On Books       On Parenting On Parenting The Teacher Lord, who am I to teach the way To little children day by day, So prone myself to go astray? I teach them knowledge, but I know How faint they flicker and how low The candles of my knowledge glow. I teach them power to will and do, But only now to learn anew My own great weakness thru and thru. I teach them love for all mankind And all God’s creatures, but I find My love comes lagging far behind. Lord, if their guide I still must be, Oh, let the little children see The teacher leaning hard on Thee. Leslie Pinckney Hill * * * A boy has two jobs. One is just being a boy. The other is growing up to be a man. Herbert Hoover * * * Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them. Lady Bird Johnson * * * This is my mission field: a child's heart Where endless thoughts and actions start, For in that heart through word and deed I plant and water sacred seed. Marcia Baldon * * * The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom. Henry Ward Beecher * * * I Saw Tomorrow I saw tomorrow marching by On little children's feet; Within their forms and faces read Her prophecy complete. I saw tomorrow look at me From little children's eyes, And thought how carefully we'd teach If we were really wise. Author Unknown * * * Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold. Beethoven * * * To bring the human race, family by family, child by child, out of the savage and inhuman desolation where He is not, into the light and warmth and comfort of the presence of God, is, no doubt, the chief thing we have to do in the world. Charlotte Mason * * * The Sculptor's Opportunity I took a piece of common clay And idly fashioned it one day. And as my fingers pressed it, still It moved and yielded to my will. I came again when days were past; The bit of clay was hard at last. The form I gave it still it bore, And I could fashion it no more! I took a piece of living clay, And gently pressed it day by day, And moulded with my power and art A young child's soft and yielding heart. I came again when years had gone; It was a man I looked upon. He still that early impress bore, And I could fashion it no more! Author Unknown * * * Every home is a brick in the great wall of decent living that men erect over and over again as a bulwark against the perpetual flooding in of evil. Elizabeth Goudge * * * Homes are the building blocks of civilization. Arnold Toynbee * * * If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder... he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share in it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in. Rachel Carson * * * This is a Home Where Children Live You may not find things all in place, Friend, when you enter here, But, we're a home where children live, We hold them very dear. And you may find small fingerprints, And smudges on the wall, When the kids are gone, we'll clean them up, Right now we're playing ball. For there's one thing of which we're sure, These children are on loan. One day they're always underfoot, Next thing you know, they're gone. That's when we'll have a well-kept house, When they're off on their own. Right now, this is where children live, A loved and lived-in home. Author Unknown * * * We can do no great things; only small things with great love. Mother Teresa * * * Do you think you love your children better than He who made them? Is not your love what it is because He put it into your heart first? Have you not often been cross with them? Sometimes unjust to them? Whence came the returning love that rose from unknown depths of your being, and swept away the anger and the injustice? You did not create that love. Probably you were not good enough to send for it by prayer. But it came. God sent it. He makes you love your children. George Macdonald * * * Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. James Baldwin * * * The soul of a child is the loveliest flower That grows in the garden of God, Its climb is from weakness to knowledge and power, To the sky from the clay and the clod. To beauty and sweetness it grows under care, Neglected, 'tis ragged and wild. 'Tis a plant that is tender, but wondrously rare, The sweet, wistful soul of a child. Be tender, O Gardener, and give it its share Of moisture, of warmth, and of light, And let it not lack for painstaking care To protect it from frost and from blight. A glad day will come when its bloom shall unfold It will seem that an angel has smiled, Reflecting a beauty and sweetness untold In the sensitive soul of a child. Author Unknown * * * When wings are grown, birds and children fly away. Chinese proverb * * * The children bring us laughter, and the children bring us tears; They string out joys, like jewels bright, upon the thread of years; They bring the bitterest cares we know, their mother's sharpest pain, Then smile our world to loveliness, like sunshine after rain. Edgar Guest * * * A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit. Erasmus * * * It is my view that our society can be no more stable than the foundation of individual family units upon which it rests. Our government, our institutions, our schools... indeed, our way of life are dependent on healthy marriages and loyalty to the vulnerable little children around our feet. James C. Dobson * * * You are the trip I did not take; You are the pearls I cannot buy; You are my blue Italian lake; You are my piece of foreign sky. Anne Campbell * * * Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life. Sophocles * * * Could I climb to the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and proclaim: "Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrape every stone to gather wealth, and take so little care of your children to whom one day you must relinquish it all?" Socrates * * * If I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that. Goethe * * * I am not in doubt as to how my own Christian experience began. The altar before which I knelt first was my mother's knee. L. D. Weatherhead * * * A mother can read all the child-rearing books and can subscribe to any theory of parenting, but what gets passed along to her children is something far more intimate and mysterious than anything contained therein. What gets passed along is her character, and it enters into her kids as surely and as inexorably as water flows from a fuller vessel into a less-full one. Laurence Shames * * * As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live. Pope John Paul II * * * The family is the school of duties... founded on love. Felix Adler * * * The education of children for God is the most important business done on earth. It is the one business for which the earth exists. To it all politics, all wars, all literature, all money-making, ought to be subordinated; and every parent especially ought to feel, every hour of the day, that, next to making his own calling and election sure, this is the end for which he is kept alive by God -- this is his task on earth. R. L. Dabney * * * The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home. Confucius * * * Parenting is caring for souls that will live forever, and all of our daily work is part of that grand task. Anonymous * * * No man is poor who had a godly mother. Abraham Lincoln * * * I am eternally grateful to my mother for many things, but one of the most enduring blessings she brought into my life was to teach me the Catechism at the age of ten that "God is Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." That definition of God has been with me all my life. Billy Graham * * * The process of shaping the child ... shapes also the mother herself. Reverence for her sacred burden calls her to all that is pure and good, that she may teach primarily by her own humble, daily example. Elisabeth Elliot * * * The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. John Lubbock * * * The education of children for God is the most important business done on earth. It is the one business for which the earth exists. To it all politics, all war, all literature, all money-making, ought to be subordinated; and every parent especially ought to feel, every hour of the day, that, next to making his own calling and election sure, this is the end for which he is kept alive by God -- this is his task on earth. R.L Dabney * * * Our Teaching Home The Father has blessed me with many things, And one of the dearest to me Is the gift of helping His children To be all that God wants them to be. Our family may seem a bit different When compared to the norms of today, But in looking at Jesus' example, I believe that it should be that way. Our children are really just children, Not unlike many others you know, WIth laughter and tears, good times and bad, Just living and learning to grow. Their schoolroom is often our kitchen, And we don't own a big yellow bus. There are no goodbyes every morning at eight For our home brings the teaching to us. Indeed, our Lord has commanded That we teach His children His way, And so we are striving to impress upon them His statutes and precepts each day. For I want what they learn to stay with them Wherever they one day might roam. That's why, my friend, you will find me Teaching my children at home. I have friends who have made other choices For the very same reasons I've shared. And the love that they feel for their children Is truly no less when compared. For the task of parents is choosing The way that is best for their own, And it surely will be our devotion Shining through when our children are grown. Lisa Easterling Many, many thanks go to my good friend Lauri for creating the beautiful handmade graphic for this page!