Article December 15, 1951 Issue

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS

EVELYN W. RADCLIFFE

It is the duty and blessed privilege of every Christian Science parent to gain the true concept of children as unfettered, unlimited ideas of God, ever in His loving care. Knowing them as ideas of God, in constant possession of the undeviating wisdom and guidance of divine Mind, will bring freedom from the insidious fears, limitations, and temptations that beset human parenthood.

How can we begin this purification of our consciousness? First, we must eliminate any thoughts of fear regarding our children, fear for their safety, their health, or their general well-being, by realizing that because God is everywhere present and all-powerful there is no place where a child can go that is outside God's presence. We can know that God's ideas are forever subject to Love's care, control, and unfailing direction. Worry, or anxiety, over a child's appetite, weight, or growth is a fearful and erroneous thought, to be cast out as an aggressive temptation of so-called mortal mind, which would have us believe our child to be a mortal, dependent upon and conditioned by matter. The belief that a child can be anything less than a perfect, complete idea of God hides man's inseparability from God's loving maintenance. For our guidance and demonstration Mary Baker Eddy gives us this statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 62): "The divine Mind, which forms the bud and blossom, will care for the human body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal interfere with God's government by thrusting in the laws of erring, human concepts."

Another temptation which must be resisted by the parent is the human tendency to believe he personally possesses a child, and a consequent sense of false responsibility. We shall not give up our enjoyment of the qualities we see expressed in our children when we know their source to be divine Love and not human parentage or ancestry.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

"IN THE BEGINNING GOD"