What Virtues to Develop in Children which They Won't Forget

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

My father died when I was in third-year college. We are eight in the family, and my youngest sibling was only 5 years old. It was a difficult time for the family since my mother was already invalid after her attack when she gave birth to our youngest.

Looking back at those times when the only thing I can hold on to was my faith in God, I still become teary-eyed. Aside from remaining steadfast in my faith, one thing that saved us all from those difficult times was how our parents brought us up. Even if my mother left us in 2004, their influence in us, their children, rooted in our innermost beings.

I want to share some of the seeds of character I got from my parents and which I can pass to my children.

1. Contentment

It's tough to be contented when you look around and see your neighbors enjoying hearty meals, beautiful houses, fancy clothes, and other material things. We learned to be contented with what we had because our parents did not grumble about what was on the dining table or the clothes we wore or how tiny our house was.  

It was okay and reasonable for us to have salt, bagoong, camote tops, ginisang papaya, or any edible plant around the house as our viand.  

When I was in college, I only had 2,500 pesos from the Commission of Higher Education (CHED)  as my allowance for the whole term.  One thing I was thankful and considered as a blessing was the sayote plant climbing our boarding house' fence.  I tasted every kind of sayote recipe a student could ever imagine.  That sayote plant saved me from starvation😊.

2. Hard work

Our parents were hardworking people, and they passed it to us, their children, not by word of mouth but by their examples.  At a very young age, my mother already taught me household chores. I learned to cook, fetch water, plant vegetables, clean our tiny abode, help in the field and, wash clothes. My brothers started working in the ricefields even before going to school.  

Our parents were hardworking people and they passed it to us, their children, not by word of mouth but by their examples. 

I remember, for me to have an allowance for school, I need to sell ice candies made by my Aunt Cristeta. I was thrilled when at the end of the day, she gives me five pesos. During the weekend, when I was already in grade four or five, my Aunt Melin would ask me to wash their clothes in the river, and that helped me with things I needed in school. 

During high school days, I joined my neighbors working in the cornfields. Our village has a vast cornfield, and during planting, cleaning, and harvest time, almost everyone in our village gets to work in the cornfields.

3. Love for Education

I never heard my parents talking about education or asking us about our ambitions, but the way they supported us in our studies said it all. If they had extra money, they give us some to buy ice candies, sweets or bread in the sari-sari store during breaks. My mother, who was a dressmaker, would always tailor us short pants for school.

Before the opening of classes, my mother would go to the market and buy what we need like notebooks, pens, and papers. They never brought us school bags or shoes for obvious reasons, but when they had extra money, they would surprise us with a new shirt or pair of slippers.

I got my love for reading from my father. He loved reading Bannawag, a weekly Ilocano magazine. He even read old newspapers they used to wrap dried fish in the market. Because he could not afford to buy new issues every week, I would always visit the house of Lola Betty, which had a lot of Bannawag issues, and stay there for a couple of hours.

How about you?  What can you pass on to your children?  Training them as early as possible will be an investment for us, parents.  We may not be with them always, but they will always look back to their training time with us.  

I always tell others that the best inheritance parents can give to their children is not education but faith and character. Let us train them with love, and when they grow old, they will not depart from it.

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