stress of modern life, the pressure of modern business, or a lack of unity in the faith, the burden falls wholly upon the mother, thank God that he comes to the rescue and gives added grace to do the work. It was the mother and the grandmother who instructed Timothy, and he became a messenger of the gospel, even though his father was a Greek. You may say, “Who is sufficient for these things?” True, it is a great and solemn thing to enter into partnership with God and give life to a child and train it for eternity. But the rewards are as great as the work, and “angels of God are waiting to cooperate with the human agent who devises plans to save souls.” While there is a peculiarly tender relation existing between mothers and sons, and fathers and daughters, yet there is work to do for sons that only fathers can do; and only a mother can enter wholly into the mysterious and oftentimes seemingly unreasonable vagaries of the adolescent girl. Fathers and mothers alike, I appeal to you in the name of Jesus, who died for your children, and in the name of the Father, who gave up forever his only Son that your children might be redeemed, let there be no failure on your part to accomplish this divine work. If the work is hard, you are partners with God, and he gives the increase. Work, pray, sacrifice, and cease not your vigilance day or night until you can say, Here am I, and the children that God has given me.