Question II: Concerning Children and Parents

I. Obligations of children. - Children ought to render four duties to parents: special love, reverence and honor, obedience, and assistance in spiritual and temporal necessities, as is usually set forth in moral theology.¹

¹ Cf. Summa Theologiae Moralis, II, nn. 810-817.

These constitute the necessary foundation or formal exercise of the virtue of piety.

II. Children sin against parents, and indeed by a special sin grave of itself:

1. Against love, if they hate them or despise them, if they show signs of hatred toward them or treat them harshly as if they hated them, if they are the cause that they are deservedly saddened, especially if gravely, if they wish a grave evil to them or deliberately rejoice over it against the order of charity.

2. Against reverence and honor, if they afflict them with harsh or insulting words, or with words by which they know them to be gravely offended; if they look upon them with a grim eye; if they cast curses or abuse upon them; if they strike them or raise a hand to strike them, unless this would be necessary for preserving their own life or integrity of body; if they are unwilling to acknowledge poor parents from contempt or shame, or with grave sadness to them, unless this is done from true grave necessity and contempt being excluded; if they accuse them in judgment of a crime even true, unless the crime were of such a kind against the common good that it had to be denounced.

3. Against obedience, if they are rebellious or contumacious against the express and just commands of parents; if in a grave matter pertaining to morals, education, salvation of the soul, or governance of the house they do not listen to them; if against their right will they contract marriage with an unworthy person, from which, all circumstances considered, grave disgrace would follow for the family; if they choose a state without consulting parents in circumstances in which these can deservedly be offended.

4. Against assistance, if they do not supply food and other necessities to poor parents who cannot honestly support themselves; if they neglect parents in infirmity, or do not call a physician when they can; if in danger of death they neglect to admonish them or to provide the necessary sacraments; if they maliciously impede them from making pious legacies, or do not fulfill those made; if they do not assist the dead by Christian suffrages.

They sin: a) by a special sin, because hatred of or injury against parents adds to the sin a new species against the special love or piety due to parents;

b) grave of itself, for hatred, malevolence, contempt, or injury, which with respect to another would be light, are easily graver with respect to parents, to whom before others we owe love, reverence, and dutiful service more strictly. Nevertheless the sin can be light either from lightness of matter, or accidentally by reason of age, infirmity, dull judgment, or deficient education. Hence Reuter notes, Neo-conf., n. 138:

If someone accuses himself in general of disobedience or irreverence against parents, the disposition and age of the penitent are to be considered.

a) Therefore if the age is tender, the offense can be supposed not grave.

b) But if the age is more advanced and the disposition seems bold, one must inquire concerning the manner of irreverence and the matter of disobedience; for those things which with respect to others, in the matter of hatred, insult, malevolence, and contempt, are moderate, with respect to parents are grave for children, because after God they are nearest to them.

c) Moreover, custom and the estimation of the people must also be considered, so that judgment may be made concerning the gravity of children's irreverence against parents.

d) But if a child doubts whether the cause for doing or omitting something by which a parent can be gravely afflicted is just, he is bound to abstain, because possession is in favor of the parent; indeed, although it is certain that the parent's exacerbation arises from malevolence or from his difficult and morose nature, nevertheless piety requires that the child avoid, so far as he can, every occasion of exacerbating him.

e) If, however, the exacerbation arises beyond the child's foresight, it is not imputed to him.

III. Children are to be questioned, especially older ones:

1. Whether they have not gravely injured the love due to parents by gravely saddening them or by denying assistance to them.

2. Whether they have transgressed express commands of parents in a grave matter, "as it would be, that they should not go out of the house at night, that they should not play harmful games, that they should not keep company with bad companions, or persons of the other sex, and the like," as St. Alphonsus has, Praxis Conf., n. 34.

3. Whether they have committed grave irreverence against parents by words or deeds, such as by imprecations or grave injuries inflicted in their presence.

In a case of insult inflicted, children are bound to restore the injured honor to them, and indeed of itself by asking pardon in the presence of those in whose sight they sinned. In practice, however, this act is for the most part not to be enjoined, but only advised, especially to boys; for afterward they often either fear to execute it or do not care to, and therefore parents are presumed for the most part to remit this obligation to their children, lest the children again incur an offense of God.²

² Aertnijs, Th. P., n. 36, according to St. Alphonsus, l. c.

