CHAPTER 28

HOW FATHER AND MOTHER CAN BEST TRAIN THE BABY

THE mother's way is not the right way for the child.

The father's way is not the right way for the child.

It matters not whether the mother or the father has his way or her way with the child, it will be the wrong way.

God's way is the right way.

And God's way includes the mother's way and the father's way.

Many a baby is torn to pieces by its mother and father, each trying to pull the child into his own way and her own way.

God's way is the right way, and the only right way. God's way is the way of unity of mother and father. It is a blend of the woman's way of softness and the man's way of discipline.

Let the mother and the father move from their separate extremes up toward the center and get together on God's way of bringing up the child.

If the man and the woman would raise a normal child, the father must back the mother, and the mother must back the father. Neither mother nor father is wise enough to raise the child alone. Only God is wise enough. He uses all the mother's wisdom and all the father's wisdom, and all the race's wisdom, and all the as-yet-to-be-discovered wisdom of the eternities to come. All this wisdom he pours through the father and through the mother — if they will but stand together and back each other.

Why should not the right way be a blend of the mother's way and the father's way, since the child itself is a blend of their two beings?

I said, the mother's way of softness and the father's way of discipline. In many families it is the father who represents the softness, and the mother the discipline. No matter — the principle still applies. It must be a blend of the mother's way and the father's way, each backing the other, or it is not the right way.

The child needs the softness of love. He needs also the hardness and straightness of discipline. The softness of his own way in non-essentials. The hardness and straightness of discipline in essentials. Where the mother has the care of the child the father must back her up in all the discipline. Discipline builds character. Love and softness cultivate the emotional side of being.

The word emotion means power moving out from within. Emotions are soul power.

Character is like the bed of a stream. Man without character is a weltering slough of useless emotions and pleasures and pains. Without emotions, the joys of being and doing, character is rock-ribbed, forbidding and — practically useless.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All discipline and no love kills the fires of might and genius. All character and no play of emotion makes Jack a stiff and stubborn boy, a useless plaything of circumstance.

To balance the hardness and straightness of discipline with the play of pleasure, is the problem in the training of the child. It takes all the wisdom of the father and the mother pooled in the child, directed by the wisdom of God Himself, God in His fullness of will and wisdom.

ANSWERING YOUR CHILD'S QUESTIONS >

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