I wonder of parents who are rare in turning out the best of children. I wonder of good parents thwarted by satan in ruining those children. I wonder of worthless parents who are given children born adults who raise themselves to be respectable Citizens.
I think about these things in the intimate letters between President Theodore Roosevelt and his children. They were a most amazing group in reality, in while none of them eclipsed their father, each one of them was a solid Citizen under the most looming and glooming of public world lights.
I place here a few quotes the President wrote about his children. The first is to his daughter Ethel and the second one is to Ethel about her brother Kermit. The third is to Archie about Quentin. The fourth quote is about Quentin to a friend.
In all cases, the President and Dad, praise the child, and by association of the peer group does not invoke unhealthy sibling competition, but the praise of the family appreciating the responsible nature of the child maturing into an adult.
Do you remember when you explained, with some asperity, that of
course you wished Ted were at home, because you didn't have anybody as
a really intimate companion, whereas Mother had "old Father"? It is a
great comfort to have a daughter to whom I can write about all kinds of
intimate things!
Kermit of course worked hardest, for he is really a first-class walker and runner; I had to go
slowly, but I kept at it all day and every day. Kermit has really become
not only an excellent hunter but also a responsible and trustworthy man,
fit to lead; he managed the whole caravan and after hunting all day he
would sit up half the night taking care of the skins. He is also
the nicest possible companion.
Quentin turned up last night. He is half an inch taller than I am, and
is in great shape. He is much less fat than he was, and seems to be
turning out right in every way. I was amused to have him sit down and
play the piano pretty well.
Quentin is really too funny for anything. He got his legs fearfully
sunburned the other day, and they blistered, became inflamed, and
ever-faithful Mother had to hold a clinic on him. Eyeing his blistered
and scarlet legs, he remarked, "They look like a Turner sunset, don't
they?" And then, after a pause, "I won't be caught again this way! quoth
the raven, 'Nevermore!'" I was not surprised at his quoting Poe, but I
would like to know where the ten-year-old scamp picked up any knowledge
of Turner's sunsets.
In every case, it is the reality of a parent deeply interested and active in his children.
I wonder about such things in life as predestination in people choosing to be selfish and hell bound to those who are unselfish and Heavenward bound. I wonder at the struggle in how great people chosen by God often have thee most worthless of offspring who are corrupt to the soul.
None of this is to say that the Roosevelt children were not like all children. In a letter to Archie, President Roosevelt notes some active parenting, not only to his son Quentin, but to the son of a future President in Master Taft.
Quentin really seems to be getting on pretty well with his baseball. In
each of the last two games he made a base hit and a run. I have just
had to give him and three of his associates a dressing down--one of the
three being Charlie Taft. Yesterday afternoon was rainy, and four of
them played five hours inside the White House. They were very boisterous
and were all the time on the verge of mischief, and finally they
made spit-balls and deliberately put them on the portraits. I did not
discover it until after dinner, and then pulled Quentin out of bed and
had him take them all off the portraits, and this morning required him
to bring in the three other culprits before me. I explained to them that
they had acted like boors; that it would have been a disgrace to have
behaved so in any gentleman's house; that Quentin could have no friend
to see him, and the other three could not come inside the White House,
until I felt that a sufficient time had elapsed to serve as punishment.
They were four very sheepish small boys when I got through with them.
It is the greatest of mysteries to me. I was a child who basically raised myself, surrounded by 4 siblings who all thought they were my parents, and a Mom who was in most cases too busy working to be a parent and a dad who could best be described as police state minder who visited far too often.
I remember a day when he was bragging to me about some woman having shown him a pile of money in her purse. She had been watching him, and asked him to run away with her.
My dad thought this was all the greatest of validations of his worth. My thought at the time unspoken was "Why did you not go to give us peace from you".
My thought at this time is, the woman was probably some black widow who picked up idiot men, insured them, murdered them, and that is how she had that purse full of cash.
I wonder how some children need to be spanked daily and some children a parent can look at them and that is all that is required.
I wonder though at a parent like Theodore Roosevelt, a very great man, who invested so much time in his children with love, and how his great focus and admiration was on the character of his children in the pleasure he took in that attribute.
Kermit has always been a favorite of mine and why the liberal creatures now having that name are such a disgrace, as that boy was always an old soul and as a self made man was more a gentleman and creature of the outdoors than his father ever could be.
Ted, his brother, would become a fine military man, who I recall was walking along a beach in Italy and one of the privates was there, and quite surprised to have General Roosevelt turn up, but the General was markedly busy in talking to the man, in he explained the reasons for the operation and never talked down to the man.
That Soldier deeply appreciated that effort and it is a testament to how fine of children that family produced.
I think of all of those things, in dead Kennedy children, most children just fading away, some you hope they would go away like Junior Reagan, while Michael is one of the few of the highest sort.
There are very few like George W. Bush who eclipse a rather failed father who never should have been in the White House. In the case of HW, it was the Reagan cabinet who was the Reagan 3rd term. In the case of W., he was greatly assisted by the Ford Administration in Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Cheney, which harkens back to the caliber of Richard Nixon in choosing officers, which reflected in the Administration of Ronald Reagan.
Success is not measured really by college degrees, political power, industrial prowess or piles of money. Success is marked by children who can be depended upon as Kermit Roosevelt was, and the certification of it is a parent who actually comprehends as an adult the value of the virtue of the child now adult as the primary asset as God does.
Not all parents are dealt a fair hand. Some children as the Bible records should be brought before the elders and stoned by them for being without remedy. Not all childern are dealt a fair hand in why the sins of the parents should not be visited upon the children.
It is just rare when parents exist who can love and discipline a child, and the child can accept that love without license, so the child does not have to learn the hard way of mistakes in pain.
Trustworthy, responsible, a good companion. That is what is missing in this Obama 21st century as the virtues children should be taught by example and by discipline with love when needed.
I firmly believe that most people chose to be selfish and hell is their destination, before they were formed in the womb as many are called and few are chosen.......and as TL pointed out, it does not say all are called, so there is something in that too in the reprobates in this world.
Those who are genuine are now the rarest of people.
agtG