IV. Children are to be admonished concerning their obligations toward parents:³

³ See Reuter, Neo-conf., n. 147.

1. If a child accuses himself of disobedience, let him be admonished to remember the greater benefits of parents, and the command of God requiring obedience toward those who hold His place on earth; wherefore a disobedient child has no blessing of God to expect. Especially if the parents are of modest condition, let him remember how many things they have borne for the children, how many nights they have passed sleepless, how many troubles they still sustain so that they may be able to support them honestly and provide for them in the future; wherefore he is unworthy to increase these inconveniences, or to deny them help or the required labor.

2. If a child has gravely offended parents either by disobedience, or by imprecation or injury of honor, let him be admonished, on returning home, to ask pardon and promise amendment; or, if he seems likely to do this only with difficulty, to satisfy his debt by gentle words and ready services, and to reconcile them to himself. Generally, however, it is not expedient to impose on younger persons the obligation of asking pardon for a determinate matter, because it is beyond their strength.

3. If a child complains of a parent's partiality, and thinks that he is treated more harshly while another is favored, let him be asked whether that other is perhaps more reverent toward the parent: if so, let him do likewise; otherwise let him strive in all things to gratify the parents, so that he may not be loved less. Nor is greater love of one child always marked by partiality: thus, if one more virtuous is esteemed more, or if one younger or weaker is loved with more tender affection, another or the older by birth is not therefore objectively loved less than he ought to be. But if the parent truly treats him more harshly, let him be commanded either to be silent or to answer kindly and reverently; for nevertheless the parent remains an eminent benefactor after God and one representing Him among children, who is to be treated with every reverence; and the kindly reverence of the child will be crowned with God's blessing, just as it is apt to conquer and soften the parent's mind.

4. But if, to excuse disobedience and irreverence, the child complains of the father's unfitness for managing the household and his dissipation of it, let him be admonished that he himself should watch over matters more diligently; that when the father is drunk or angry he should be silent; that when he is well disposed he should kindly and reverently ask him to take counsel for his own affairs and for theirs, if this seems opportune; or that he should take care that the father be brought back to better things through a prudent man, such as the pastor, confessor, or a friend; meanwhile let him not omit to pray often and fervently to God for him.

5. If a child is detected as unjust toward the goods or rights of parents, let him be admonished:

a) that concerning things granted to him by the father he cannot dispose except according to the will of the father; but concerning his own things, if he has any, he is bound to provide for his own sustenance, indeed to assist the grave necessity of parents or siblings;

b) that to take secretly from the goods of parents unduly is a sin of injustice, and indeed grave if it concerns a grave thing and they are gravely unwilling, as easily happens if money is taken for forbidden games, drinking bouts, luxury, and other things merely useless or vicious;

c) that injustice committed of itself induces the obligation of restitution. Yet in practice he is not to be forced to this unless he can restore and the grave obligation is certain, nor unless the father is rightly judged not to have condoned it. But what quantity in the case is grave cannot be defined by one rule, but must be judged according to the state of the parents, their resources, affection toward the children, the multitude of children, and the end for which the thing was taken. Thus, if the parents are rich, liberal toward their own, the children few, and the thing is taken for honest uses, the parents are less unwilling, at least as to the substance, than if they are of moderate fortune, frugal, have numerous offspring, or the thing is taken for dishonorable uses.⁴ Therefore all these things are to be considered, lest either a conscience of mortal sin be too easily thrust upon children, or the reins be loosened for stealing.

⁴ Ibid., nn. 143-144.

Concerning this argument it is customary to speak more fully and accurately in the treatise on Justice.

V. Duties of parents. - Parents owe to children: special love, true and sincere, but moderated by Christian prudence; bodily education or care of life, food, and good health; instruction and spiritual education; and provision of a state suitable to the condition and disposition of the children; these things are declared in moral theology.

VI. Parents sin against children:

1. Against love: by defect indeed if they hate them or afflict them with insults, wish evil to them, do not care to provide a good necessary to them or to avert evil from them if they can; but by excess if they love them too much so that they permit them all things, or prefer one to others without sufficient reason.

