Parents and Children Pulling Apart

The differences that sometimes come between husbands and wives, that pull people who should keep closer, is a subject of serious concern. Another side of this subject pertains to parents and children and their need to confide and keep closer. Obviously it isn’t possible for parents and children to enter actively into all of each others’ activities, but they can be interested and informed, and communicate and keep a closeness of confidence and be more available to talk to. Children should share with parents a confiding account of their hearts and hopes, of their interests and activities. Everyone should have someone waiting. A mother or a father, waiting and awake, and talking out and listening, is a great source of safety. Parents need to know, and children need to talk to, to counsel with, to confide, for their own assurance and safety. It should never be, as one eminent observer heartbreakingly said: “Most of the persons whom I see in my own house I see across a gulf.” There should never be such a gulf to look across in any home. There should never be wide distances within such walls. It should never be “lonely to be together…” We need to keep our families close, to talk, to teach, to counsel, to confide, and not be too busy for the things that matter most. “Our grand business,” said Carlyle, “is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.” The happy and responsible home is the surest solution for the social ills that beset us. After all else is said and considered, there isn’t any other way. Whatever the problems, whatever the inconvenience, whatever time it takes, parents and children should keep close to each other, in respect and love and consideration, in counsel and confidence and communication. “To be happy at home,” said Samuel Johnson, “is the ultimate result of all ambition.”