Parents' Love and Responsibility

1. When we raise our children, we have to care for them with more love than that with which we care for ourselves. When we fulfill our responsibility as parents, our children come to understand our parents' love, and when they have their children, they will raise them the same way.

In this way, children come to realize and share their parents' sorrow and joy as their own, and their parents' responsibility and work as their own. Thus, even if they are not told to do so, the children willingly consider their parents' adversaries to be their adversaries, accept their parents' work and responsibility as theirs, and inherit their parents' circumstances. Raising such children is by the principles of creation. (29-096, 1970.02.25)

2.The power of love provides insight that is impossible to come by otherwise. The parents' heart of love transcends distance to connect with their children. You have seen such a scene in movies: A child is involved in an accident far from home, and his father or mother sees the scene in a dream and wakes up distraught.

This is the response that comes through the line of love; it conveys reality exactly as it is. It is not just a vision; it is the reality that is communicated. Likewise, on earth, you can contact God's substance directly through the line of love.
(162-286, 1987.04.17)

3. Parents do not expose their beloved children's shortcomings, even though they may have flaws.

They want their children to resemble only their points. After seeing that a child has done wrong, a parent may spank him or her, but will soon regret it and sympathize with the child. This is a parent's heart.

A parent may discipline a child as a response to misbehavior, yet a parent's heart is always to magnify a child's good points, the points in which they see the best of themselves, rather than magnify his or her bad side. (016-172, 1966.03.13)

4. Parents cannot teach their children filial piety just by words. They have to inspire a filial attitude in their children. The child cannot learn this overnight. It requires a long period of consistent influence.

Parents should set an example in daily life that inspires their children to emulate them. They should be experts at inspiring this practice of filial piety, based on God's Will. (29-099, 1970.02.25)

5. Parents should set the example in leading a life focused on the Will. They have to teach their children the life of prayer, the custom of family worship, and the life of faith. They should also teach them the importance of pledge service.

The parents should conduct pledge service and use that time to educate their children about the Will of God. Parents first need to practice what they want to see in their children. They should be a model of loyalty to the Will.

Their children should regard them with so much respect that they would not utter a word contrary to what their parents say. If they do not become such models, the children will not follow them.

Throughout life, children will observe their parents and compare their actions with what they understand of the Will and the Principle. If children see that their parents neglect their church duties and do not live according to church guidelines, but expect their children to live in a principled way, they will surely disobey their parents. (31-268, 1970.06.04)

6. If the parents of today are no different from the parents of the past, they are not qualified to educate their children. Hence, you have to be different from the past in your family life and your relationships with the people of your community.

Children have their understanding as to how people who are walking the path of the Will should behave and will see their parents from their standpoint.
(31-270, 1970.06.04)

7. Children sense whether their parents are good or bad. If you maintain the right heart and attitude toward the Will, someday your children will recognize you and your situation. You, as parents, should bequeath the heavenly tradition even when you die.

You exist for your family and your children, but before that, you should serve God and your country. In the end, this is the path that will most benefit your children. Only through this can your children gain the fortune of God, the world, and the nation. (21-087, 1968.11.03)

8. As a blessed couple, you tell your children to study. But your sons and daughters will not become children of filial piety and loyal patriots just by you telling them to study. What if they say, “Our parents suffered in the Unification Church, so we will not walk such a path”?

You need to teach them the way of love that can digest even such suffering. Thus, even if they may have to skip meals, parents should take their children around their town loving the people, praying, and shedding tears for the nation.

The children may dislike this when they are little, but when they grow up they will say, “Our father and mother are the best.” They will understand why their mother and father were not there for them, and as they mature they will realize that their parents tried to love the nation, serve God's Will and save humankind, even at the cost of paying less attention to their children.

You should not live carelessly. Your worrying about your children does not make them do well in life. What is important is to feed them the food of love.
(139-077, 1986.01.26)

9. Children follow their father and mother's example, so please attend and worship God properly in your home. Show your children that their father is a man of prayer. Let them know that their father is serving God and living for the sake of others. Through this, you lay the foundation so that your children unconsciously will come to respect and admire you. (47-331, 1971.08.30)

10. In the future, when your children research your life history, they may discover many stories of misery and difficulties. Yet if they say, “My father suffered like this in the past. To raise me and educate me, my father walked this way of suffering,” it will not make them unhappy.

Rather, it will make them respect and serve their parents more. We often experience the truth of this. Children cannot be disloyal when they find that their parents never stopped shedding tears for them. (48-074, 1971.09.05)

11. In matters of love, do not be lukewarm. Choose one, either cold or hot. Occasionally, you need to be cold. When you raise your children, even though you love them, if they fail to respond to your love, you should be strict, even challenging them.

You should not accept the way they are if they are just thinking, “Okay, whatever.” For this reason, once I gathered the church leaders and scolded them. They responded, “Whoa, what kind of teacher is this?” I can be a most frightening person.

Although I am a good-hearted person, I can also be the most difficult person to relate to. I can be merciless toward evil, and for the sake of goodness, I also can be as fiery as a sizzling hot, thousand-degree furnace. (103-033, 1979.01.28)

12. Love's original nature is to live for the sake of others. Giving to others from within one's original essence is the nature of love. Where did that love come from? It came from God. Since God is the subject partner of absolute love, the original nature of love is giving.

Parental love is the closest to that original nature; that is why parents always want to give to their children. If your child does not accept your love, you should show that child even greater love; then even a child who behaves like a hoodlum will be able to repent and turn around. (48-182, 1971.09.12)

13. Parents have to be able to represent God. You should say to your children, “Children! Please love your brothers and sisters more than you love me; please love your neighbors, your country, and the world more than you love me.”

If you educate them in this way, you will stand out as true parents among parents. In this way, your sons and daughters will move forward, and your family will develop into a center of greater goodness. (95-152, 1977.11.11)

14. There are three things you should leave behind when you conclude your life on earth. The first is the way of the Principle; you must leave behind the fact that you led your life in the way of the Principle, according to the Will.

The second is to leave good descendants on earth. The third is the education of your descendants to be good and effective for the sake of the world. These are three core responsibilities. (101-201, 1978.10.30)

15. You should leave for your sons and daughters a tradition that teaches them how to lead their lives well. By fighting hard battles in your mission countries, you are leaving behind a tradition for your descendants.

This is a great opportunity to educate your children based on your experience, reporting to them, “We worked under these kinds of hardships.” It is your opportunity to establish a tradition that you can leave behind as your legacy.

Tradition is the issue. What you have done will remain; it sets an eternal tradition. (71-019, 1974.03.24)

16. Unless you set up a tradition for your family, you cannot set up a tradition for your people. If there is no tradition among your people, there will be no citizens in the nation. Blessed families need family law.

We require standards for children's education and laws for the family. Otherwise, we will fail as parents, and when our children call us to account for this we will have nothing to say. The family law is that before you love yourself, you have to love the nation, the world, and God.

A wife should be able to testify honoring her husband, “My husband loves the nation, the world, and God even more than he loves me.” (21-087, 1968.11.03)