“There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots; the other is wings.”
–Hodding Carter
Children are gifts from God to the world. Parents have custodial rights over the children, and the responsibility to love them, nurture them and prepare them for lives of their own when they become adults. Parents do not own their children, and should not think of them as possessions. Receiving custody of the children from the time of their birth until they reach adulthood is quite a gift, as any loving parent can tell you. During those childhood years, a relationship develops between the child and the parents. It is the nature and quality of that relationship during the childhood years that determines what kind of parent/child relationship will exist when the children become adults.
Children who grow up in a loving environment will usually want to have a close relationship with their parents for the rest of their lives. Children who are abused, either physically or mentally, during childhood often break away from the family unit once they reach the legal age of adulthood.
There is much that parents can do to provide rich and rewarding lives for themselves and their children while at the same time helping the children to prepare for lives of their own. Some parents do a wonderful job of raising their children, which results in a lifelong, loving bond between the two generations. Others try to manipulate and control their children throughout childhood, then refuse to relinquish control when the children grow up. Such parents indoctrinate their children and try to control their adult lives. That is just plain wrong. God gives each of us one life, and one life only. The life of an individual belongs to that individual from the day he or she is born. Parents are given legal authority over the children until the children legally become adults, but the parents never own the children or the children’s lives.
Sometimes people who are disappointed at the way their own lives turned out try to get a second chance at life by living out their dreams through their children. They pressure their children to enter career fields of the parents’ choosing, and to marry only someone who has the parents’ approval. The proper role of the parent is to help their children achieve their own dreams, not the parents’ dreams. Some parents try to make their children feel guilty and feel a responsibility to pay the parent back for raising them. Children don’t ask to be born, and thus they do not become indebted to their parents for raising them. Parents were once children themselves, who had to be cared for by their parents. And when children marry and have children of their own, they will have the responsibility of raising their own children.
The proper role of parents is to provide their children with both solid roots to the past and strong wings with which to find their own destiny in the world. Hopefully, parents will also give their children lots of love, both when they are children and when they are adults. That love will serve as the glue to hold the generations together. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents.”
Think about it.
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Copyright 2025
Allen W. Smith
