Responsibility of Parents
By Mrs. Julia L. Zener
IN "Testimonies for the Church" we read: "Parents are, in a great measure, responsible for the mold given to the characters of their children." Parenthood is a great privilege, and yet a great responsibility. "They [parents] should aim at symmetry and proportion." That is, as the context shows, every part of the body and mind should be properly developed. We read again: "There are few well-balanced minds, because parents are wickedly negligent of their duty to stimulate weak traits and repress wrong ones." Our children inherit our natures to a great degree. Then, instead of teaching them our prejudices and biased habits of thought and our incorrect ways of living, we should consider them as talents loaned us by the Lord. If our worldly goods belong to him, how much more our children! If parents would remember this and act accordingly, they would be spared a great deal of anxiety while their children are young, and untold regrets in later years. Again we read of parents: "They are under the most solemn obligation to watch the tendencies of each child; it is their duty to train their children to right habits and right ways of thinking." I have often thought that some parents let their children grow like a wild vine, instead of training them. To train a child does not necessarily imply the use of the rod, neither does it mean to lecture and scold. When we train a vine, we do not let it alone to grow its own way for a while, and then break off the little tendrils that cling to the nearest object, and proceed to tie it up and try to make it grow some other way; but every day we see that it is inclined in the right direction, pick off the dead leaves, provide supports for the new shoots, and, if the ground is dry, give it plenty of water. In the same way the careful mother looks after her child. She turns its mind each morning toward the God who gave it life and all the good things it enjoys. She sees that the tendrils of its faith are clinging to God's promises. As new shoots, or ideas, appear, some fitting promise or truth in God's Word is presented as a trellis upon which they can grow and expand. Her love and her prayers keep the soil of its young heart always moist and fertile. There is a great lack of careful mothering. Men and women are often too selfish to train their children. They are too busy looking after their own worldly interests or seeking their own comfort and ease. They bring children into the world, clothe and feed them, and send them to school, and think they have done their duty. It takes watchful, wakeful vigilance to train children. You must keep the confidence of the little ones. Never grow too old for them, nor suffer them to outgrow you. Enter heartily into whatever you allow them to become interested in. Offer them each morning, and all the time, to the Lord. Press them upon him. Keep him reminded of his promise to give you wisdom and patience to bring them up in the right way. Give them plenty of warm, tender, unselfish love. It will plant the same seed in the soil of their young hearts, and will prepare them for the early reception of the pure love of Jesus. Don't forget to pray with your children; it will strengthen their characters, and draw them to Jesus and to you. It is not necessary to indulge their appetites and whims in order to show our love for them, nor to insure their love for us. Children very early begin to reason; and as soon as they can comprehend, we may safely begin to explain to them why it is best for them to do thus, or not best to do the other way. If I have had any success in training children, it is largely because I trained their consciences. And this I did in spite of strong opposition. My husband and my mother continually told me I was spoiling my children, that I ought to use more authority. With my husband, No meant no, and the children learned to abide by it. My mother's ideas were of the old-school type. She considered her word authority, and tried to have her children think so, too. I think I had no well-defined ideas on the subject. I wanted to train them right, but they were quite self-willed; and I didn't enjoy punishing them, but did enjoy explaining things to them and reasoning with them; and so I naturally adopted that method as the rule, leaving the corrections for times of extremity when all else failed. I did it then, feeling it was the best I could do, and later experience and observation have shown me that it was the right thing to do. It is God's way. The way he governs his children is the best way for parents to govern theirs. Whatever traits of character or principles we wish our children to have, must be firmly fixed in us. It will not be difficult to instil into the minds of our children those principles that have been a part of our nature. Children admire decision and firmness in their elders. If the father and mother are kind, and at the same time firm, adhering to principle, they can do almost anything they please with their children. So if we unite our weakness with God's might, looking to him continually for wisdom and strength, we shall as certainly make a success of our child-training as God's word is true.15 As I look back over my life as a mother, well do I remember how my heart used to sink within me when the selfish, self-willed little mortals whom the Lord had given me to train for him would rise up, as it were, as if taken possession of by some untamed spirit, and show me just how unable I was for these things. With back, head, and heart all aching, I would be compelled to seek the Lord for help. He always answered me, and often showed me that the trouble was right in my own self. And here is where the trouble always lies. If parents take God's Word for their guide, realize the importance of training their children, and have faith, the work of bringing them up need not be uncertain in its results. Fathers and mothers, which is easier, to train a child to be an honor to the Lord, or to remove a mountain? But you can do neither without that mustard-seed faith that Jesus tells us of. Nothing staggers faith; and although we all have made mistakes in training our children, and have much to regret, and though we may have grown-up children yet unsaved, if we now turn to the Lord with confidence in his word, and faith in his power and willingness to help, we may yet see them all saved in the kingdom of God. How I wish that parents whose children are yet of tender years would heed the instruction given in God's Word, and train their children in the way they should go, remembering that God says they shall not depart from it when they are old.