Fifty-Two Thousand Hours

By the time a child is twelve, we are told, he would have spent approximately fifty-two thousand hours in his home, besides time for sleep. This is a startling fact on the influence of environment, and an indication as to where the greatest responsibility lies — fifty-two thousand hours at home, by the time a child is twelve! This being so, or even if it were only partly so, home had better be what it ought to be. This being so, the influence of those who are or ought to be at home could clearly be counted as foremost. When we complain of outside influences, of what schools teach or fail to teach, of the social and moral atmosphere of the community, of the wholesome or unwholesome influences of others, still as parents we had better search ourselves and ask ourselves most earnestly what we are doing toward shaping the attitudes and characters of our children in these fifty-two thousand hours, when the home is, or should be, the place of foremost influence by the time of twelve. This points the need for parents to be alert, to be available, to be present, to be prepared with wholesome common-sense counsel and quiet consistency, with love and a wholesome example of life. “…A child learns more by imitation than in any other way,” said George Sanderlin. “Don’t we all? And the persons he imitates most blindly and trustingly are bound to be his parents… Nature has made the relationship between parent and child such that beside it any other training bears a certain artificiality.”1 God has given parents first responsibility for their families, and leaving to chance the factors that shape their lives isn’t an acceptable fulfillment of this sacred assignment. There must be learning, teaching, living, loving, constancy of example, consistency of life, in the home and from the heart. As parents we must fact the fact that of all the areas of influence, home is the most important place, and ours is the first, the longest, the most intimate and impressionable opportunity to teach our children — fifty-two thousand hours by the time a child is twelve.