I want to talk about a subject that I consider the most difficult in the world. It is about the privilege and responsibility of being good parents. In that aspect, there are as many opinions as parents. However, there are few who claim to know everything and, by the way, I am not one of them.
I think now there are more excellent young people than at any other time in life. This implies that most of them come from good homes and have dedicated and self-sacrificing parents. However, even the most responsible parents feel that they have also made mistakes. I remember one time when I committed recklessness and my mother exclaimed: "What will I have failed?"
Being a father or mother is not only a great responsibility, it is an effort that requires consecration. While there are few challenges that are greater than parenthood, there are few things that offer a greater degree of joy. No doubt there is no more important work in this world than to prepare our children to learn to be happy, honest and productive. There is no greater happiness for parents than getting their children to honor them and their teachings.
In my opinion, teaching, raising and training children requires more intelligence, intuitive understanding, humility, strength, wisdom, spirituality, perseverance and much more work than any other task we have in life, especially when the moral norms of honor and decency decay around us. To succeed in the home, values must be taught and constant rules and regulations must be enforced. There are communities that do not support parents very much when it comes to teaching and honoring moral standards. There are cultures that have lost them completely and many of their young people have a sarcastic attitude towards what is moral.
Faced with the deterioration of society and the breakdown of the family, it is best to pay more attention and make a greater effort to teach the future generation: our children. For this, we must first strengthen their teachers. The most important educators are parents and other members of the family, and home is the best school. Somehow we must make a greater effort to make the home a sanctuary against harmful moral decay. Harmony, happiness, peace and love give children the inner strength necessary to deal with the problems of life. Barbara Bush, wife of the president of the United States, told graduates of a university in Massachussetts:
"Whatever time it is, there is something that does not change. Fathers and mothers: children are first. They should read to their children, they should hug them and they should love them. The success they achieve as a family, as well as that of society, does not depend on what happens in the White House, but on what happens in our homes. "
To be good parents you have to renounce yourself in favor of the children. As a consequence of that sacrifice, parents acquire nobility of character. I respect very much the parents that raise alone, without their spouse, their children, striving and sacrificing themselves, fighting against big problems to keep them united. These people deserve respect and help for that heroic effort. The work of a father or a mother becomes easier when both are at home.
When parents teach their children to avoid danger, it is not appropriate to tell them: "We have more experience and knowledge than you do about the things of the world; we can take risks. " The hypocrisy of parents can make children sarcastic and doubt what they teach them. For example, when parents go to movies that forbid their children, they then doubt the teachings of their parents. If the children are expected to be honest, the parents must also be honored. If children are expected to be virtuous, parents should also be virtuous. If children are expected to be honorable, parents must be honorable.
Among the other values that should be taught to children is to respect others, beginning with their parents and family; respect the religious beliefs and patriotism of others; respect law and order; respect the property of others and respect authority.