Children and Chance

Almost everyone, it would seem, has his own ideas on the care and counsel of children. For some, the process does not mean much more than providing the physical necessities if that. For others, it means minutely prescribing everything. Both are questionable extremes. Perhaps no one can say with finality just how far we should go in either direction, because children differ, and so do parents, and so do circumstances. But this it would surely be safe to say: that the shaping of the thoughts and characters and lives of children should not be left too much to chance. It isn’t possible for us to insulate them from all unlooked-for influences, nor, perhaps, would it always be desirable. But if we leave their lives too exposed, we issue an open invitation to chance. And what comes in at the open door may not be what it should be. To be sure, many things are going to come into their lives anyway that neither we nor they can control. But where we can counsel and safeguard and wisely control, we have an obligation to do so. Few things that matter much can be safely left to chance. The farmer’s crops, for example, are subject to many uncertainties. But a wise farmer doesn’t leave them to the mercy of chance if he can avoid it. He doesn’t let pests and parasites and other undesirable intruders make inroads if he can keep them out. And if he does leave too much to chance, he may have a crop of weeds. Also any business that is left to chance is likely soon to become insolvent. But there is no more important business before us, none with more far-reaching consequences to our own happiness and to the happiness of generations to come, than the guiding and the safeguarding of our children. It is written that there was a man who cared for his flocks and his fields, and for his stocks and his bonds, with great care, but who didn’t know much about where his children went or what they saw or what they heard or whom they were with. It is not written, however, that he was a wise man. We have an obligation to be ever alert to all that pertains to our children. And the less of this we leave to chance, the more we fill their lives with the right things, the less room there will be for the wrong things.