Children

a large, lopsided bandage hiding my rough stitching. I thought of how difficult it is to believe in a benign deity intervening in human life when you have to witness suffering like this. Unless, of course, in the words of the famous Victorian hymn, there really is a friend for little Children, above the bright-blue sky, who will right all the wrongs we suffer in this life on earth in an afterlife in heaven. (Location 1892)

Children in father-absent homes are four times as likely to be poor. That means their mothers are poor too. Fatherless Children are at much greater risk for drug and alcohol abuse. (Page 357)

To treat yourself as if you were someone you are responsible for helping is, instead, to consider what would be truly good for you. This is not "what you want." It is also not “what would make you happy." Every time you give a child something sweet, you make that child happy. That does not mean that you should do nothing for Children except feed them candy. “Happy" is by no means synonymous with "good." (Page 72)

We teach our Children to say “please” and “thank you.” This is understood to be a matter of respect, and rightly so. But it is also a way of getting what we want or need. It is a way of getting that requires us to go through the freedom of the person asked, however. In the very act of asking, in the very nature of the request, we acknowledge that the other person can say no, and, “innocent as doves,” we accept that response. (Location 4377)

Children are damaged when their "mercifully" inattentive parents fail to make them sharp and observant and awake and leave them, instead, in an unconscious and undifferentiated state.

Children are damaged when those charged with their care, afraid of any conflict or upset, no longer dare to correct them, and leave them without guidance. (Page 144)

Consider your circumstances. Start small. Have you taken full advantage of the opportunities offered to you? Are you working hard on your Career, or even your job, or are you letting bitterness and resentment hold you back and drag you down? Have you made peace with your brother? Are you treating your spouse and your Children with dignity and respect? Do you have habits that are destroying your health and Well-being? Are you truly shouldering your responsibilities? Have you said what you need to say to your friends and family members? Are there things that you could do, that you know you could do, that would make things around you better?

^^Have you cleaned up your life?

If the answer is no, here's something to try: Start to stop doing what you know to be wrong.^^ (Page 185)

How to Determine a Man: either 18 or 30, not 21. Family plays an significant role in a child's life. In western countries, when their Children reached the age of 18, they must live on their own. Yet, it is almost interesting to note the difference between 18 and 30, not mentioning 21 in between.

The events that happened post-18 particularly important to judge someone's maturity:

One of the greatest gifts of The Kingdom Among Us is the healing of the parent-child relation, “turning the hearts of fathers to their Children and the hearts of Children to their fathers” (Mal. 4:6). (Location 4930)

I often longed to return home, to my family and friends, and wondered why I had abandoned them. I thought of how I had always put work first, ahead of my wife and Children, when I was younger, and now I was doing it all over again. But the deep contentment I experienced each day as I walked to the hospital in the low morning sunlight never faded. (Location 887)

Also we see it in the place of Children in the Gospels. They are called “greatest in the kingdom.” The little child has no capacity to command a store of goods on its own that would allow it to live independently of others. It simply must assume that provisions are made for it by others. (Location 3948)

Little Children quickly learn to make things and to give them to those they love. If their souls are not crushed by life, as so many unfortunately are, they will continue to do this throughout their lives and at death will wish to leave to others things they have produced or secured by their own efforts. (Location 1642)

When Jesus himself comes to deal with the rightness of persons in divorce, he does not forbid divorce absolutely, but he makes it very clear that divorce was never God’s intent for men and women in a marriage. The intent in marriage is a union of two people that is even deeper than the union of parents and Children or any other human relationship. They are to become “one flesh,” one natural unit, building one life, which therefore could never lose or substitute for one member and remain a whole life (Matt. 19:5; Gen. 2:24). (Location 3232)

Question for parents: do you want to make your Children safe, or strong?