On the Training of Parents

by Ernest Hamlin Abbott

Besides wonder and ritual, there is a factor in religion on which children seize. We may call it hero-worship. Others, following the lead of psychologists, might prefer to name it imitation. As the children of a certain family gather to look at Bible pictures, they are prone to ask of any group of people depicted, "Are those people good?" Reverence for what to them is an ideal may come later than wonder or ritual, but it is sure to come in time to all children. Those parents who are ready to take their children as they are and to help the growth of the spirit as they help the growth of the body incur the peril of always seeing in this reverence a searching inquisition of their own lives. The nearest objects of hero-worship that a child has are his parents. This fact may raise a disturbing inquiry: Shall they puzzle him by setting forth two ideals of fatherhood, one incorporated in themselves, the other involved in their representation of the character of God? Shall they confuse the mind of the child by setting up two inconsistent standards of human service, their own lives and what they tell him of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? This dilemma of course is avoided by such parents as hold either of those comfortable theories, that religion is a theology and that religion is a luxury. In the one case such questions are not pertinent; in the other they are unimportant. If, however, we understand religion to be a mode of life, we may find such questions as these driving us into an uncomfortable corner. They seem to compel us to pose as exhorter and pattern, and to force on us a paralyzing self-consciousness. Perhaps it will not harm us to be occasionally reminded of the fact that we cannot expect our children to become altogether different from what we are determined to be; but to be always composing precepts and assuming the attitude of examples seems to be but a feeble part to play. Happily, we need not confine our children to the contemplation of ourselves. There are many who, if we but let them, may share with us the burden of our children's imitativeness. And here comes our reward, if we have cultivated their imagination. We may be a bit stingy ourselves; but if we covet generosity for our children, we can let Abram make the suggestion. We may cherish our own resentments; but if we want our children to despise theirs, we can let them join that group that heard Peter bidden to put up his sword. Whatever may happen to us in the process will probably do us no hurt. We may find another illustration of that which we encountered at the beginning, that the principal part in the training of our children is the training of ourselves. This may have meant to us, when we started on our course, that the training of ourselves was simply the preparation for the training of our children. By this time we shall have discovered that it is not so much a preparation as an outcome. This art of being a parent is an art of give and take. If it is more blessed to give, as the Lord said, it is, as far as parents are concerned, quite as obligatory to receive. As much, at least, as this is the implication in one thing that our Lord did. Whether he ever instructed a child in the faith we do not know; we have not been told. What has been told is that when he wished to show his disciples—among them some parents, we may surmise—what religion was, he took a child and set him in the midst of them.