What are your aims in raising a child?

The rearing of children is more and more puzzling for parents in the twentieth century because we have lost a lot of our old fashioned convictions about what kind of morals and ambitions and characters we want them to have. We have even lost our convictions about the purpose of human existence. Instead we have come to depend on psychological concepts. They have been helpful in solving many other smaller problems but they are of little use in answering the major questions.

You may not be conscious of these changes—because you are so much a part of these times or because you grew up in an unusually stable family.

Other countries and times:

In the past it was assumed in many countries that a man’s main function in the world –over and above making a living—was to serve God, by carrying out his purposes as revealed by religion. That’s why in the Middle Ages the churches were by far the most imposing buildings. Much the same was true in America in the colonial period. Children never had an idea that life was for their fulfillment. They were constantly exhorted to overcome their base natures in order to grow up to be pleasing in god’s eyes.

In other place, especially in the past hundred years or so, it has been taught that man’s purpose is to serve his country. This was true to a degree of France of napoleon’s time, the British Empire, the German empire. It has been even more true of some modern states not only of communist states like the Soviet Union but of a democratic ones like Israel. Parents and teachers are in agreement with leaders about what virtues are to be encouraged in children: cooperativeness, studiousness, dedication to specific principles of the nation. Parents don’t have to keep wondering and worrying—about whether they are doing the right thing.

In even more parts of the world it is assumed that children are born and raised to serve the aims of the family—what sociologist call as the extended family or the clan. In childhood and youth they prepare themselves for at the jobs which are valuable one by their particular family. They must as children and later as grown ups revere and defer to the elders. Even in marrying in many countries they must accept marriages that are arranged by their families and parents for the purpose of advancing family welfare.