2. Against bodily care: if they harm offspring already conceived, the mother, for example, by working immoderately, dancing, carrying heavier burdens; the father by exasperating or gravely beating a pregnant wife with danger to the fetus; if the mother, when she can, is unwilling to nurse the offspring, especially with great harm to it, or, when she cannot, does not provide concerning a nurse of good health and honest life, or concerning another suitable means; if parents deny food and other necessities to children or do not employ diligence in procuring them; if without grave necessity they expose offspring in public ways or at the doors of a hospital so that they may free themselves from the burden of providing for it.

3. Against spiritual education, if they compel a child to enter religion, or impede him from it without a just reason; likewise if they truly compel children to determinate marriages; or if they prohibit marriage, unless this is done for a grave and just cause; if they do not care that children be instructed in the true religion and in Christian life; if they send them to heretical or non-Catholic schools, or even to neutral or mixed schools without grave reason and sufficient caution by which the danger of perversion is averted; if they give children bad example; if they do not watch over them, permit them to frequent wicked company, foster illicit loves, make dangerous readings, and do not procure that they fulfill their duties; if they do not correct delinquent children, or, where it is necessary, do not punish them; or, on the contrary, inflict excessive punishments.

4. Against provision of state, if they do not care that children learn a trade or letters so that they may be able to live honestly according to their condition; if they dissipate their goods and have no care of the household estate, by which they may provide for children or leave them an inheritance, so that they may be able to arrive at a suitable state and live honestly.

The sins are grave from their kind; but in individual cases whether parents sin gravely or only lightly must be judged from the gravity of the matter, harm, injury, and from the accompanying circumstances.

VII. Parents are to be questioned:⁵

⁵ Aertnijs, Th. P., n. 36, according to St. Alphonsus, Praxis conf., nn. 35 and 177.

1. Whether they have been negligent in the education of children, by not taking care that they learn Christian doctrine, attend Mass, frequent the sacraments, and avoid wicked companions.

2. Whether they have sent children to Catholic schools, if such are present.

3. Whether they have taken care that they learn a trade, or exercise honest labor in the home.

4. Whether they have corrected them concerning sins, especially concerning theft, if they have committed any.

5. Whether they have given scandal to them, for example by blaspheming, quarreling, or speaking foul things in their presence.

6. Whether they have permitted untimely or incautious courtships, especially so that one alone is with another alone.

7. Whether they have kept boys or girls with themselves in bed, or permitted boys and girls to sleep together.

8. Whether they have permitted children to go out at will, to frequent theaters, dances, or other dangerous societies, or to read wicked books.

VIII. Parents are to be admonished and instructed, according to opportunity, that they have careful concern for the good formation of the whole family; but specifically:⁶

⁶ Reuter, Neo-conf., n. 136.

1. That they take care that their children be instructed in good morals and also in skills according to their capacity; that they send them to catechism, examine them on their return, praise those who have merited well, or even encourage them by some little reward.

2. That they furnish good examples to the whole household, and do or say nothing by which children could be scandalized.

3. That on holy days they diligently send them to divine things; that they not occupy them in servile labors without necessity; that they recommend the reading of a pious book; that they recite evening prayers or the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin together with them in common; and that they take care that they be enrolled in a pious association.

4. That both among themselves and among their own they esteem and care for concord very greatly. Let them also beware lest, without a special cause of necessity, they favor one of the children while the others notice, because this begets envy and aversion. Nor, when offspring is rebuked by one, should the other openly oppose it, or afterward flatter the offspring, because this altogether removes the fruit of correction.

5. That according to their means they be merciful toward the poor, and by example teach Christian charity to the children; it is also expedient that they commit a small alms to the children to be given to the poor or to good works, by which from tender years they may put on an affection of mercy.

IX. Observation concerning pupils and teachers. - Between pupils and teachers there are obligations similar to those between children and parents. Wherefore they are to be questioned:

A. Pupils: 1. whether they have preserved reverence toward their teachers, or, on the contrary, have borne themselves insolently toward them, treated them irreverently, detracted from them, mocked them, or been troublesome to them;

2. whether they have given obedience to those strictly commanding as to studies, good morals, and scholastic discipline;

3. whether they attended to lessons, studied diligently, and did not waste time uselessly.

B. Teachers: 1. whether they have employed due diligence in preparing and giving lessons;

2. whether they have corrected the bad morals of pupils, and nevertheless have not punished them excessively or unjustly;

3. whether they have not given bad example and have not scandalized them.