Parents who fail to teach obedience to their children, if [their] homes do not develop obedience society will demand it and get it. It is therefore better for the home, with its kindliness, sympathy and understanding to train the child in obedience rather than callously to leave him to the brutal and unsympathetic discipline that society will impose if the home has not already fulfilled its obligation. -David O. McKay, The Responsibility of Parents to Their Children, p. 3.
But whatever the era, whatever the times, one thing will never change: Fathers and mothers, if you have children, they must come first. You must read to your children and you must hug your children and you must love your children. Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not on what happens in the White House but on what happens inside your house. -Barbara Bush, Washington Post, 2 June 1990, p. 2.
Before citing some challenges to family life, consider, first, brothers and sisters, how living without God in the world brings a functional lack of consistent perspective. If there were no eternal truths, to what principles would mortals look for guidance? If not accountable to God, to whom are we ultimately accountable? Furthermore, if nothing is ever really wrong, then no one is ever really responsible. If there are no fixed boundaries, then there cannot be any excesses. Why should we be surprised, then, at so many disturbing outcomes, including the lack of community, when every man does that which is “right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6; Judg. 21:25) and seeks not the righteousness of the Lord but instead walks “in his own way”? (D&C 1:16). Reflect, for instance, on how inoperative the Ten Commandments are in many lives. Today, killing, stealing, and bearing false witness still carry some social stigma and legal sanction, but sanction is effectively gone regarding sexual immorality, the Sabbath day, honoring fathers and mothers, and the taking of the name of the Lord in vain. Some of this decline represents the bitter harvest of ethical relativism, the philosophy of choice of many, reflecting no fixed, divine truths but merely the mores of the moment. No wonder Ortega y Gasset wisely warned, “If truth does not exist, relativism cannot take itself seriously.” -Neal A. Maxwell, Take Especial Care of Your Family, April 1994
We need to make our homes a place of refuge from the storm, which is increasing in intensity all about us. Even if the smallest openings are left unattended, negative influences can penetrate the very walls of our homes. -L. Tom Perry, The Importance of Family, April 2003
Neal A. Maxwell, Take Especial Care of Your Family, April 1994
James E. Faust, The Greatest Challenge in the World - Good Parenting, October 1990
Scriptures:
Take especial care of your family. -Doctrine & Covenants126:3
So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. -Romans 14:12, Holy Bible
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. -Revelations 20:12, Holy Bible
And again, inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents. And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord. -Doctrine & Covenants 68:25
Definitions:
accountable - subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible to someone or for some action; answerable.
discharge - deliver, unload, send forth,
obligations - something by which a person is bound or obliged to do certain things, and which arises out of a sense of duty or results from custom, law, etc. Synonyms: responsibility, contract, covenant.
-Dictionary.com
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