Balance – What I’m Reading

“The hardest thing in the world to maintain is ethical balance. Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of loving and disciplining children. The two obvious extremes in childrearing are laxity on the one hand and strict woodenness on the other. The natural tendency of people in each group is to point to the excesses of those in the other as justification for continuing on their own destructive course. Parents of banshees point to the uptight and are glad they are not like that. Parents of automatons point to the disorder of their opposing counterparts and are grateful they don’t have those problems. But the point of childrearing is not order or disorder but rather love. Order that serves love is a delight. Disorder for the sake of others is also a delight. Wisdom alone establishes the point of equipoise.” (My Life for Yours, p. 109-110)