Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Her View of Parent-Child Relationship

In 1863 Mrs. White had a vision in which she saw certain principles that should control the lives of parents in relation to their children. We quote a few lines from what she wrote, because they so definitely throw light on her character and her conception of social and family relations. EGWC 40.8

“I have been shown that while parents who have the fear of God before them restrain their children, they should study their dispositions and temperaments, and seek to meet their wants. Some parents attend carefully to the temporal wants of their children; they kindly and faithfully nurse them in sickness, and then think their duty done. Here they mistake. Their work has but just begun. The wants of the mind should be cared for. It requires skill to apply the proper remedies to cure a wounded mind. Children have trials just as hard to bear, just as grievous in character, as those of older persons.... EGWC 40.9

“Parents, when you feel fretful, you should not commit so great a sin as to poison the whole family with this dangerous irritability. At such times set a double watch over yourselves, and resolve in your heart not to offend with your lips, that you will utter only pleasant, cheerful words. Say to yourselves, ‘I will not mar the happiness of my children by a fretful word.’ By thus controlling yourselves, you will grow stronger. Your nervous system will not be so sensitive. You will be strengthened by the principles of right.... EGWC 41.1

“The mother can and should do much toward controlling her nerves and mind when depressed; even when she is sick, she can, if she only schools herself, be pleasant and cheerful, and can bear more noise than she would once have thought possible. She should not make the children feel her infirmities, and cloud their young, sensitive minds by her depression of spirits, causing them to feel that the house is a tomb, and the mother’s room the most dismal place in the world. The mind and nerves gain tone and strength by the exercise of the will. The power of the will in many cases will prove a potent soother of the nerves.”—Testimonies for the Church 1:384-387. EGWC 41.2