The Ancient Greeks judged parents by the quality of their children, and the proverb "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it," is part of moral folklore that proclaims we are pretty much what our homes have made us.
But is it fair to fault parents for every child who comes a cropper? Mothers who smother and overprotect their offspring (momism) were once charged by psychologist Philip Wylie with causing all the ills of society, and when offspring get in trouble today, parents agonize, "What did I do wrong?" But the cliché "there are no problem children, only problem parents" is a fanciful as the belief that children are "imps of Satan."
Were the parents of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski responsible for his bomb-making and his weird anti-social lifestyle? Were Jack and Jo Ann Hinckley somehow accountable for their son John's attempted assassination of President Reagan? Can the mother of John Youmans (he killed two hunters) be implicated in his crime because she concealed his guilt?
A human being is not a machine that once set rolling in the wrong direction is unable to change its course. Parents set the stage for the drama of their children's lives, but the human organism is an ongoing, changing concern with the motives of the individual its propelling force. Every person follows his own moral imperative. Free will is a fact of experience. Children are undoubtedly miniatures of their parents, but not up to the point where parents can be blamed for what their children do or fail to do.
Before flunking parents for doing a poor job, one has to take into account the innumerable forces affecting children beyond their parents' values, forces hardly subject to parental control - peer group pressure, movies, television, etc. Aristotle advocated keeping children away from all that is base and violent in music, art, speech and conduct. Impossible today.
Notwithstanding, who would gainsay that a family's philosophy of life, its scale of values, largely determines a child's future behavior? Research corroborates folk wisdom: "Like father, like son; like mother, like daughter." Studies of sources from which children derive their ethical concepts show a striking correspondence between the moral judgments of the child and those of parents.
But values are transmitted best in the nitty-gritty of daily living. Instruction counts for much but actions speak louder than words. Parents who wring their hands and whine about being powerless to influence children's behavior are copouts. A Greek apothegm sums it up, "Diogenes struck the father when the son swore."
Excuses for poor parenthood abound. For instance, powerful external ambition - which can often be a force for public good - is used to justify parental neglect. This explains why intelligent, successful, ambitious, political, professional and business people may not be sufficiently dedicated to parenting to transmit appropriate values to their children.
Parents sometimes opt, implicitly or explicitly, for business, professional or political achievement rather than for committed parenthood. Successful men, research discloses, are often absentee fathers, spending less than 45 minutes a week in conversation and contact with their offspring. Yet ancient wisdom avows that "one father is better than a hundred schoolmasters."
Absentee fathers produce two negative effects: lack of parental supervision and discipline; lack of a sex-role model for sons. One great function fathers normally fulfill is that of developing an appropriate sexual identity in children. All emotionally handicapped offspring have one thing in common: In childhood, they experienced the absence of an accessible parent because of death, divorce, or a time-demanding job.
Parents like to rationalize their absence by saying, "It's not the quantity of time you spend with children, it's the quality." But time is like oxygen: There is a minimum amount that's needed to survive. The price of success in business, politics or the professions occurs too often at the expense of successful parenthood.
While dedicated service to one's occupational field may serve the commonweal, committed parents deserve to be told that they, too, serve; they foster America's future just as much as citizens who devote all of their time and effort to "getting ahead."
Inept parents have children who, in turn, become inept parents. As divorces multiply, as separations, desertions and abandonments increase, welfare costs rise, more children become the community's responsibility and the nation is burdened with growing numbers of psychologically damaged children.
An improved society of better citizens depends largely on the production of better parents. Americans have to realize that the most challenging, creative task they will ever face is to take an infant, guide him through the shoals of childhood and adolescence, and bring him to the maturity of responsible adulthood and citizenship.
Rev. Joseph L. Lennon, O.P. is in residence at St. Thomas Aquinas Priory, Providence College.
