GENIUS — Sarcophagus known as that of the Good Shepherds, with little genii engaged in harvesting grapes and milking (4th century) — Rome, Lateran Christian Museum.
II. DUTIES OF PARENTS
1. Love
In addition to being a general duty of charity, the love of children is also a specific duty of filial devotion. It embraces three things: willing the good of one’s children, doing good to them, and keeping them away from evil, whether physical or spiritual.The obligation of love belongs to natural law. It is manifested through instinct even in animals. The vigilant care with which animals surround their offspring is well known. The same tendency is manifested, even more clearly, in human beings. So much so that parents who forget or trample upon this fundamental duty are regarded as monsters. Children, on the other hand, at least until a certain age, are incapable of providing for themselves: they therefore have the right to be cared for, helped, and defended. The right of children necessarily corresponds to the duty of parents. Moreover, children are an integral part of their parents, born of their union; the same blood flows in them, they inherit their good or bad tendencies, and they are a prolongation of their life and love. They therefore deserve to be loved as one loves a part of one’s own being. This love must be: affective and effective, inward and outward, natural and supernatural.
a) Affective and inward. Thus parents should sincerely seek and desire the good of their children, both bodily and spiritual, for the present and for the future. They therefore sin gravely who hate or curse their children, or wish them evil, or offend them with seriously insulting words. In the latter case, however, in practice they are very often excused from grave sin, because they act in a fit of anger. This love of children must nevertheless be regulated. It must therefore be neither exaggerated, so as to make idols of the children by granting them everything or failing to correct them when they do wrong; nor partial, so as to love one child more than another, even if the former is more deserving; nor selfish—that is, it must not be an interested love. b) Effective and outward. Parents must not merely desire the good of their children, but must also procure it according to their means. Parents therefore sin when they do not provide their children with what is necessary either for their physical or spiritual health, or when, having the ability to do so, they fail to avert an evil that threatens them. c) Natural and supernatural. Natural, because children are part of their parents themselves; supernatural, because parents are God’s cooperators in begetting and sanctifying their children.
2) Education. — This is the first good that parents must procure for their children. This too is an obligation of natural law. “Nature,” says s. Tommaso, “does not tend only toward the procreation of the child, but also toward his development and progress, in order to lead him to the state of the perfect man” (Sum. Theol., 3ª, q. 41, a. 1). Education
must be above all spiritual, without however neglecting bodily education. It is also necessary that education be manly, appropriate, and proportionate both to the character of each individual child and to his future condition. Finally, it must be Christian—that is, ordered toward the supernatural end.
Bodily education includes the duty of protecting the child’s life from the moment of conception; the duty of giving him the necessary nourishment and ensuring that his body develops healthy and strong. Spiritual education embraces the duty of instruction, both religious and civic, of good example, vigilance, and correction. The first of these duties includes the grave obligation of parents to have their children baptized as soon as possible. A considerable delay in Baptism, without legitimate cause, constitutes a grave sin. Equally binding is the obligation to teach children the first truths of the faith from an early age.
No less grave is the obligation to provide children with an adequate education. For this purpose parents must consider their children’s tastes and aptitudes, so as not to run the risk of turning them into misfits. They must study their vocation without allowing themselves to be guided by considerations of self-interest or dreams of grandeur. Vigilance consists in preventing evil or stifling it at its roots. Parents must keep their children away from everything that could harm their souls, such as companions, books, shows, schools, etc.
The duty of education is grave in itself, or “ex genere suo,” as s. Alfonso says (Theol. moralis, ed. L. Gaudé, I, Roma 1905, I, III, n. 336, p. 604). The CIC (can. 1113) calls it most grave; Pio XI, in the encyclical Rappresentanti in terra, exhorts pastors of souls to neglect no means of reminding parents of “their most serious duties.” S. Tommaso goes so far as to say “that parents are not permitted to enter religious life without having provided, in one way or another, for the education of their children” (Sum. Theol., 2ª-2ªe, q. 189, a. 6). It is therefore a grave obligation for parents to send their children to schools in which there is no danger to their religious education. In this regard, can. 1374 of the CIC is very strict.
From what has been said thus far, it may be concluded that parents must prepare themselves for their duties as educators. They must therefore: a) know and reflect upon what a child is. He is not merely flesh of their flesh, but a creature endowed with a soul and a supernatural life, destined for an eternal end, a trust for which they will have to render an account to God. b) Take care to learn about and use all those human resources of psychology and pedagogy that can facilitate their task. c) Rely upon Grace. The work they must accomplish is in some way divine. Only spiritual means can therefore prove fully effective. Prayer will give parents a supernatural understanding of the deepest needs of their children and the means to meet them. It will create in the children that confidence toward their parents which is so necessary if the latter’s efforts are not to be in vain.
Civil legislation is likewise strict regarding the duties of parents toward their children. Parents who violate the obligations of family support, or abuse the means of correction and discipline, or are guilty of mistreating children, are punished with various penalties, which increase proportionately when the child suffers serious or very serious personal injury, or death (Cod. pen. it., artt. 570, 571, 572).