Sep 19 Sat
What should parents do for their children?
Parents have the right and duty to educate their offspring. By conferring life on their children, they cooperate with God in creating a new human person; thus, they must help that person live a fully human life.
The family is, therefore, the principal school of the social virtues, which are necessary to every society. Parents are the first and most important educators of their children, and they also possess a fundamental competence in this area; they are educators because they are parents.
Much of the formation in the home is indirect, embodied in a loving and tender atmosphere, for it arises from the presence and example of parents whose love is pure and generous.
Although family life is spiritual, we cannot ignore the material element: the family needs a home. To make its educational mission effective, the family needs an adequate environment and a minimum of comfortable material facilities.
Parents exercise their educational role through example and instruction. Both must go together. This family education is a preparation for the practice of virtues in the wider sphere of society.
The self-giving that inspires the love of husband and wife for each other is the model and norm for the self-giving that must be practiced in the relationships between siblings and different generations living together in the family. And the communion and sharing that are part of everyday life in the home at times of joy and at times of difficulty are the most concrete and effective pedagogy for the active, responsible and fruitful inclusion of the children in the wider horizon of society.
Parents are especially suited for education; they will cherish their children, not for their external success or for any other particular dimension of their activity, but for who they are.
Still, it is, above all, the sacramental grace of marriage that transforms parents into cooperators of the authority and love of God the Father and of Christ the Shepherd, as well as of the motherly love of the Church. At the same time, it enriches them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as wisdom, counsel, and fortitude, which greatly help in their educational task.
Parents must also make sure that the doctrinal formation their children receive is sound. They must actually exercise their right—and obligation—to participate in the direction of their education.
The good example and leadership of parents is essential; this is also true for education in a spirit of sacrifice in families, which are subject more than ever today to the pressures of materialism and consumerism.
The first example and the greatest help that parents can give their children is their generosity in accepting life.
Finally, parents must foster the formation of right values, especially a correct attitude of freedom concerning material goods, the adoption of a simple and austere lifestyle, and a conviction that it is what a man is, rather than what he has, that counts.