Empty Pages

Gilbert Alexander

When children are born, they are like books full of empty pages. Some have more pages than others, but we don’t know how many pages each one has. What we must understand is that we as parents and their elders are helping write each page in each book. Each page is filled with something — things trivial and/or things of value. Somebody is going to write those pages. Especially in the early years, someone other than the child will have the predominant place of writing each page. An infant does practically nothing for himself. Someone teaches him how to eat, how to go to sleep, how to sit up, how to drink, and a little later how to talk and walk.

The pages are empty at the start. Like soft clay, children are molded, shaped, and refined in all particulars by those who care for them. Indifference to a child’s needs means that little is written that will be constructive. If television is the shaper, one should not be surprised at the very undesirable traits that are developed. Children have to learn everything except those things that nature controls, and those things must be refined and controlled. It is far easier to shape a child aright at the first, than to have to reshape to eliminate bad habits and behavior that are unacceptable. We have a very short time to do the writing over which we have control. Once that time is gone, we have little power to change the product that has been entrusted to our care and that we have shaped.

We need to be reminded of just how empty the pages are at the start. Children must learn eating habits, choices of food and drink, to sleep in their own bed, to share, to be patient, to be respectful of others, to obey, to know when and how to use the restroom, to be still and listen, to read and write, to understand danger and what is dangerous, to control desires that are a part of their nature. They must learn about God and origins of all things, about the purpose of life, about pleasing God and revering Him, about God’s punishment for the disobedient and His reward for the obedient, about duty how to work, the joy of giving and the value of service to others, the value of prayer and how to pray, how to sing wholeheartedly, the importance of punctuality, the importance of keeping one’s word, the high place of honesty and the problems of lying, about proper human relationships, the value of human life, and sexual conduct and purity.

Habits are created by repeated behavior. If a thing is bad and harmful, children must learn to avoid it. Consistent unpleasant results make the action undesirable. Where we are today is the result of the writing of each page of the book of our lives, and so it will be for those whose books we are helping to write, page by page. Sobering thought, isn’t it? “Chasten your son while there is hope, and do not set your heart on his destruction.” “A child left to himself brings shame to his mother.” (Prov. 19:18; 29:15).