Time to Do It Right…

On a much-quoted page in a much-quoted publication, this sentence appeared: “Why is there never enough time to do it RIGHT…. But always enough time to do it OVER?”

This could apply to teaching children⎯to taking time to teach them in the earliest years and have some of the problems that follow where teaching isn’t early and adequate. And we don’t mean teaching in a technical sense, but teaching character, attitudes, and the lasting values of life. Agencies, both public and private, have been much multiplied, and are doing earnest service in trying to compensate for what has or hasn’t happened in the home. But we cannot always expect others to teach our children what we should have taught them.

A perceptive woman recently said: “A well and happy child is not a problem. And if with loving kindness in our homes we teach a child reverence and respect and responsibility and prayer; thankfulness for food, and honor and honesty, we shall not need to create all manner of agencies to help substitute for home.”
Professional people often help heroically with many problems. But how much better to begin at the beginning⎯to begin in the earliest years of life? How much better when mothers and fathers prayerfully live for the blessed intuition and inspiration that dedicated parents are entitled to.

Herbert Hoover has said: “We need to add three R’s, namely, Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic, a fourth⎯Responsibility.” Parenthood is a responsibility, a career, a covenant, a privilege, and an obligation, not exceeded by any other⎯it is indeed the most sacred career on earth. And children are not to be neglected, or “farmed out”, or indifferently turned over to others. The first and most effective place to begin is at the beginning⎯with parents being righteous, dedicated examples themselves, so that children may see and feel, at home, the earliest lessons of life.

“And…inasmuch as parents have children…that teach them not to understand…the sin [and the responsibility] be upon the heads of the parents.”