RAISING CHILDREN
By Marjorie Holmes

Lord, help me to remember that nobody else can raise up my children. Not neighbors or maids or baby sitters. Not schools or even churches, important as they are. Not Scouts or Campfire Girls or Little Leagues or Y's. Not doctors or counselors or choir directors. Not music or dancing teachers. Not a hundred and one other people to whom so many of us entrust our offspring so many of their waking hours.

I am sometimes bewildered by all this army of other people, Lord. Good people, wise people, specialists many of them. Often I'm grateful; but often I feel a little guilty and concerned about them too. It's all too tempting to depend on them. To shoo the kids off to them thinking, "Good. You'll teach them, guide them, keep them busy, make them happy---I don't need to worry."

Besides, I've got so much else to do. Important things too---for the church, the community, my husband. Clubs and meetings to attend (some of them having to do with children). And there's our social life, our trips and entertaining. And the experts say I must not forget myself; I must feel free to study, take a job if I want to, express myself. The family's better off, they say, if you don't live just for them.

Sometimes I get very mixed up about all this, God. A deep, nagging voice insists that nothing is more important than raising my own children. In the place that they can be truly raised. This house, these rooms, at their own table, with both parents present as often as humanly possible. Where else can they learn their manners or how to talk to each other, or the lessons of consideration and truth and love? Who else, however dedicated, can possibly care as much as we do whether they learn these lessons and what kind of people they become?

The years of their growing up are so precious, Lord, and so fleeting. Don't let me duck the responsibility you gave me along with the children. Help us all to sort out our priorities and to drop any activities that separates this family instead of uniting it.

Give me a firm new grip on the challenge of raising my own children, God---and a proud new joy in it.