Parent

“ But because it happens just at the moment when as father he shows himself so worthy of respect, his fate appears to us as the result of having fulfilled his duty as parent, of his tender disquietude for his children. ”

“ When my father became a husband and a parent, he found his time so occupied by the duties of his new situation, that he relinquished many of his public employments, and devoted himself to the education of his children. ”

“ Where the conscience of the parent has only been awakened late in life to this high duty to the child, the attempt to approach the subject with the young adult is often deeply resented by both boy and girl. ”

“ A father need only to say, in the presence of his children, “I want such a thing done”—“I want one of my children to go upon such an errand”—“Let me see who is the good child that will do it.” The word good operates as it were by magic, and the children immediately vie with each other to comply with the parent’s wishes. ”

“ Fathers and mothers are too absorbed in business and housekeeping to study their children, and cherish that sweet and natural confidence which is a child's surest safeguard, and a parent's subtlest power. So the young hearts hide trouble or temptation till the harm is done, and mutual regret comes too late. Happy the boys and girls who tell all things freely to father or mother, sure of pity, help, and pardon; and thrice happy the parents who, out of their own experience, and by their own virtues, can teach and uplift the souls for which they are responsible. ”

“ The parent who believes that the possibilities of virtuous training are unlimited will set to work with cheerful confidence, will forego the twaddle about “Nature,” whether as lovely in itself or as an irresistible force, and will perceive that the first function of the parent is that function of discipline which is so cheerfully made over to the schoolmaster. ”

“ In this way she can transform this mere selfish love into the beginning of that spiritual love which Christ commended when He said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."
The parent stands to his child for the time being, as the one supreme source of every power and blessing; the wise parent may establish between himself and the little one almost the same beautiful and solemn relationship as that which exists between the Supreme Giver of all good and His children. ”

“ The parent's duties to the child are maintenance in his own condition in life, care for his education and his moral and religious culture, advice, restraint when needed, punishment when both deserved and needed, pure example and wholesome influence, aid in the formation of habits and aptitudes suited to his probable calling or estate in his adult years, and provision for his favorable entrance on his future career. ”

“ Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past? ”

“ Analyze it, however, and you see that in every paternal relation there must be two parties, a parent and a child, and when you speak metaphorically, it makes all the difference in the world who is parent and who is child. ”

“ At the same time, his faithful loving nature and caresses awaken corresponding tenderness and care; while the parent again has a daily opportunity to inculcate these virtues toward the helpless and dependent. ”

“ The parent who sedulously endeavours to form the heart and enlarge the understanding of his child, has given that dignity to the discharge of a duty, common to the whole animal world, that only reason can give. This is the parental affection of humanity, and leaves instinctive natural affection far behind. ”

“ Duty Of Parents To Children. Great are the responsibilities of the husband. Great are the responsibilities of the wife, but greater are the responsibilities of parents. Father and mother, God lays a responsibility upon you as you receive your new-born child. A precious little immortal soul, whose eternal destiny depends largely upon you. The proper training of children is attended with many difficulties, and every parent certainly needs instruction from God. ”

“ Under these circumstances, parents have a peculiar right to be themselves, to insist upon the essentials of their own modus vivendi, to cherish and maintain the things by which they lived in a past arbitrarily cut off. ”

“ Every one, of course, must admit that the confirmations of experience tend greatly to strengthen the parent's authority. The parent says, You must be neat. The child, if it does as it is bidden, finds an æsthetic pleasure in its becoming appearance. ”

“ I have no parents to love me, as other children have!" Thick tears coursed their rapid way over the rosy cheeks of the deserted foundling.
"Be still, and do not weep, my poor child! [151] You have a Father above,—one who is a Father to us all,—who loves you, and will take care of you." ”

“ I deem it to be your imperative duty to study the subjects well. The proper management of children is a vital question,—a mother’s question,—and the most important that can be brought under the consideration of a parent ”

“ The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it. ”

“ They, poor little things, knew not the blessings they were about to lose, but their fond and anxious father and mother could not forget, that they had consigned them to strangers, who might or who might not be kind to them, and who had too many under their care, to feel, or even show the endearing tenderness that marks parental love. ”

“ Lads and lassies, hear our plea—give us of your courtesy; we, not you, need sympathy, being parents. 'Tis a most exacting age, children are so very sage, the "complex" now is all the rage, we're but parents. ”

“ It is very natural for them, like children, to feel after home and father and mother, and the scenes of their youth. And it is very natural, too, for the sympathies of parents to be with their children. ”

“ What can be more clear and sound in explanation, than the love of a parent to his child? ”

“ It may seem wearisome to say so often over that the example of the parents is the chief influence in the training of the child; but how can I help saying it when the fact is so? Is it not true that when the father of a family comes home and talks before his children, every word sinks into their minds? If he talks banter—banter so broad that his elder children laugh and understand, how should the little one on its mother's lap fail to be perplexed and misled? ”

