Will Be a Good Influence on Your Children

Will you be a good influence on your children? Surely, this question is always one of the hardest questions to answer. After all, most people do not know whether they could be a good or bad influence on their children until they actually become parents. Even if you are not thought to be a good influence now then the chances are that you will change to become one once the reality of parenthood sets in.

Glenda was absolutely sure that marriage was one never-ending round of delightful events and experiences. When she visited her married sister and bathed the baby, she was convinced that nothing could be more wonderful. She did not realize that to its parents, a baby is not only a source of deep joy, but a responsibility twenty-four hours a day.

Caring for children means far more than merely feeding them, staying up with them nights, and wiping their running noses. It involves also a vital emotional adjustment. When a father slaps a crying baby hard enough to kill it; when a mother leaves small children unattended and is found drunk in a tavern, the moral and personality limitations of the parents are evident. What we do not see is that sincere and conscientious parents, parents who do their best, often seriously damage their children.

Careful studies and clinical evidence show the harm which can result, not only from ignorance, but from personality disturbances of the parents. Parents who are themselves frustrated and thwarted might, despite careful physical care, make their children feel unwanted and unloved, and thus cause more harm than might physical abuse. It is true that, at times, all children are annoying, and that parents, being human, will express their annoyance. But if the child grows up feeling that he is primarily a nuisance and a burden, his chances for developing are seriously impaired.

Children who are misfits, and some who turn out to be vicious, did not all come from "bad" homes. Some came from families in which the parents did their very best, but a best which was not good enough because the parents were emotionally disturbed. Competent parenthood requires that the parents not only know how to bring up their children, but also that they are themselves wholesome enough so that their influence upon the children is desirable.

Mental health is by no means the only important essential for success in marriage. But of all the factors, it is probably the most important. For it is the foundation of so many other essentials. To be sure, the foundation is not all there is to the house. But unless this is right, nothing else can be.

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