They Must Be Able to Stand Alone

I really appreciated this quote from President Marion G. Romney that was shared in Sacrament Meeting today by a member of our high council: “The only safety we have in the world for our children is what they build within themselves.  We can make restrictions against drinking and smoking, and we can make regulations to guide the affairs of people.  We can throw all the protections possible around them.  But after all, the thing that holds them in, the final test is what is inside of them.  They must be able to stand alone.” (F. Burton Howard, Marion G. Romney: His Life and Faith, p.153; from an address delivered to the Primary of the Eighteenth Ward on April 3, 1947).  This highlights the need that we have as parents to strive first and foremost to get the gospel into the hearts of our children. Rules related to curfews and electronics and internet usage and dating and the myriad of activities our children might be involved in certainly have their place to guide them in the right.  But getting the gospel deep into their hearts so that they come to love the Savior and desire to keep His commandments is of far more importance. 

                I learned the importance of letting my children develop their own abilities and independence yesterday as I took my eight-year-old and seven-year-old skiing.  It was the first time for both of them and I ventured to teach them myself.  We stopped the lift the first time the three of us tried to get on, and the first time down the bunny hill was surely very comical to those watching us.  Not knowing quite how I was going to teach them both at the same time without injuring the skiers around us, our first descent was made hand in hand.  I was holding on to one of them with my right hand and the other with my left hand (none of us had poles), and we slowly descended.  As we awkwardly tried to stay together the three of us, we were falling right and left, tangling our skiis, and I was getting yelled at by my frustrated children.  Worried that they were going to run into people or hurt themselves, I was holding on tightly to them and trying to force them the way I wanted them to go.  After that I abandoned the hand holding method and let them ski alone trying to copy me, and the day went much better.  They still fell, but being on their own while I skied near them (making sure they didn’t get too off course) they learned much quicker.  And in total we only knocked over one person and ran into one other (no damage done).  By the end of the day they had far exceeded my expectations and could go down the bunny hill by themselves without any problem.  I learned that letting them try to follow my lead was far more effective than trying to force their every move.  Their safety was not in holding my hand but in learning for themselves how to control their skis. 

                This lesson is surely one that is highlighted by the story of the stripling warriors.  They had learned from their parents how to rely on the Lord for their strength.  Helaman recorded, “they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it” (Alma 56:47-48).  They were strong because they had developed faith like their mothers, and that is what sustained them in the terrible battles they faced.  It was not the rules or controls their parents set on them that preserved their lives miraculously in battle—it was the fire of faith that their parents instilled in the young warriors.  I have wondered at the exact sense of this last phrase, since it has two possible meanings: (1) “We do not doubt that our mothers knew it,” or (2) “We, ourselves, do not doubt because we know that our mothers knew it.”  I’d like to think that both statements were true for these faithful young men.  Ultimately it is the latter sense that we want for our own children, that they come to know and have faith themselves.  But (1) is what we can really control and what will, we hope, spur them to seek the Lord for themselves like Enos (“the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart”) and Alma the Younger (“I remembered also to have heard my father prophesy unto the people concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world”).  Our highest priority must be to help them learn for themselves—hopefully following the example they see in us—that through faith in Christ and obedience to His commandments they can overcome all their trials.