Article November 28, 1994 Issue

"Train up a child"

Margaret Coleman Brown Poyser

"Parents, do you know where your children are?" I was driving one day recently when these words stared at me from the rear of the bus in front of me. In thinking about this as I rode along, I realized that as thought-provoking as that question is, it leads to another just as important—do you know what your children are learning?

One of my favorite Bible verses is "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6). In rearing my children, this promise often served as a reminder to me of my parental responsibility in guiding their budding thoughts in the right direction. It is generally believed that academics are taught in the schools because they are necessary if one is to function in today's modern world. But I felt that there was something else that was of more primary concern to my children—their spiritual education. I kept asking myself, "Am I doing all I can to teach them good moral standards? Am I helping them to grow spiritually?" To me these were big questions to consider. Being a Christian Scientist, I naturally turned to the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, for guidance on this issue.

Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: "Is not the propagation of the human species a greater responsibility, a more solemn charge, than the culture of your garden or the raising of stock to increase your flocks and herds? Nothing unworthy of perpetuity should be transmitted to children" (p. 61). Shortly after this she states, "The entire education of children should be such as to form habits of obedience to the moral and spiritual law, with which the child can meet and master the belief in so-called physical laws, a belief which breeds disease" (p. 62).

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