The Responsibility of Parents

The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that "Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they may live.  Husbands and wives -- mothers and fathers -- will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations."

Hey, yeah, no pressure, but yes, it should come as no surprise to any of us that being a parents is a big responsibility...the supreme responsibility, because we hold the fate of the future generation in our hands.  If we teach them to be loving to one another, to serve each other, to keep commandments and obey the law, society will prosper and flourish, and be a lovely place in the future.  If we don't...well, all bets are off.

Now, yesterday, I felt like I needed a little motivation in my role as "parent," so I wrote, "Because I love my kids." on the dry-erase board in my kitchen.  I looked at it often during the day to remind myself why I do what I do in my home.  Why am I doing the dishes again?  Why am I making dinner?  Why am I making Guy clean up the brownie bits off the floor (the right way)?  Because I love my kids.  

I put this photo up on Instagram and Facebook yesterday, and asked my friends what they did today "because they love their kids."  I got some really interesting responses...anything from "I played two board games with them before bedtime and didn't lose my cool, even though I was exhausted," to "I made one child go to be early because she was misbehaving, and needed to learn consequences."

The role of a loving parent cannot be understated.  It is from our parents that we learn...well, everything.  And the Lord designed it to be so.  What a blessing it is to have good parents...to have any parents.  The Lord, in this section of the Family Proclamation, gives us specific counsel about what our duties to our children are.

For our lesson, I decided to focus on teaching our kids the 10 Commandments.  I know they know generally what they are, but I wanted them to commit them to memory.

As we've been told, the 10 commandments, won't be going away anytime soon.  We will be eternally held accountable for how we respond to these basic commandments from the Lord.

So, I thought a never-ending card might just be appropriate for helping my kids memorize these eternal commands.

Have you ever seen a "never-ending" card?  They are super cool.  You can open and open and open them endlessly...see below.

If you click on this link: Never-ending card, you can print off a template for making this card and it's super easy, I promise.  If you are artsy, you can probably make yours look much cuter!  Have fun!

Be sure to check out other lessons in this series:

Five-minute Lessons on The Family Proclamation

Agency & The Family Proclamation
In the Image of God
The Pedigree of Your Spirit
Gender Matters
Temples: The Forever Family Place
Multiply & Replenish the Earth
Family Love