p. 46Parental Love

You will probably think, dear reader, that this is a very unnecessary chapter, and that it must be filled with all manner of platitudes, in as much as it treats of a duty in which no parent ever fails to his child. Still, I request you to read it carefully. You may indeed have heard or read before all the truths it contains; for I do not pretend to novelty or originality in this work; but you must remember that important practical truths require repetition to make them sink into the soul, and influence one’s conduct. If there be in these pages one truth more important and practical than any other, it is that which I try to inculcate in this chapter; namely, that parental love should be supernatural, and should be manifested in securing primarily and sovereignly the eternal interests and welfare of the child.

I begin then with an assertion that sounds like a paradox; and I say that one of the rarest home-graces to be found on earth is perfect parental love. It is easy to find a mother who professes her willingness to die for her child; and every one knows, that there are to be found fathers and mothers, all the world over, whose lives may be said to be burning out in the loving service of their children. To get them food and clothing, to keep a warm roof-tree over them, to maintain a bright, cheery fireside, round which the whole family may gather in the evening, are some of the natural ends for which most parents work, and indicate a strong, untiring love indeed; but at the same time an imperfect, human, material love. It is a love that would be quite possible to a social, warm-hearted pagan, and would be very laudable in him; but in a Christian raised by his Baptism to the sublime dignity of God’s adopted son, and to the co-heirship with Christ in God’s own kingdom in Heaven, in a Christian, I say, this love must be supernaturalized to be truly praise-worthy or meritorious. Yet, in how very few Christians is it supernaturalized?

But what is meant by this supernatural, parental love? It means simply such a love as would make the spiritual, eternal interests of children paramount to every natural or human consideration in the eyes of their parents. Our divine Lord said once: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt. vi. 33.) Christian parents should make these words their guide in the discharge of all their duties towards their children. To make them know and love God, and feel their entire dependence on Him for every spiritual and material requirement; to make them dread sin and shrink from it, as the greatest evil of life; to elevate and beautify their characters by adorning them with every Christian virtue; to strengthen and protect their immortal souls against all the assaults of temptation, so that in after life when they mix in the world, they may keep them for God, pure and unsullied. These should form the great primary work of Christian parents, and they should be the outcome and expression of that perfect, Christian, supernatural love that, as Christian parents, they owe to their children.

Let us now look, dear reader, into a few of the homes around us, and compare the parental love we actually find in them with that which we ought to find. Here is a family in which the order of nature is reversed, for the children rule the parents and order them about like servants to gratify every whimsical wish of theirs. Nor do the parents object much. They idolize their children, and cannot bear to see them unhappy. “Poor darlings,” the mother cries, “they would fret themselves to death if I were to check them, or refuse them what they want. They will be wiser when they grow older.” And so the “poor darlings” grow up into little domestic tyrants, disobedient, and disrespectful to their parents, impatient of all control, unrestrained in their desires, and indulging every bad passion of their nature. Now I would wish to know, can any one in his senses call this true parental love. Are these parents consulting the welfare of their children by such training. I will not ask what kind of Christians such children will become, for it is not to be thought for a moment that they will become Christians at all, except in the loosest and vaguest sense of the name. But will they turn out good, respectable members of society? If they be wealthy, will they use their wealth moderately and usefully for the good of others, or will they squander it in the gratification of those passions and sinful desires that have grown up with them under all the fostering care that their parents could bestow? If, on the other hand, they be born in poverty, and have to live by their labour, will they restrain themselves from the sensual gratifications within their reach, will they make good husbands and wives, good fathers and mothers, good loyal subjects. I think, dear reader, we need not dwell on the answers that the experience of each one will give to these questions. It is enough to say that here is no true parental love.

