AT THE YOUNG AGE of ten, little Marcela came to therapy because she had regressed into night-time bed wetting, which she had stopped doing at the age of three. Not knowing what to do and blaming the the child for her lack of discipline, her mother brought her to therapy so I would «fix» her. She insisted that the girl wet her bed because she was lazy and didn’t want to go to the bathroom. It’s one thing to say something reality is a completely different thing.
In this mother’s case, there was a lot of ignorance. There was a sad story of abandonment behind this child’s bladder incontinence. On weekends, Marcela’s parents went out partying at night and left the girl in charge of her two year old brother. Unable to fulfill such a big responsibility, the little girl would cry and was unable to fall asleep until she heard the family car enter the garage. Then, instead of being comforted, she was scolded. The girl’s worst nightmare was the fear that her parents would never return.
Carelessly bringing a child into this world, without previous thought or planning, is a sin with eternal consequences. When this happens, children grow with a sense of rejection and harassment, which make them feel they’re burdensome. They are ridiculed; their need for shelter, food and hygiene are not tended to; they are confined and ignored, and their problems are minimized or not taken care of. This is how a breeding ground leading to juvenile delinquents or addictive personalities is created.
Let us have children with responsibility, aware that the Lord will hold us accountable for each one of them. Caring for them and raising them is a holy task that requires total dependence on God. We shouldn’t only pray for our children to be good; we should also ask God to make us good mothers.
“Parents may well inquire: ‘Who is sufficient for these things?’ God alone is their sufficiency, and if they leave Him out of the question, seeking not His aid and counsel, hopeless indeed is their task. But by prayer, by study of the Bible, and by earnest zeal on their pan they may succeed nobly in this important duty and be repaid a hundredfold for all their time and care“ (Testimonies For the Church, vol. 4, ch. 18, p. 198).