The Greatest Challenge in the World - Good Parenting ~ Part One

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening,

this post should take approximately five minutes to read from start to finish.

Feel free to ask yourself, and answer the following simple questions either now or in your own time. What would be the greatest challenge in the world? Have you ever thought about good parenting is the greatest challenge in the world? 

This post focuses on October 1990 General Conference talk, and it is called "The Greatest Challenge in the World - Good Parenting" by James E. Faust. This post is part one, I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the talk recently, and I hope you would be able to learn something new as you read throughout this post.

Brother Faust mentioned the following; 

"..., I ask for your faith and prayers this afternoon as I feel moved upon to discuss a subject which I have chosen to call the greatest challenge in the world. It has to do with the privilege and responsibility of being good parents. ... Even so, the most conscientious parents feel that they may have made some mistakes. ... The Lord has directed, “Bring up your children in light and truth.” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:40.) ... Being a father or a mother is not only a great challenge, it is a divine calling. It is an effort requiring consecration. 

... While few human challenges are greater than that of being good parents, few opportunities offer greater potential for joy. Surely no more important work is to be done in this world than preparing our children to be God-fearing, happy, honorable, and productive. Parents will find no more fulfilling happiness than to have their children honor them and their teachings. It is the glory of parenthood.

... In my opinion, the teaching, rearing, and training of children requires more intelligence, intuitive understanding, humility, strength, wisdom, spirituality, perseverance, and hard work than any other challenge we might have in life. ... To have successful homes, values must be taught, and there must be rules, there must be standards, and there must be absolutes. Many societies give parents very little support in teaching and honoring moral values. 

... As societies as a whole have decayed and lost their moral identity and so many homes are broken, the best hope is to turn greater attention and effort to the teaching of the next generation - our children. In order to do this, we must first reinforce the primary teachers of children. ... Somehow, some way, we must try harder to make our homes stronger ... Harmony, happiness, peace, and love in the home can help give children the required inner strength to cope with life’s challenges. 

"When life gets harder, challenge yourself to be stronger."

Barbara Bush, wife of President George Bush, a few months ago said to the graduates of Wellesley College: “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.” (Washington Post, 2 June 1990)

To be a good father and mother requires that the parents defer many of their own needs and desires in favor of the needs of their children. As a consequence of this sacrifice, conscientious parents develop a nobility of character and learn to put into practice the selfless truths taught by the Savior Himself.

I have the greatest respect for single parents who struggle and sacrifice, trying against almost superhuman odds to hold the family together. They should be honored and helped in their heroic efforts. But any mother’s or father’s task is much easier where there are two functioning parents in the home. Children often challenge and tax the strength and wisdom of both parents.

... I wonder if having casual and infrequent family home evening will be enough in the future to fortify our children with sufficient moral strength. In the future, infrequent family scripture study may be inadequate to arm our children with the virtue necessary to withstand the moral decay of the environment in which they will live. Where in the world will the children learn chastity, integrity, honesty, and basic human decency if not at home? These values will, of course, be reinforced at church, but parental teaching is more constant.

When parents try to teach their children to avoid danger, it is no answer for parents to say to their children, “We are experienced and wise in the ways of the world, and we can get closer to the edge of the cliff than you.” ... If children are expected to be honest, parents must be honest. If children are expected to be virtuous, parents must be virtuous. If you expect your children to be honorable, you must be honorable."

If you have read this far, quick question to ask and answer the following; would you believe this post marks 150th blog post?

Stay Tuned until next time.