Let us now see how things go on in a totally different home, which however we need not go far to find. Here is a father who rules his family with a strong hand. His wife has long since been subdued into meek submission, and she now chimes in with his views in everything, among the rest, in his management of his children. This management is rather peculiar. He is gruff, curt, and dictatorial with them on every possible occasion. He gives them no liberty, never trusts them, never shows them the slightest feeling of paternal tenderness or love. He has a cast-iron rule by which he governs his household, and it applies to every one alike, from his wife down to the baby toddling across the floor. Everyone is in awe of him; there is scarcely a word spoken in his presence by any member of his family, and when his step is heard, as he returns from his hard day’s work, for he does work hard and conscientiously for his family, a painful feeling of restraint and distress comes upon wife and child, and remains upon them until he takes his departure the next morning. Nor does it entirely leave them during his absence: for his shadow seems to remain in the house, checking all freedom of action and speech, and all that spontaneous mirthfulness and flow of spirits so natural and necessary to children.

Now this father loves his home and family. He may even be a religious man in his own and the world’s eyes; and may have the spiritual good of his children at heart, and may try to promote it by the excessive rigour I have just described. But see the consequences that generally result from such training. Every member of his family is full of discontent and suppressed resistance to his authority. The world which his children are forbidden to know, has for their fancy a morbid fascination which makes its very wickedness alluring. Thoughts which to a healthy mind would be revolting and almost inconceivable, grow up within them like the vegetation of some foul, stagnant pool. Their ill-regulated passions gain in reactive force in proportion to the unnatural compression of every childish, harmless instinct. And what is the end? The daughter finds some means of escaping this unbearable thraldom, and she leaves her home; first, because any life seems to her better than her home-life; and secondly, because she will not seek advice in the step she takes so precipitately, and in her dazzled sight there is nothing but beauty, and perfection, and untold happiness in the tinsel object of her choice. And the son of such a father fares no better in after life; although society, very unfairly I think, gives him more chances of redeeming his character than it gives to his erring sister. He had never been taught the use of money, and he comes suddenly into its possession. His mind had for a long time dwelt on the life of unrestrained pleasure that wealth might secure. He is now his own master, and the master of a liberal income, earned by the hard labour of a self-denying father. How is that income spent? What is the result of that father’s harsh training? Has it profited this child of his, either for the present world or for the next? To answer these questions, if indeed an answer be necessary, one scene in his after life is sufficient. He is at a gambling table with three or four others. The dice-box is rattling from hand to hand, and large sums of money are constantly changing owners. He plays recklessly and with varying fortune, until maddened with impatience and wine, as well as with the savage desire to grow rich by the ruin of others, he risks all his fortune on one throw. He risks all and loses, and he goes out into the deserted streets, in the bleak gray morning, a ruined spendthrift. And yet his is no uncommon or exceptional end: it is rather the natural result of the faulty training of his youth, and of the mistaken parental love that would unnaturally compress the springs of life, and would expect no rebound as soon as the compression was removed.

