OBEDIENCE
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
conditions are 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 the
adolescent 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 morals nor 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 disobedience to 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 the crown 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 when deemed 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 authority which 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 its influence 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 the shoulders 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.