Mothers must 'train up a child in the way he should go'

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2: Yesterday, I began to think about how some of our youth go astray.

So, permit me to preface the rest of this column by saying that for one to go ‘astray’ is too much.

Yes, I began to consider where things might go off-track. Speaking of track, this is a timely place to remind you of the best track — a ‘train’ track.

Proverbs 22:6:
Train up a child in the way he should go: And when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Think about the child in the womb, he or she can be accepted or rejected even while in the womb.

Jeremiah 1:5:
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

God Himself speaks to the nature of a child even while in the womb. Mothers, you also model this behaviour when you speak to your unborn child in the womb.

You may sing a favourite lullaby, you can read to your unborn child introducing him or her to words, and you also speak to the unborn the hopes and dreams you have for them.

While carrying her child in her womb, a mother formulates a plan for the life of her child.

The unborn child’s destiny is being shaped by a mother who is planning.

The advantage of a maturely planned pregnancy is that you are not just planning to have a child; you are planning to raise a successful child. There is a difference.

I do not believe any mother desires failure for her unborn.

Yet, by the mere fact that a mother does not plan to get pregnant or does not plan to put the child first and see that the child succeeds, gives way to the evidence that the mother has indeed planned that the unborn child will fail.

While the unborn is in the natural womb, he or she is encased in a protective environment.

That is, the unborn is in a place of safety so that full development can take place.

God designed it that way. God made the female body in such a way that it naturally speaks to protecting a most precious gift.

Once the child is born, it moves from the hidden womb to a seen room. Yet, the premise of its new ‘womb’ is the very same.

Now, the mother must seek to protect the child in a dangerous place — the world.

The mother must seek to keep dangerous pathogens (germs and diseases) from the space of the child.

This is why typically many newborns are not ‘publically’ seen for weeks.  They are too vulnerable to the germs that are a part of the natural environment.

I believe the sad thing is that there are some who place the child’s life at risk by not placing the child’s needs before their own.

The innocent newborn has a clean slate at the beginning, and the concern becomes what does each mother and father apply to that clean slate. In particular I am considering the role of the mother in this column.

It is difficult to accept that a mother who carries a child to full-term and goes through intense labour to have the child, will then sit back and not be a responsible parent shaping and moulding the life of that tender being. Yet, this is happening.

Bermuda must sincerely consider that these precious youngsters that Bermuda is having an issue with, have issued out of their mother’s womb and their mother’s room.

In other words, unless and until the homes become caring and responsible training grounds, set in developing the innocent newborn into a guiltless adult, Bermuda will continue to see baby-faced criminals carted off to the local prison.

It begins in the home and ripples into the community.

Mature mothers must begin to train their children to live to succeed in the future by sacrificing in the present.

The best clothes, best hair-dos, and best nails will not save our generation. It will be those who possess the best hearts.

Dr Maria A Seaman is the pastor of Shekinah Worship Centre, North Shore Road, Hamilton Parish.