Since parents should draw their parenthood skills from our Heavenly Father and His Church, it is fitting for them to live with the Divine Love and taste it in their lives. That will give them a better understanding of their mission and role in life so they can care for their children in the same way God and the Church care for them, purposeful loving care and passionate firm guidance. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF RAISING CHILDREN 

Children are precious talent that God gives the parents, more precious than anything else in the whole wide world. God entrust them to their parents not to feel that they own them or to mold them as they desire, or control them or to take pride in them, but first and foremost to care for them as persons that Christ died for. They help them grow as live members in the body of Christ, sacred altars for the Holy Spirit, God’s children, heirs of God, and heirs with Christ; the image of God that glorifies Him. 

In other words, parents should not look to their child as something precious they acquired, but as a living soul that has a great value in God’s eyes, and sharing with them the same destiny. St. John Chrysostom says: 

If some people obtain great honor for making sculptures or painting pictures of kings, how much more would it be for us who adorn the image of the King of Kings (because the human is the image of God)?! Myriads of blessings; as we establish a real example, because a real example is in the virtue of the Spirit; when we train our children to be good, meek, forgiving, pious, and compassionate, and when we teach them to look at the present world as nothing! 

Thus, St. John Chrysostom states that the parents do not provide a statue to God, but a vivid picture of Him in their children when they have the same attributes of Jesus Christ in them and as icon for heaven when they do not care for the world and its temptations. So the parents who bear the image of God enjoy his company, and rejoice with the heavenly life in their hearts and in their home, and offer a sacred generation to the Lord, that continues the testimony for the Lord from the previous generation, and completes its work! 

It does not stop at us receiving our children from the hand of God as a living trust who gets to continue our journey as we continued the journey of past generations, in order to join the generations together as one body that completes the work of Christ, who is the Head of all, but we need to realize that we are required to bring them to the Lord as an offering of love, by placing in them the struggling spirit as good spiritual soldiers, carrying the Cross with us joyfully. St. John Chrysostom commented on 1 Timothy 2:15, saying: 

Nevertheless, she will be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with self-control” (1 Timothy 2:15)… which means that the parents should maintain the born children in the love and holiness. 

It means that they do not gain just a small reward for their work, but the parents get rewarded a great reward as they teach them to be struggling spiritual soldiers to serve Christ , and that is what it is meant by the holy life, humbleness and self-control… 

Hear this, O fathers and mothers, you will not lose your reward for raising your children… 

It is not a little matter that you consecrate your children as an offering to God, because if the foundation you put in them is righteousness, then your reward is great, but if you neglect them, the punishment will be great. An example of that is Eli the priest who neglected raising his two sons because he did not want them to suffer or be punished… so he lost himself and them too. 

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE! 

 We read about Eli the Priest, and how God was not pleased with him because of the sins of his children. 

St. Paul commands us not to choose a bishop if his children were corrupt or not respectable. 

On the contrary, he says that a woman “will be saved with the birth of children, if she keeps them locked in faith, love, and holiness with sobriety” (1 Timothy 2:15). 

If parents are responsible for their children even when they are mature and can depend on themselves, how much more is their responsibility if the children are still young and weak, or, according to the word of God, “are not able to distinguish their right hand from their left” (Jonah 4:11), which means that they are not able to distinguish good from evil?! 

If you make sure that your daughter does not get hurt physically from a wild animal, why don’t you give her the same care when it comes to her soul, and prevent her from going out with Dinah to see the daughters of the earth (Genesis 34)?! 

Why do you say: “The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son” but “The soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:20)? I answer that by explaining that this statement refers to those who can distinguish like the one whose parents said about him in the Bible “he is of age… he will speak for himself” (John 9:21). 

So parents are responsible for the work of their children, whether it is good or evil, as long as they are young, until they reach the age when they can choose for themselves which way to go. 

St. Jerome 

 Let the young come, let the patients come to the doctor, let everyone who is lost come to the Savior, they all shall come, and no one prevents them. If the branches (children) did not commit any sin yet, but perished because of their roots, let the Healer touch the young with the adults “He will bless those who fear the Lord, both small and great” (Ps. 115: 13)… 

If the lost included everyone, let salvation be for everyone. We all lost our way, let us find it in Christ… so that He does not exclude anyone from his salvation2. 

St. Augustine 

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE EVEN FOR THE SALVATION OF THE ILLEGITIMATE SON 

Any soul is very precious in God’s eyes, so it is very difficult to estimate how huge is the responsibility that a human bears in regard to the salvation of his children who are loved by God Himself. St. Basil the Great affirms this responsibility even to a child who is a fruit of a sin, meaning an illegitimate son. He says: [women who give birth to a child and leave him on the road, if she could rescue him but neglected him, if she thinks that she is covering up her sin, she should be tried as a murderer. 

Father Tadros Y. Malaty, Family Love (SOUTH BRUNSWICK, NJ: Queen Mary & Prince Tadros Coptic Orthodox Church).