In plain words
Parents must teach them first of all. When the children are at home: ‘My dear child! Think of God. God alone is our protector in all things,’ so they must teach the children. They do not teach such things. But that is only if the children are with their parents, isn't it? Thinking they must be comfortable, comfortable, they go off to the office. After going to the office, they come home at 4.30. As soon as he comes home, saying he is tired, he changes his dress, takes the car and goes to the club. Why does he go to the club? He wants rest, relaxation. I need Śānti. Is there Śānti in that club? He goes there. He plays cards. He takes up the bottle. If he takes all these, how can there be goodness in him? So first he takes wine. Then the wine takes wine. Then the wine takes the man. This is what goes on there. Are these good qualities? Is this good conduct? Is this right behaviour? Not at all. So what must we do? The moment they come home, they must show the children an ideal. It is only because parents live with such bad habits that the children too take part in those bad habits.
Parents Must Be an Ideal for Their Children
Then again, at home the parents keep quarrelling in front of the children. This is very bad. They are leading the children off the sacred path into what is unholy. If there are any differences between the two of you, quarrel when the children are not there. You must not talk of your hardships or your losses or your sorrows in front of the children. All your problems settle into the children's hearts, and the children show no progress in their studies. It is only through such quarrels of the parents that the children too go off on the wrong path. The moment they get up at daybreak, the parents quarrel. When a child gets up and sees his parents quarrelling as soon as they are up, how will he turn out? He too will try to quarrel. In this way the parents themselves are the root cause of the children going bad. They must give good sense, good paths, good conduct, good teachings. The parents are sitting in the drawing room. Someone phones. ‘Ask who it is, will you?’ he says to the child. If it is someone he has no use for who phones, he says, ‘Tell him not available.’