Over a decade ago, when I was a college student, there was a minor rap hit that I was particularly fond of from a rapper named Juvenile. Few people nowadays probably heard it then (it only got in the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100). In the song, the rapper humorously details both the good and bad things that his lady got from her mama, starting with praise and ending in intense frustration. Though the lyrics of the song are not in particularly articulate English, the song makes its point that we tend to get a lot from our parents, whether that is good or bad (and it is often both). As a serious student of family legacies (my own has given me a great deal of food for thought), the fact that daughters ought to be expected to end up at least a little bit like their mothers, and often very much so, is a common expectation.

One of the solemn responsibilities parents have is the responsibility to raise up children who are somewhat naturally in their own image and to train and rear them up in God’s way so that they grow up to be godly men and women, capable of passing on virtue to the next generation after them. This is not an easy task. It is certainly not an easy task to be a good parent in a wicked world like this one, where parents are faced with the need to protect their children from all kinds of very serious evil even as those same children must be equipped at a shockingly young age to behave wisely in their choice of friends and in their educational and financial and personal decisions. I do not envy any parent in this present evil age, and I can entirely understand the dilemmas faced by parents who genuinely seek the best for their children in a dangerous and hostile world.

Mothers in particular offer a great deal of power when it comes to example. In many households (though certainly not all), it is often the example of the mother that a child sees the most. A daughter sees the behavior of her mother and either mimics it or deliberately rejects it. In either case, she will be naturally determined by the confines of her mother’s life unless great and difficult effort is taken to avoid the extremes of either copying often bad patterns of behavior and communication or rejecting them and falling into opposite extremes. Likewise, a young man will grow up and with a healthy respect for his mother (hopefully with the example of loving treatment of his mother from his father) learn how to treat the young women in his own life when he is courting and when he marries himself, assuming he is that fortunate. Even the sons of a single mother are likely to feel somewhat protective of their mothers, if they naturally have some sort of gallant and gentlemanly character, even if their education in dealing with women is likely to be highly complicated as a result of their broken families.

By and large, I tend to spend a great deal of time and effort seeking to understand the family situation of the people I happen to know. Though our present society does not seem to understand the context of family, speaking personally I consider any sort of connection I make with someone else to naturally and inevitably involve their family as well. Even though my own family is small, I would expect those who think fondly of me and desire to know me better would want to know my family, and there is no better way to know someone than to take the time and effort to get to know them personally, to over time judge their character, see their quirks of personality, and to appreciate their strengths and weaknesses. Often these strengths and weaknesses come from our parents, and as mothers are often the more nurturing of our parents, we ought to take the time and effort to praise mothers for seeking to raise godly children in such a world as this, and to give them all the encouragement and support in their often difficult efforts. Those of us who seek to practice virtue ought to be supportive of the efforts of parents to teach and practice virtue with their children, as parents these days often need all the encouragement they can get. Hopefully, in time, those daughters will grow up to be loving wives and mothers themselves to fortunate men, as was sung by John Mayer in another song I particularly like because of its focus on the importance of family and upbringing, issues which I know all too well.