November, 1939
TH E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
418
Thanksgiving is not for a day, but for every day. The spirit of thankfulness grows on one, espe cially if established early in life. But some parents mourn —
"My Child Is So Ungrateful”
By ETHEL S. LOW* Modesto, California
P h o to b y H a r o ld M. L a m b e r t B O YOUR child is ungrateful. My fair. Children do not just happen to be ungrateful. It is a definite result of certain causes. Parents have the first chance at children, and thus most of the blame or credit for the child falls on their heads. Then the school and church or Sunday-school come in for their share. A mother cornés to me in tears. “I can’t understand why my children are so ungrateful. I have worked myself almost to death for them all their lives, and now when I am old and need their help; not one of them will do a , thing for me, and not one of them will ask me to his or her home.” I had known that home for many years, since its beginning.- When the children were small, the mother petted and humored them' so that I ventured to remonstrate with her, and she told me she had been punished so much and so unfairly that she would never let her children suffer as she did. Conse quently, they were not to be punished. She wanted their childhood to be so happy that they would always remem ber it. And they .grew up with no re straint, no discipline. Have a good time ? Of course they did. They did as they pleased, and their mother waited on them, made a slave of herself for them. They were not taught even to care for their own rooms. They have *Sunday-school specialist w ith teen-age young people. . .,........
shame. Tragic to say, this sorrow often comes in Christian homes. Then there is another type of un grateful child, the one who has had no teaching along Christian lines, who really does not know that he has any thing for which to thank God. In fact, he probably does not believe in God, having had nothing but the evolutionary teaching of school and college. We can not expect him to be grateful to any body. He thinks everything just hap pens. He knows of no plan for a life. He doesn’t believe in love. A university Senior told me in language .I could not print, that what the world called love was just the animal’s natural selection. He believed that man was just ah ani mal who had evolved a little farther than the rest. So we cannot expect him to be grateful to God or parents. A third type of ungrateful child is the only one I really think has cause to be ungrateful. He is the one who has par ents who have never paid any attention to him, other than to furnish him with the necessities of life, the child who is hungry for a little love and attention, A mother came to me years ago and protested because I punished my daugh ter, who was not a strong child. “Sup pose she should die, how would you feel to think you had spanked her?” My answer to her was, “Suppose She should live, and be so mean everybody would hate to see her coming!” . I am quite convinced that discipline, far from making a child hate the par ent, really teaches respect and honor for the father and mother.
put on their mother exactly the value she put on herself, just a person to serve them. A father tells me he is going to “thrash the daylight” out of his sixteen- year-old son because he will not work, will not do a thing around the place. But why should the boy do anything? He has never been taught to work. His father awoke just about fifteen years too late. He thrashed the boy. The boy left home and has never even writ ten home. A young married man is pondering what to do with his mother. She is not able to work any more, and he and his wife do not want her to live with them, He stood with his hands in his pockets and said, half laughing, “And I can’t chloroform the old "girl!” He is another spoiled boy. His mother almost idolized him. She enforced no home discipline, and she always fought with the teach ers when they tried; to give him some much needed training. The “Why” of Ingratitude I could go on with story after story of the same kind. You have your own knowledge of others like these. I think you will agree with me that the trouble with all these children was too much freedom, no ’.iscipline. “The rod and re proof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Prov. 29:15). Of course Solomon is de cidedly out of style in these days, but his wisdom is still given of God, and the child who is never punished is still the child who bringeth his mother to
dear father or mother, I am com pelled to ask, "Then what is the matter with you?” Hard? No, only
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