p. 41Good Example

It is one of your most important and indispensable obligations to give a good example to your children. Parents frequently complain of the want of obedience and submission on the part of their children. They would have fewer occasions of complaint if their own conduct was always exemplary. Unfortunately, not all parents so conduct themselves as to inspire their offspring with respect, veneration, and unbounded confidence. Many parents even undo at home what has been accomplished by the good education given in Catholic schools.

How many parents are selfish, untruthful, dishonest, intemperate, and devoid of all patience, meekness, and charity! They break the laws of abstinence, neglect their prayers, holy Mass, the hearing of the word of God, the reception of the sacraments, the reading of good books and Catholic papers, and, nevertheless, they expect their children to be models of virtue. But, says St. Paul, we can reap only what we have sown.

In many cases the father is fond neither of his home nor of his family, and the mother shows neither respect nor submission towards the father. These, and sometimes far worse things, cause the children to lose all respect for their parents, and even to despise them. It were better for such parents that a millstone were hung about their necks and that they were thus cast into the deep sea, than that they should scandalize their little ones by breaking the divine commandments and neglecting their religious duties.

Example is more powerful than precept. It is therefore your sacred obligation so to conduct yourselves that your children may be able to look up to you as models both in the social life and in the practice of the Christian virtues. They should be able to discover in you sufficient grounds for believing that there is nobody in the world so industrious, so temperate, so upright, so truthful, so virtuous, and so worthy of their respect and confidence as their own dear father and mother. But your children, who, in their childhood, are more acute than they are supposed to be, must actually perceive in you good reasons for forming so exalted an opinion of you. Your conduct ought, then, to be such as to win and deserve their good opinion and esteem, and convince them that you really are their worthy models, their best friends, their most disinterested advisers, in whom they may place all confidence, to whom they may securely and advantageously intrust all their most hidden secrets, and whose advice they may safely ask and follow. Strive always to act in such a manner that your children may so revere and cherish you as never to p. 42undertake anything of importance without your consent, and to be always ready to make any sacrifice rather than displease or disappoint you, or cause you pain.