Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Our Relation to Children
By C. W. Leadbeater
Better Understanding Needed
14. But how, it may be asked, is it proposed that this position of mutual mistrust and misunderstanding should be improved? Well, it is evident that in cases where this breach already exists, it can be bridged over only by unwearying kindness, and by gradual, patient but constant efforts to promote a better understanding by steadily showing unselfish affection and sympathy; in fact by habitually putting ourselves in the child's place and trying to realize exactly how all these matters appear to him. If we, who are adults, had not so entirely forgotten our own childish days, we should make far greater allowances for the children of today, and should understand and deal with them much better.
15. This is, however, very emphatically one of the cases in which the old proverb holds good, which tells us that prevention is better than cure. If we will but take a little trouble to begin in the right way with our children from the very first, we shall easily be able to avoid the undesirable state of affairs which we have been describing. And this is exactly where Theosophy has many a valuable hint to offer to those who are in earnest in wishing to do their duty by the young ones committed to their charge.
16. Of course, the absolute nature of this duty of parents and teachers towards children must first be recognized. We cannot too strongly or too repeatedly insist that parentage is an exceedingly heavy responsibility of a religious nature, however lightly and thoughtlessly it may often be undertaken. Those who bring a child into the world make themselves directly responsible to the law of karma for the opportunities of evolution which they ought to give to that ego, and heavy indeed will be their penalty if by their carelessness or selfishness they put hindrances in his path, or fail to render him all the help and guidance which he has a right to expect from them. Yet how often the modern parent entirely ignores this obvious responsibility; how often a child is to him nothing but a cause of fatuous vanity or an object of thoughtless neglect!
