Introducing One’s Child to The Creator: A Principal Duty of a Parent

By Roshel

He was in his 70s now, and he lived all by himself in a large apartment. Till he had retired some years ago, he had held a senior post in a multinational corporation, a job that entailed much travelling and hectic socializing. The job had been his life, as it were. He would often say that he had given it his all.

When he would think back—which was very often—it seemed such a distant past! Sometimes, he could barely recognize himself, so different had his life then been. “Was I really that person, doing all those things, leading that sort of lifestyle?” he would ask himself.

Of late, he had begun attending a weekly get-together at the house of a wise elderly woman, who had some interesting insights to share about life. Several other people of his age-group would also come to listen to her speak. They would put questions to her and request her to share her views.

One day, someone requested the woman to speak about parenting. The woman kept silent for a while and then smiled. “I’m not a parent myself while most of you are, so you are in a way better equipped to speak on the subject,” she replied.

“No, no, please share just a few words,” the questioner persisted.

“Hmmm…Alright,” the woman responded. Then, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she began, “A primary responsibility of a parent is to introduce their child to its Creator. Helping their child develop a loving relationship with God is a basic duty of a parent, because a loving relationship with God is indispensable for a successful life, here and in the Hereafter.”

The woman kept silent for a while. Then, opening her eyes and looking at the people sitting before her, she continued, “So, you can understand, I hope, that a parent who hasn’t helped their child develop a loving relationship with God has failed in fulfilling a major duty as a parent.”

These words pricked his heart like a thorn! He hadn’t cultivated a loving relationship with God all his life, and he hadn’t thought it necessary to help his children to do so either.

“Parenting is no simple matter,” the woman went on. “Rather, it is an immensely solemn duty towards God, because the fact is that a child is, first of all, God’s child and it is God Who has entrusted a child to its parents. And so, parents must take parenting not as some sort of play but as a very sacred task. The child belongs to God, and so, an essential duty of a parent is to help the child develop and grow in consciousness of God. If as a parent you don’t do that, what answer will you give God when you meet Him after you die?”

The woman continued to speak but his mind was now not on her words. He knew he had failed in one major respect as far as his parenting was concerned. He bent his head low, shut his eyes and ruminated on what sort of parent he had been. He had, he told himself, done what he thought was best for his children—sending them to what he thought were the ‘top’ schools available, taking them on holidays abroad, meeting almost all their material demands and, finally, arranging for them to migrate to America, where they were now, as he would proudly say to those who cared to hear, “very comfortably settled”. All this and more he had done for his children, he reflected, but leave alone helping them develop a loving relationship with God, he hadn’t, as far as he could remember, even mentioned the word ‘God’ to them. Talk of God had been a strict no-no in their house. He couldn’t recall having a single conversation about God with his children. He had lived as if God was a fiction, and he had made his children live just the same way, so much so that they now proudly announced that they were atheists.

He shuddered as these thoughts began to swim about in his mind! How he wished he had done some things differently!

He had once prided himself on having done many things for his children, and he would sometimes make it a point to remind them of this fact if they disobeyed or displeased him. But hearing what the wise woman had just said, he wondered if he had truly fulfilled his responsibilities as a parent.