What About Children?


Readings in the Student Manual:

Chapter Pages

The Family: A Proclamation to the World 83-84
Parenthood: Creating a Gospel-Centered Home 241-255
Birth Control 14-16
Abortion 1-2

 
Author Title Pages

President Howard W. Hunter Parents' Concern for Children Internet Only
Elder Bruce R. McConkie The Salvation of Little Children Internet Only
Dr. Homer Ellsworth I Have a Question: Gospel Family-Planning 17-18

Recommended Readings:

Author Title Pages

Pres. James E. Faust The Greatest Challenge in the World: Good Parenting 255-258
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland Within the Clasp of Your Arms  
   

Readings in this Page:
 

The Prophet Joseph Smith

Elder Bruce R. McConkie

The First Presidency, 1995

Pres. Ezra Taft Benson

Pres. Spencer W. Kimball

Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley

Pres. Brigham Young

Elder Cree-L Kofford

Elder Bruce R. McConkie

Elder Howard W. Hunter

 

Populating the Eternal Worlds

The Eternal Nature of Children

Responsibilities of Parents Towards Children

On Postponing Parenthood

On Postponing Parenthood

Counsel to Working Mothers

Children to Sealed Parents Are Heirs of Blessings

Children "Born in the Covenant" Do Not Lose their Status

The Age of Accountability

Children Do Not Need to Be Overachievers

Successful Parents May Also Have Wayward Children

   
Questions for Review  

The Prophet Joseph Smith
Populating the Eternal Worlds
The Words of Joseph Smith, p.232
[brackets added]

The earthly [being] the image of the Heavenly [cf. D&C 77:2] shows that is by the multiplication of lives that the eternal worlds are created and occupied ...


Elder Bruce R. McConkie
The Eternal Nature of Children
Ensign, April 1977, p.3

A child is an adult spirit in a newly born body, a body capable of growing and maturing ... Children are the sons and daughters of God. They lived and dwelt with him for ages and eons before their mortal birth. They are adults before birth; they are adults at death.

[Mortal birth] is the process by which mature, sentient, intelligent beings pass from preexistence into a mortal sphere. It is the process by which we bring from premortality to mortality the traits and talents acquired and developed in our long years of spirit existence. It is the process by which a mortal body is created from the dust of the earth to house an eternal spirit offspring of the Father of us all.


The First Presidency
Responsibilities of Parents Towards Children
The Proclamation on the Family, 1995

Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children. "Children are an heritage of the Lord" (Psalms 127:3). Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives——mothers and fathers——will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.

The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.


President Ezra Taft Benson
On Postponing Parenthood
So Shall Ye Reap, pp.189-190

The undue postponement of parenthood is bound to bring disappointment and is not pleasing in the sight of God. Yes, of course, you can always find excuses. You're going through school. Your wife needs to work for a few years. I know, and I know how difficult it is. ...

Generally speaking, unless it's an unusual emergency, the place for the wife is in the home as the homemaker, as the planner, and she will save dollars upon dollars. She'll make you brethren stand on your own feet as the provider. As married couples you'll be drawn closer together through the years if she fulfils her responsibilities of motherhood and homemaker than if she attempts to share the responsibility of economic provider.

Now I don't say this critically. You must make your own decisions, of course. I am, however, giving you the best counsel I know on the subject. Don't postpone unduly the blessings of honorable parenthood following proper marriage.

So, my brothers and sisters, think seriously about these things. Pray about them. Fast about them. The Lord will give you the answer because he wants you to succeed. He wants you to be happy. He wants you to have the blessings of righteous posterity. ...

Children are jewels. Blessed is the man or the woman who has a family of children. The deepest joys and blessings in life are associated with family--parenthood--sacrifice. It's worth any sacrifice, practically, in order to have those sweet spirits come into your home and to come early, that you might enjoy them for a longer period; that they might enjoy their parents for a longer period; and that their children might enjoy their grandparents for a longer period.


President Spencer W. Kimball
On Postponing Parenthood
"Marriage Is Honorable," in Speeches of the Year, 1973

I have told tens of thousands of young folks that when they marry they should not wait for children until they have finished their schooling and financial desires. ... They should live together normally and let the children come. ...

I know of no scriptures where an authorization is given to young wives to withhold their families and to go to work to put their husbands through school. There are thousands of husbands who have worked their own way through school and have reared families at the same time.


Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley
Counsel for Working Mothers
Conference Report, October 1983; brackets added

Now to [mothers] who work when it is not necessary and who, while doing so, leave children to the care of those who often are only poor substitutes, I offer a word of caution. Do not follow a practice which will bring you later regret. If the purpose of your daily employment is simply to get money for a boat or a fancy automobile or some other desirable but unnecessary thing, and in the process you lose the companionship of your children and the opportunity to rear them, you may find that you have lost the substance while grasping at the shadow.


President Brigham Young
Children to Sealed Parents Are Heirs of Blessings
Discourses of Brigham Young, pp. 195-196

When a man and woman have received their endowments and sealings, and then had children born to them afterwards, those children are legal heirs to the Kingdom and to all its blessings and promises ...

There is not a young man in our community who would not be willing to travel from here to England to be married right, if he understood things as they are; there is not a young woman in our community, who loves the Gospel and wishes its blessings, that would be married in any other way; they would live unmarried until they could be married as they should be ... I wish we all understood this in the light in which heaven understands it. ...

Our children who are born in the Priesthood are legal heirs, and entitled to the revelations of the Lord, and as the Lord lives, his angels have charge over them, though they may be left to themselves occasionally.


Elder Cree-L Kofford
Children "Born in the Covenant" Do Not Lose their Status
Marriage in the Lord’s Way, Part One” Ensign, June 1998

All children born to [a couple married in the temple] are born under the blessings of the sealing covenant; thus, it is common to say that [they] are “born in the covenant.”

[These children] are entitled to blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, including:

[Even] if the [couple ceases] to be faithful in keeping the covenants [made] in the temple, these blessings will still flow to [the] children.

It is equally comforting to know the Lord has provided that adopted children and children born to a couple before they are sealed in the temple (as with new converts to the Church) may be sealed to their parents, and upon such sealing they also become entitled to these same promises and blessings.


Elder Bruce R. McConkie
The Age of Accountability
Ensign, April 1977, p.3

Accountability does not burst full-bloom upon a child at any given moment in his life. Children become accountable gradually, over a number of years. Becoming accountable is a process, not a goal to be attained when a specified number of years, days, and hours have elapsed.

... There comes a time, however, when accountability is real and actual and sin is attributed in the lives of those who develop normally. It is eight years of age, the age of baptism.


Elder Howard W. Hunter
Children Do Not Need to Be Overachievers
Conference Report, October 1983

Each child is unique. Just as each of us starts at a different point in the race of life, and just as each of us has different strengths and weaknesses and talents, so each child is blessed with his own special set of characteristics. We must not assume that the Lord will judge the success of one in precisely the same way as another. As parents we often assume that, if our child doesn’t become an overachiever in every way, we have failed. We should be careful in our judgments.


Elder Howard W. Hunter
Successful Parents May Also Have Wayward Children
Conference Report, October 1983

A successful parent is one who has loved, one who has sacrificed, and one who has cared for, taught, and ministered to the needs of a child. If you have done all of these and your child is still wayward or troublesome or worldly, it could well be that you are, nevertheless, a successful parent.

Perhaps there are children who have come into the world that would challenge any set of parents under any set of circumstances. Likewise, perhaps there are others who would bless the lives of, and be a joy to, almost any father or mother.


Questions for Review:

1. Should parents ensure that all their children grow up with a complete set of skill, talents, and abilities? (President Howard W. Hunter; Parents’ Concern for Children)

2. Is having a troublesome or worldly child a sure sign that the parents have failed in their responsibilities? (President Howard W. Hunter; Parents’ Concern for Children)

3. How many children should a truly righteous couple have? (Dr. Homer Ellsworth; I Have a Question: "Is there some kind of ‘gospel family-planning’?"; Student Manual, page 18)

4. Is sexual abstinence the best form of contraception (i.e. birth control) for married couples? (Dr. Homer Ellsworth; I Have a Question: "Is there some kind of ‘gospel family-planning’?"; Student Manual, page 18)


This web page was published only as a support for classroom discussion.
For more information, contact Dr. Marcus Martins at: martinsm@byuh.edu