Let us now visit one other typical home before we turn to the consideration of a different part of this subject. Here is a family given up to a worldly, unchristian, money-making life. There is no undue severity on the one hand, or foolish indulgence exercised on the other. All work in harmony together. The sons are apprenticed to their father, or to some one in his business, and are in every way treated as apprentices: the daughters too are at a trade, and they are regarded simply as boarders under the parental roof. They bring home their wages on Saturday night, and hand part of them over to the common fund. On Sundays and national holidays, they do what they please, go where they please, come home when they please. So too with the sons, except that they never spend their evenings at home. It would be too much of a bore to sit there with their mother and sisters; so they have their club to go to, as their father has his, and they go to it regularly, returning at an appointed time for supper. There is no religion in this family worth mentioning. They may go to Church as a matter of form, but no act of their daily lives is ever influenced or spiritualized by motives of Christian faith or charity. There is an esprit de corps, and a common feeling of respectability as well as of self-respect among them, that keep them from low excesses, and cause them to stand high in the good opinion of their neighbours. You will look in vain, however, for the place that Jesus Christ holds in that home; and yet, I venture to say, that it is in all essential characteristics the type of very many homes around and among ourselves. Of course, I need not remark, that the parents of such a home show no true love for their children, by bringing them up as they do, like respectable pagans. Since the promulgation of Christianity, there is a personal obligation incumbent on every human being to know Jesus Christ and His teaching, and to conform his life to it. Parents, then, who live and suffer their families to live, unchristian lives, incur a double guilt, and, if they do not repent, and repair as far as they can the injury they have done their children, they will in the life of eternity most assuredly receive a double punishment. Yet when one of them is told of this, he grows impatient, and probably undertakes to prove that he is leading an eminently Christian life, and that he himself knows best what manner of life he ought to lead, and that every morally good man is a Christian, though he never practise any religious observance. What reply is to be made to such a one? I have generally found it useful to recommend him to imagine himself at the point of death, still holding these unchristian opinions, and I ask him to say whether he will probably hold to them with the same tenacity then, as he holds to them and acts on them now. If he answer with warmth that he will—why should he not; I try to bring to his mind some expressions of Sacred Scripture which from his view of a Christian life must seem altogether unaccountable. “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto life everlasting, which the Son of man will give you.” “Lay not up to yourselves treasures on earth.” “But lay up to yourselves treasures in Heaven.” “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things will be added unto you.” “And He spoke also a parable to them, that we ought always to pray, and not to faint.” These texts and several others of a like import that might be adduced, may produce no immediate change in the parent of whom I have been speaking; but they will dwell in his mind, and they will haunt it, like some supernatural shadow, and they may one day lead to his conversion.

Parental love, then, in its true Christian form, is not shown in undue indulgence or harsh severity towards children, neither is it to be found in those homes where religion is practically ignored, and the bond of union is wholly of earth. Now from these three negative marks we may see what should be the essential characteristics distinguishing true and perfect parental love from that which is false and imperfect. First of all, parental love should be well-ordered. It should regard the eternal interests of the child’s soul above the interests of its temporal life, making the latter wholly secondary and subsidiary to the former. In the second place, it should be inflexible in the determination of securing those eternal interests. Flesh and blood, human affection, natural tenderness, and every other earthly consideration should have no power whatever to turn the parent aside from the primary end of his parental duty: which is, to sanctify his child and thereby secure its eternal happiness. The third characteristic of perfect parental love is its spirituality. The child should be loved for God and in God. Some mothers love their children with a love they should give to God alone. I do not say this to depreciate the ordinary, natural love they give to them; but to caution them against that morbid, all-absorbing, idolatrous, attachment sometimes witnessed especially in young mothers towards their first-born. I have had the pain of hearing God knowingly blasphemed on one occasion by a mother of this class; because her only child had been taken from her by death. God is jealous even of a mother’s love for her child, when it becomes excessive and usurps the place which is His by right in every human heart.

Although many useful practical observations might be made on each of these characteristics, I shall not weary your attention, dear reader, by making more than one. This regards the duty of correction, a duty which is the necessary adjunct of that inflexibility of purpose which I have mentioned just above, and which requires that parents should use every means in their power, for the one great object they ought to have in view regarding their children; namely, the sanctification and perfection of their souls. Some secular educationists tell us, that the old idea of correction is erroneous. It is enough, they say, to show the child that what it does is inconvenient, ignoble, mean, despicable. Make it understand this, and it is sure to correct itself. This theory is the natural outcome of that rebellion against authority which characterizes modern thought. It should therefore be carefully guarded against. And besides, it has injurious consequences for the child, which is sure to take its idea of all human authority, if not of divine authority also, from that exercised over it by its parents. If the child find correction to consist merely in showing it what to do and the reasonableness of doing it, it will naturally expect in after life that every species of authority shall first recommend itself to the understanding and judgment before it be recognised as a binding power. I think that not even the authority of God, expressed in His commandments, will be exempted: these will be measured by the idea conceived of their utility and reasonableness; and so, the first principle of rationalism will be admitted; namely, that all things divine and human are to be submitted to the sovereign judgment of human reason. But even though we suppose the laws of God to be exempted, those of the Church are sure not to be exempted. Ecclesiastical authority, which from its very nature, is absolute and unrepresentative, will be looked on with distrust, its action will be criticized and censured freely; and its enactments will be received or rejected as they seem rational or irrational to the private judgment of the individual. The Catholic Church with her divine mission to teach the world, and to guide and rule the consciences of men has never tolerated such insubordination to her authority. Rather than do so, she has cast out whole kingdoms from her communion, giving thereby a proof to the world, if it would but reason with candour, that a visible power like hers, capable of such energy and strength, such unity of purpose, such heroism in defence of a sacred principle, must be sustained by the divine sanction and support.

