РОДИТЕЛИ

This is why God put love for us in our parents, so that in them we would have mentors in virtue. It is not birth alone that makes a father, but good education; and it is not carrying in the womb that makes a mother, but good upbringing. That this is true, that it is not nature, but virtue that makes fathers, the parents themselves can confirm to us. Often, when they see that their sons have become worthless and depraved, they cut them off from their kinship, abandon them and adopt others, often not close to them in any way. What could be stranger than this, when (parents) reject those they gave birth to and accept those they did not give birth to? We said this not without a purpose, but so that you know that free will is stronger than nature and that it is what it does primarily to both sons and fathers over the latter. And it was a matter of God’s Providence that He did not allow children to be deprived of their natural disposition (of their parents) and at the same time did not provide everything to this disposition. If parents loved their children not out of natural necessity, but only for their morals and good deeds, then you would see many children expelled from their parents' homes for their negligence and our family upset. On the other hand, if [God] gave everything to the power of nature and did not allow parents to hate even evil children, on the contrary, being insulted by children and suffering thousands of troubles from them, fathers, by natural necessity, would have to remain affectionate towards children who are impudent and insulting them, then our race would reach extreme wickedness. If even now children, in the hope of the love of their parents, often insult them, although they cannot fully rely on nature, knowing that many, having become worthless, have lost both their home and their father’s inheritance, then to what wickedness would they not have reached if God had not left parents the opportunity to be angry with their children, to punish and drive them away when they become evil? That is why God made the love of parents dependent both on the needs of nature and on the morals of their children, so that, on the one hand, they would be lenient towards the mistakes of their children, being prompted to this by nature, and on the other hand, the evil and incurably sick would not be rooted in evil by criminal indulgence, which would be inevitable if nature forced them to caress unfit children. Think about how much care there is in the fact that [God] commanded to love [children], and set the measure of this love, and at the same time determined the reward for the good upbringing of children? And that the reward for this is assigned not only to husbands, but also to wives, listen to how Scripture in many places says to both these and those, and to wives no less than to husbands. Paul, having said: “the woman was deceived and fell into transgression,” added: “she will be saved through childbearing” (1 Tim. 2:14, 15). That is, you grieve, he says, because your first wife subjected you to illness, labor and prolonged pregnancy? Don't mourn; You do not suffer so much harm from illness and labor as you receive, if you want, benefits from raising children, finding in it a reason for good deeds. Indeed, if the children born by you receive a proper upbringing and are taught in virtue through your care, then this will be the beginning and foundation of your salvation, and, in addition to the reward for your own good deeds, you will receive a great reward for their upbringing (1). You might be interested in: