Sturtz Stuff

From WH Vanstone’s Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense , a passage that I’m sure any parent will be able to identify with: Love proceeds by no assured programme. In the case of children a parent is peculiarly aware that each step of love is a step of risk; and that each step taken generates the need for another and equally precarious step. In each word of encouragement lies the danger of creating over-confidence; in each restraint the danger of destroying confidence.  A risk is taken when the child is allowed to ride his bicycle on the road: when he returns in pride and confidence, the gain has justified the risk. But now there is a new danger of over-confidence, and the child must be warned – yet not so severely that his new-found confidence is destroyed.  In each expression of love to a child lies the danger that it will be exploited and that the child will be “spoiled” by taking as a right that which should be received as a gift: in each withholding of love’s expression...