By many statistical measures, families worldwide are under tremendous pressures. Economic forces, political unrest and even the weather can disrupt modern family life and turn the most stable of homes into disarray. We may not be able to change some of the external pressures affecting our families, but within the walls of our home we ought to be able to foster love, caring and respect for one another.
Families are the core unit of society. In the United States, National Family Week — the fourth week of November — recognizes "the role of families as the building blocks of society" and "encourages the support of healthy family life and family values." Many well-intentioned people look at today's societal problems and believe that they can be solved only by government-sanctioned programs or after-school activities.
What is missing in these "solutions" is simply letting parents do their jobs. Parents do make a difference, and children — if treated with love, honor and respect — can grow into good citizens and eventually into good parents themselves. Children need no better examples of leadership than their own parents — if their parents will fulfill their responsibilities. When parents, working together, create an atmosphere of love, learning and spirituality in the home, the external pressures on our families are better controlled. Then as families work together on shared goals and values, they can reach out to others to enrich the communities in which they live.
The scriptures are filled with counsel for both parents and children, if we would but heed it. Parents are warned to provide for their children's well being, to teach and train them up in the ways of God, to love, respect and nurture them. Children are commanded to honor their parents, to obey and submit to parents' righteous counsel. These responsibilities, passed down from one generation to the next, ensure both temporal and spiritual growth. We are, after all, all children of God.
In their Proclamation on the Family, the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles warned that the disintegration of the family "will bring upon individuals, communities and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets. Individuals who fail to fulfill family responsibilities will one day stand accountable before God" for their actions or inactions, as the case may be.
The proclamation urges parents to devote "their best efforts" to the teaching and rearing of their children in gospel principles which will keep them close to the Church. "The home," the brethren declare, "is the basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place or fulfill its essential functions in carrying forward this God-given responsibility."
If parents are absent, to whom do children turn for guidance? Often they turn to their peers or to people they see in the media or elsewhere. Do these individuals reflect the types of values we wish to instill in our children?
Speaking in Salt Lake City recently, retired General Colin Powell said, "Young people need more responsible, caring loving adults in their lives. They need a greater number of safe places, so young people aren't left at home watching the trash-talk television shows and believing behavior exhibited there is right.
"We can put our children in a better environment," he declared. "Children need to know adults have expectations for them. They need skills to succeed in an increasingly complex world. And children need the opportunity to serve," he said, encouraging parents to involve their children in activities that help others such as tutoring a younger child, working in hospice care or donating to some other worthwhile effort.
A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Powell said, that having grown up in the Bronx, N.Y., he was an at-risk child, but he succeeded because his parents, family and the community cared. (Deseret News, Oct. 27, 1999.)
Today, parents expect much from their children, but may not heed the biblical counsel: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6.)
President Gordon B. Hinckley remarked at the last General Conference, "Given what we have and what we know, we ought to be a better people than we are. We ought to be more Christlike, more forgiving, more helpful and considerate to all around us." (Sunday morning address.)
Love and leadership seem to be the missing elements as the modern family moves toward the 21st century. God bless those parents who can discipline, teach, direct and love children, with spiritual guidance and insight. They are the true champions of family values.
