Take Care of the Boys by B. J. Kendall

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 2, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 46.

Take Care of the Boys

By B. J. Kendall

YES, fathers and mothers, it is your boys that need your most thoughtful care. It seems to be instinctive to parents to shield their girls from evil, to keep them from the sight and sound of sinful things. What mother would rest when evening comes if her little daughter were at large in the street, frequenting the village store, or hanging about the door of the drinking saloon? How many times is the son of ten years away from the sight and sound of the mother at nightfall, breathing in, from the rude talk of older boys, or of coarse, vulgar men, a worse malaria than that from stagnant pools! Outgrow it, will they? Now and then a boy poisoned in childhood by vicious associates does live down the poison, and comes out a pure, clean 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 the 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! And 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 the boys have greater temptations, so have they stronger powers of resistance, if these powers are cultivated. But too often they are wholly neglected. Do not trust to the future to bring out your boys

all right, for it will almost certainly bring them out scarred. Neither trust to their being above temptation. Know always where they are, and what they are doing, and what are their inmost thoughts; and this, not by prying, tyrannical oversight of their movements, but with such a tender, 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 will expect them to bring to you spotless, high-minded girls. In receiving them, how can you think it honorable to give less in return than spotless, high-minded boys?

B. J. Kendall, M.D.