Those First Speechless Years…

It was written of John Ruskin that “the home atmosphere in which [he] grew up was one of utter peace and complete order. The relation between his father and mother was a beautiful one. There were no quarrels, no mysterious undercurrents of trouble or unhappiness so depressing to a sensitive child; and . . . the domestic machinery ran in well-ordered grooves.”

With this background it is understandable that Ruskin could later write these lines: “The education of a child begins in infancy. At six months old it can answer smile by smile, and impatience with impatience. It can observe, enjoy, and suffer. Do you suppose it makes no difference to it that the order of the house is perfect and quiet, the faces of its father and mother full of peace, their soft voices familiar to its ear, and even those of strangers, loving; or that it is tossed from arm to arm, [in a] . . . reckless . . . household, or [in] the confusion of a gay one? The moral disposition is, I doubt not, greatly determined in those first speechless years.”

“Children,” said another observer, “are travelers newly arrived in a strange country of which they know nothing.” And yet another source said: “Infancy isn’t what it is cracked up to be. Children, not knowing that they are having an easy time, have a good many hard times. Growing and learning and obeying rules of their elders, or fighting against them, are not easy things to do.”

There is nothing more precious than a family, nothing more important than seeing a family established in righteous ways⎯and no wise parent would leave a child without early care and counsel and the example of the living of a righteous life.

The idea that we can leave entirely to children the choices of the vital essentials is unsafe. Leaving such decisions to the trial and error method is unsafe.

Children are entitled to counsel, and to knowing the principles that have been proved by the experience of the past. It is part of the heritage they have. They are entitled to example, to prayerful guidance, and righteous persuasion in the living of their lives. And even though they may react contrarily at times, they will be everlastingly grateful for early teachings taught, for early lessons learned, for the love and living example of a good parent’s life.