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| I learned about the Beardsley family, watching the original Yours, Mine, and Ours with Lucille Ball, a movie I liked so much I bought a copy. Later, I read the book about the real family, Who Gets The Drumstick, which I also recommend. |
"You have nothing in this world more precious than your children. When you grow old, when your hair turns white and your body grows weary, when you are prone to sit in a rocker and meditate on the things of your life, nothing will be so important as the question of how your children have turned out. It will not be the money you have made. It will not be the cars you have owned. It will not be the large house in which you live. The searing question that will cross your mind again and again will be, How well have my children done? If the answer is that they have done very well, then your happiness will be complete. If they have done less than well, then no other satisfaction can compensate for your loss." unless otherwise noted all quotes in this post will come from Your Greatest Challenge, Mother and Great Shall be the Peace of Thy Children, Gordon B. Hinckley, October 2000
Since we all have weaknesses and commit sin, I'm not sure I did a stellar job as a mother. This makes me every grateful for repentance. However, my heart was in the right place, doing the best of which I was capable. I tried as hard as I knew how and let nothing stand in the way of my role as a mother and made my family my biggest priority. Cooking meals, welcoming friends, driving and driving, keeping a comfortable clean home, teaching skills, praying and hoping, loving and accepting, arranging for wholesome recreation, and helping with school work, I worked as hard as any corporate executive about 16 hours a day. Hopefully, the following proverb will prove accurate, as I believe it will. "Teach your children when they are very young and small, and never quit. As long as they are in your home, let them be your primary interest."
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6).
Another wise saying reads, “As the twig is bent, so the tree’s inclined” (Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, vol. 2 of The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., “Epistle I: To Sir Richard Temple, Lord Cobham” [1776], 119; line 150).
"Teach [your children] to pray [and study the scriptures]...None of us is wise enough to make it on our own. We need the help, the wisdom, the guidance of the Almighty in reaching those decisions that are so tremendously important in our lives.
"Encourage [your children] to develop good friendships. Open your homes to the friends of your children. If you find they have big appetites, close your eyes and let them eat. Make your children’s friends your friends." Gordon B. Hinckley, October 2000 My SIL was confused, when her oldest child aged 4 or 5 was being influenced by older children in their condominium complex. Asking her mother for advice, she was in turn asked a question. Would you let your child play with a rattle snake? After my SIL related this advice to me, it was always my guiding light. If the child encouraged good in my child, I encouraged the friendship and vice versa. "Warn your children against those with poisonous fangs who will entice them, seduce them with easy talk, then injure and possibly destroy them."
"Teach [your children] to value education." “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth,” Doctrine and Covenants 93:36. "There rests upon the people of this Church [and all Christians] a mandate from the Lord to acquire learning. It will bless their lives now and through all the years to come." Recently, I read an article about Tennessee lawmakers, who want to cut welfare benefits if children don't make progress in school. There was a terrible outcry that this would increase hardships for parents and children who are already facing difficulties. I was reminded of Ben Carson's mother, who had no skills, could not read, and was quite ill; yet she insisted that her sons memorize their times tables and read 2 books weekly and write reports on them in addition to assigned homework. They were poor and facing hardships, but she made the difficult choice to turn off the tv and require that her children progress. Then she learned how to read herself. Ben progressed from FFFF to AAAA and later became a pioneering brain surgeon. His brother likewise excelled in his chosen field. Poverty, lack of skill, nor business provide no excuse to parents for shirking this responsibility.
"Teach [your children] to respect their bodies." “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are,” 1 Cor. 3:16–17. Graffiti (tattoos), vandalism (excessive piercing), and neglect (gluttony, overworking, and sloth) of the body is no different than the same done to the temple of the Lord; are we not His temples? “ A tattoo is graffiti on the temple of the body...The Church discourages tattoos. It also discourages the piercing of the body for other than medical purposes, although it takes no position on the minimal piercing of the ears by women for one pair of earrings.”
"Teach [your children] to stay away from drugs, [alcohol, and other mind altering substances] as they would the plague...These illegal substances will take away their self-control, will seize upon them to a point where they will do anything, within or outside the law, to get another dose." I've seen first hand the destruction to families, when a member chooses to use drugs. Often it destroys the user but also tears apart everyone else connected to the user.
"Teach [your children] to be honest." I was taught to frame one's words to spare the feelings of others. While I never considered this lying, some of my children did. Because they believed I committed lies of omission and felt they could not trust me, this caused a terrible breach for some time. Now, I adopt another way of saving the feelings of others. If I don't have anything nice to say or if saying the truth would deeply injure another, I try to say as little as possible or nothing at all. "Small lying leads to large lying, and the prisons of the nation are the best proof of that fact."
"Teach [your children] to be virtuous." Teach them to respect the virtue of others, not allow anyone to tarnish their precious and beautiful virtue, and dress modestly so as to proclaim a commitment to virtue. "Our Heavenly Father placed within us the desires that make us attractive to one another, boys and girls, men and women. But with that urge must be self-discipline, rigid and strong and unbending."
"Teach [your children] to look forward to the time when they may be married in the house of the Lord as those who come to the altar free from taint or evil of any kind." “When people are married, instead of trying to get rid of each other, reflect that you have made your choice, and strive to honor and keep it, do not manifest that you have acted unwisely and say that you have made a bad choice, nor let any body know that you think you have. You made your choice, stick to it, and strive to comfort and assist each other” (Deseret News, 29 May 1861, 98).
Shakespeare Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixèd mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