I consider it, then, a matter of great importance, that parents should give their children a true idea of what authority is, and of the necessity and justice of submitting to it absolutely, when it does not command something evidently sinful, in the manner in which they correct their children and exercise their authority. The punishment of children is a disagreeable and an unpopular subject. It is, however, as I have already implied, essentially connected with the parental love which forms the subject of this chapter, and therefore I am committed to speak of it in the interest of those whom I would instruct.

The first remark I have to make on this subject is, that before correcting a child, its fault should be carefully examined, especially as to its nature, and motive. Many faults committed by children have no malice in them. They arise from carelessness or inadvertence; and it would be the height of unreasonableness to punish them for a want of judgment and forethought to which even grown up persons are liable. Carelessness, however, when it seems to be growing into a habit, ought to be corrected by some privation connected with the matter in which it is displayed. If a child, for instance, break its toys, as it is very apt to do, there should be no haste in buying new ones: if it soil its clothes by walking through the mire, it should be deprived of the opportunity of walking there again until it has learned the wisdom of being careful. When the fault, however, arises from pure accident or inadvertence, it should never be corrected, nor, I think, even chidden. A sense of injustice is evoked in a child’s mind by being beaten or scolded for what it could not really prevent. It is of course provoking to have the cups broken, chairs upset, windows smashed, &c.; but you yourself may do any of these things without deserving blame; and if you are blamed, you very naturally urge in excuse that you did not mean it. Well, it is only right that you should excuse your child on the same plea with which you defend yourself.

But there are other faults committed by children, knowingly and deliberately, which ought to be checked by corporal chastisement, proportioned to the malice displayed in them. Some arise from the growing passions, and are not characterized by much forethought or premeditation. Others show design and cunning, as well as a deliberate violation of conscience. Then again some occur only at rare intervals; while others are habitual or are becoming so. I shall not undertake to say what punishment should be inflicted for each of these classes of deliberate faults: I give them here merely to show parents in a general way how they should examine into them before they undertake to correct them.

I have now to say a word on the temper with which correction ought to be administered. The actuating motive being the love of the child’s true welfare, passion or anger should never influence the parent in the discharge of this duty. This recommendation is often repeated, and yet very few act on it. Hence corrections are, I believe, generally in excess of the fault committed; and the consequence is, that the child thinks itself treated harshly and cruelly, and becomes hardened against those who treated it so. I would also recommend parents after correcting their children not to show themselves foolishly anxious to become reconciled to them, or, as it is said, “to make it up” with them. It is much better that the child should, by being left in disgrace for some little time, be brought to see and reflect on its fault and to make the first advances towards complete pardon. I need not add that pardon, when asked, ought to be readily granted.

And now, in concluding this chapter, let me impress on parents the vitally important truth, that it is only from Heaven, through the frequent and fervent reception of the Sacraments, and through earnest and constant prayer, that they can obtain perfect Christian love for their children. Let them use these means, and they may rest secure in the assurance that God’s choicest and most powerful graces will not be wanting to them in the discharge of their arduous duties.