“ How can children repay parents for their watchings, anxieties, labors, toils, trials, patience, and love? Think of the utter helplessness of the long years of infancy, of the entire dependence of succeeding childhood, of the necessities and wants of youth, of the burning solicitude of parents, and their deep and inexhaustible love ”

“ The duty of a child to her parents will be in proportion to the attention paid to her education. If, instead of the usual pains bestowed by many partial parents, upon the vain parade of forming the manners of a child, and burthening the mind with the necessity of douceurs and graces, would it not often be happier for both, to take a small share of thought to kindle one spark of grace in the heart? ”

“ Less often [Pg 40] have I seen a father so rear his son that he revealed his inmost purpose to be the fostering of his son's nobleness. Are there as many parents who would have their children finely serviceable as highly successful? ”

“ Parents are the foot-holds and building blocks that sustain the growing youth; while other individuals may very well flavor the insights and spice the outlooks of a maturing mind, the parents yet possess the solid, nurturing ingredient... ”

“ A child loves and respects his parents, because from them he derived his being, and from them receives every blessing and comfort. To them, and to them alone, does his mind turn as the authors of all the good gifts he possesses. As a mere child, it is right for him thus to regard his parents as the authors of his being and the originators of all his blessings. ”

“ They are in closer touch with reality, and cannot fail, however indulgent, to feel that their parents are antiquated.... The children's end of the family is its budding, forward-looking end: the adult's end is, at best, its root. ”

“ A boy of two—the moral instruction of parents by the child begins betimes—would not go to sleep when bidden to do so by his father and mother. At length the father, losing patience, addressed him with a man's fierce emphasis. ”

“ Parents' standards may seem, and even be, exigent, but the attempt to modify their rigor may not be made by those lacking in fundamental reverence for a child, and in conscious hope for its wise, noble, self-reliant maturity. ”

“ I believe that reasonable parents create reasonable children. The children must feel their parents’ affection—not duty and responsibility, for which no child is grateful, but warm love, which feels delight in the child’s presence and ways. ”

“ When the child hears them he thinks of some one like his own father, but immensely bigger and more powerful; and as the child is taught that all the necessaries and comforts of life he enjoys, at the expense of his parents' labor and loving care, are really gifts from the Father behind the scenes, it is no wonder that this mysterious being becomes the object of gratitude and affection. ”

“ Me, let the tender office long engage, To rock the cradle of reposing age, With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death, Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep a while one parent from the sky! ”

“ Many parents, while indeed quite solicitous according to their lights, for the temporal good of their offspring, training them to a trade or profession, or settling them in marriage, devote but little thought to their spiritual welfare. They dread a vocation in their family as a catastrophe. ”

“ Parents should remain parents, children children, for ever, and the great gulf preserved between the two. Honor thy father and thy mother should always be a leading commandment. But this can only take place when father and mother keep their true parental distances, dignity, reserve, and limitation. ”

“ The last chapter introduced the thought of parents in their highest function—as revealers of God to their children. To bring the human race, family by family, child by child, out of the savage and inhuman desolation where He is not, into the light and warmth and comfort of the presence of God, is, no doubt, the chief thing we have to do in the world. And this individual work with each child, being the most momentous work in the world, is put into the hands of the wisest, most loving, disciplined, and divinely instructed of human beings. ”

“ When we turn our thoughts to the investigation of this phase of the subject, we find that vigorous parents have healthful children, that powers of intellect are transmitted, and that honesty and uprightness in the father warrants us in expecting the same in the son. ”

“ Answer child’s questions regarding origin of life reverently, seriously, honestly, with emphasis upon nurturing and on social coöperation of mother and father; give a bias toward the social and spiritual relations of family life, and a suggestion of the future parental responsibilities of the child. ”

“ Happy parents they, whose children count them their truest friends and hold from them no secret reserves! Happy children, whose parents win their confidence and make common cause with them in their joys and sorrows! ”

“ Parents, occasionally, experiment upon the sensibility of their children, by fondly discoursing of the uncertainty of human existence, and mingling deep drawn sighs, with shadowy allusions to wills and codicils. ”

“ We were the pride of our parents' hearts, and as we grew from day to day our mother gloried in our size and beauty—our father in the fancied promise we gave of strength and virtue. One day, when we had grown old enough to take a little care of ourselves, our parents addressed these words to us: 'In another month, little ones, you will need our help no longer, and will enter boldly upon life. ”

“ What a sense of delicious responsibility fills the parents' hearts as they realize that in their hands and under their influence is to be molded a character, that they are the ones to carefully watch the unfolding of a human life, the development of a human soul. ”

“ Ye also, who have experienced, and perhaps still enjoy, the watchful care and affectionate caresses of devoted parents, forget not that there are those, who have never rejoiced in the sound of a father's voice, or a mother's gentle embraces. ”

“ I know they suffer in this forming period of their lives for the want of a home, of the care of a father and a mother, and that no care and attention from friends, be they ever so kind, can supply the place of parents. ”