The Hand that Rocks the Cradle

“The hand that rocks the cradle rules a nation”, the mother is very important to the development of the character of the child in their early years. The first 2 years of a child’s life shape their attitude for the rest of their life. Whatever happens in the first two years determines the entire rest of their lives.

However, children who are raised without a father tend to have many more problems in their years later in life. Fathers are the balance between tenderness and diligence. The mothers tend to be too tender at times when the child needs a stronger hand to teach them to be diligent. I have seen the reverse of this too when the fathers were far too lenient and the mothers tougher, but generally, it is the women who pamper their children and the fathers who are not taking a role at all, leaving the children frustrated and undisciplined.

Both parents are necessary for the raising of Children. We see far more overly sensitive and immature men than in past generations because they have been raised by single mothers. The women are also immature in our children's generation.

Men have become more immature at later ages now because of the mothers who do not take a strong enough hand and who indulge their children, not enough rules and not enough hardship to cause the children to be able to handle difficult things. Adult children are woefully emotionally immature now.

In our day mothers tend to want to bail their children out of everything that is a little uncomfortable, they gush over feelings causing the children to focus almost entirely on themselves and their feelings rather than learning to analyze matters to learn good lessons.

When we were a children if we got in trouble at school we would get disciplined at home for it. Now the parents go to the school and defend their out-of-control child railing against the teachers. The children of these parents learn that being unruly works for them.

As one person once said; “we are not raising children, we are raising men and women.” When we say things like “let them be children” we are causing them to act like children all their lives. What children need is parents who will train them from the beginning of their childhood how to be adults. We do this by example and by training. Everything that happens in the child's life is a training time.

Deuteronomy 6:7

"You shall talk of them when you are sitting in your home, and when you are walking along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up."

Everything we do with our children ought to be teaching and training not merely play. What so many people don't understand is that when we do it God's way the child grows up to love learning and become self-motivated to accomplish good things. Playing and pleasure is not very important to the self-motivated person. We love to work, we love to accomplish things that have a purpose or that are lasting. Playing is boring and wasteful of time for those who are self-motivated.

The self-esteem doctrine has caused the entire culture to pamper children to the point of ad-nausea, creating selfish adult people who rage at the slightest suggestion that they need a character adjustment. Correction is treated as a personal attack as the one who needs to learn a lesson fights against the one who cares about them.

Notice that children now have more things to do but are less happy. I believe its because the things they are doing are not producing anything. When someone is finished with their play, the thrill of it is gone, they have to find some more play to stay happy. The self-motivated person who loves projects is never bored and is much happier.

Children who are indulged in feelings and pampered to bail themselves out of trouble instead of facing it to find solutions will be terrible adults and terrible spouses, not to mention entitled members of society. Instead of "giving back" they will take and take and take while fighting anyone who doesn't give them what they want.

We see this mentality represented in the riots that occurred in the present years. People who didn't even know why they were angry burned down five miles of a town in Minnesota in a rageful uproar as they torched five miles of Minneapolis.

James 1:20

"For the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God."

Proverbs 16:32

"Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city."

Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it”

It is not a guarantee that if we obey God our children will too. It is a general principle that generally produces fruit. The child must still believe the parent and heed the words of God to become the adult they should be, it is still their choice.

It has been my experience that many parents did a good job teaching the right things and the children were under control at home, but after leaving home they went the way of the world because their hearts were not changed. They obeyed their parents to keep from being punished or to impress their parents but when they were free from the home their true hearts emerged.

This is the reason I never felt worried about my children leaving my home to be on their own. I knew that the true self would come out good or bad, then we would see who they really were all the while they were under our care. People learn to hide their real selves when under the authority of someone else.

We as parents cannot change our children's hearts. We can only do the right thing, showing them the right way and when they leave home we will see if their heart was what it appeared to be while they were at home.