CHAPTER VIOBEDIENCE
THERE hangs in the bedroom of the children of a certain devout mother a large frame which contains, in illuminated letters, the twentieth verse of the third chapter of Paul’s “Epistle to the Colossians”: “Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well pleasing to the Lord.” In commenting on this visual injunction she said: “Obedience is the chief cornerstone of child-training and I have thus endeavored to fix it in the memories of my children for all time.” The commandment—“Honor thy father and thy mother”—is just as real and vital today as it was in the time of Moses, although present-day home conditionsare not always conducive to its observance.
Too many children of the present, especially during adolescence, regard their parents with an attitude of tolerant sufferance—as necessary evils to be endured by them but exhibiting little patience in their toleration. They consider them old-fogy, behind the times, uncomprehending and unsympathetic with their interests, plans, and aspirations. Father is esteemed largely in proportion to his success as a producer; while mother is valued in accordance with her contributions to their physical comfort; and this imperfect recognition of parental aid comprises the sum total of their gratitude; for no acknowledgment is ever made of their obligation for the years of watchfulness of health or solicitude for morals or cultivation of the spiritual life. This attitude is due partly to the psychological unbalance of theadolescent and partly to the slovenly, inconsistent, and wishy-washy methods of government used by the parent, which inspire in the youth not only disobedience but contempt for parental authority which is as vacillating as a weather cock. Without obedience the child drifts aimlessly and develops a character as unstable as the parental system of training is fluctuating. Confirmed cases of juvenile disobedience can be traced, almost without exception, to the jellyfish methods of spineless parents. An increase in rigidity of parental backbone will result in a corresponding increase in filial obedience.
Obedience is the fundamental law of child-training and upon it the development of future character is predicated. Obedience in children is too frequently regarded by parents as the chief end of training, and not as the means to the end, which is character. The young child has neither code of moralsnor a standard of ethics, but is a rule unto himself, propelled only by impulses of selfish interest. The chief objective of child-training is the cultivation and fixation of a high moral code which produces character. The secondary objectives are the conservation of health and discipline of the intellectual faculties, the latter including the communication of knowledge.
Parental prohibitions of undesirable acts, as well as suggestions of wished-for conduct, should be so uniform, constant, and consistent that the child will be able to deduce from them what his course of conduct should be when confronted in the future with the desire to do or not to do an act of similar nature. It is thus that he builds up his standard of conduct and formulates his code of morals. Trivial objections to acts or conduct, not grounded in reason and justice, inspire disrespect for parents and disobedienceto their authority, and befog the moral vision of childhood. If the child is to respect parental authority, he must have been so habituated to obedience by the parental system of government that he will obey easily and involuntarily from force of habit. Habit is the tendency to do naturally, easily, and with growing certainty those things which we are accustomed by constant repetition to do. The habit of obedience is formed most easily in early childhood and when obedience becomes crystallized into habit, a strong foundation has been laid for the building of strong character.
Obedience is cultivated by consistency in parental commands which invariably must be founded on reason and justice and enforced with a firmness of will which cannot be swayed by sentimental considerations of leniency. Consistency is a jewel which shines nowhere so brightly as in thecrown of child-training, but it must be mounted in resolute adherence to fixed ideals of character-culture. Obedience should be distinguished from unwilling submission to a superior force. The former implies subjection of the will and actions to rightful restraint and not servile submission to authority which is exercised unjustly. The founders of our republic were obedient to the highest promptings of liberty and justice when they revolted against the many acts of injustice imposed by the mother country. Likewise the obedience of a child can be enforced only through parental commands which are founded on justice and reason; and we should even go a step farther and convince him that they are just and reasonable. Here is a typical case: A boy requested permission of his mother to go swimming—as boys are wont to do.
She replied, “No! you may not go!”
“But why not, mother?” was the natural and reasonable inquiry of her son.
“Just because I don’t want you to go,” was the unconvincing answer.
“Ah! that’s no reason, mother. Why can’t I go?”
“Because I have said no! Now, that settles it!” And with this answer she concluded the colloquy.
Defeated and depressed, but unconvinced, the boy shuffled sullenly around the corner of the house and out behind the barn where he raged and rebelled at the autocratic exercise of the authority of which he had been the victim, until present desire overcame the fear of future punishment and soon the old swimming hole resounded with the splash of another lithe, young body. His disobedience was the logical sequence of an attitude which violated both the principles of psychology and the dictates of reason and justice.If the mother had assigned any reasonable excuse for withholding her permission she would have measurably satisfied her son’s sense of fairness and justice, however reluctantly his acquiescence, prompted by the denial of personal pleasure, may have been given. Instead, she unconsciously chose a course which planted the seed of disobedience and evasion whose ultimate fruition might even be rebellion against all maternal authority, and following that—delinquency.
The boy is a rational human being, however much we may ignore his capacity for reason, and the continued violation of his standards of right and justice will ultimately destroy those standards and compel him to adopt a code based on expediency instead of morals. Laws are obeyed by adults in the proportion that they are supported by public opinion as being just and reasonable; and, conversely, they are disobeyed whendeemed unjustly restrictive or violative of personal rights. Witness the disregard for sumptuary laws in certain local communities which entertain convictions against the abridgment of their so-called personal liberties, where such laws have been imposed by the legislative enactment of a state the majority of whose voters favor prohibition. Some of our reputedly good citizens evade the payment of a large part of the taxes imposed on them by law for the reason that they believe the tax laws to be inequitable and unjust in placing too great a burden on one class, with a corresponding exemption to another class.
From general observation, as well as from the records of our penal courts, we may deduce the proposition that obedience to statute by normal men rests largely on their belief in the justice of law and the reasonableness of the exercise of the authoritywhich is predicated on such law. Law, in the domain of childhood, is parental command; and even though the child’s sense of justice may not be as discriminating as that of the parent, nevertheless it is strong enough and deep enough to impel him to resist, by evasion, subterfuge, deceit, or other means at hand, those parental laws which he believes to be founded on mere caprice or positive injustice. We must promulgate reasonable commands if we are to expect reasonable compliance with them, and we shall suffer no loss of dignity by frankly explaining to our children the reasons which underlie our mandates. Although the child may be unable at all times to follow our line of reasoning, or to agree wholly with our conclusions, he will, at any rate, be convinced that our orders do not emanate from capricious fancy, but have a semblance of justice as their basis.
Even paternal example is not without itsinfluence on the keenly observing mind of youth. The seventeen-year-old son of a neighbor was detected smoking a cigarette the day following the direct injunction of his father that he should not do so. When reproved by his father for disobedience, the son retorted: “Well, dad, why don’t you obey the law? You shot ducks out of season.”
The delinquent children who flow in a steady stream through our juvenile courts are undisciplined, self-willed, and rebellious against authority and are governed only by impulse which is as spasmodic as their conduct is abnormal. Obedience has never found a place in the poor moral equipment with which they are endowed. Practically every moral derelict stranded on the human scrap-pile can trace his failure in life to his disobedience in childhood; and the fault is not wholly his own but rests largely on theshoulders of parents who failed to compel obedience in the early years when compulsion was possible through firm and just regulation.
The boy who is early indoctrinated in obedience becomes plastic material ready to be shaped, through training, in the stature of a man of fine moral quality.