Sins of Parents: Counsels on Marriage and Youth Guidance

Sins of Parents By Charles Hugo Doyle Mistakes parents make in raising their children. How to avoid them. Or, how to lessen their impact, if made. One unfortunate result of Freudianism is that some Catholics have overreacted to the “blame-the-parents” attitude it fostered. But the idea that parents can blight the lives of their children didn’t begin with Freud — it began with God, who warned Moses: “I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generations.” Those sobering words provide the keynote for Fr. Charles Hugo Doyle’s arresting guide to Catholic parenting, now back in print after half a century. As Fr. Doyle explains, “The treatment extends not only to sins of fathers and mothers taken in their strict sense of serious transgressions against the law of God but extends also to the venial and even inculpable faults that can so adversely affect the lives of children.” The “imperative needs” of every child Specific “rights and privileges” of children 31 “don’ts” of child-rearing that “may spell the difference between being an affectionate and well-loved parent, or a complete failure” 21 character traits of good parents One rule you must never break in disciplining your child Chapter and verse: the “havoc” wrought on children by divorce, separation, and loveless marriages Three “adverse parental at