Neglect of Children

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Dec 18, 1879

Neglect of Children.

MANY a mother has wept over the sins of her child, little dreaming that while she was pursuing her round of idle pleasures, that child was taking its first lesson in sin from a vicious nurse. The truth is, parents take upon themselves too many unnecessary burdens, and consider themselves bound by duty to perform too many tasks, which are of much less consequence than the teaching and training of their children. The father has his trade or profession, and his few leisure hours he must spend in social pleasures. The mother has her household cares and the comforts of her family to study, and besides this, there is much time to devote to fancy work, to visitors, and to amusements of one kind and another. Her children are mere secondary considerations, and depend upon the kindness of hirelings. Their dresses may be miracles of puffing, ruffles and embroidery, but what does that count when their minds are dwarfed through neglect? Her house may be a model of neatness, her bread excel that of all her neighbors, her jellies and preserves enough to tempt the most fastidious; but if, in all this, she has kept aloof from her child, has chided his heart toward her, what does it count?