"As parents in Zion we are responsible to teach our posterity the gospel of Jesus Christ, including the necessity of keeping the commandments of God and obtaining the saving ordinances of the gospel. "We all desire to improve our performance as parents. No task is more common, yet none is more important. President Joseph F. Smith gave us this counsel:
" 'We should never be discouraged in those daily tasks which God has ordained to the common lot of man. Each day's labor should be undertaken in a joyous spirit and with the thought and conviction that our happiness and eternal welfare depend upon doing well that which we ought to do, that which God has made it our duty to do.'
"President Smith applied that principle to parenting as follows: " 'After all, to do well those things which God ordained to be the common lot of all mankind, is the truest greatness. To be a successful father or a successful mother is greater than to be a successful general or a successful statesman.' "Success in an occupation--even a lofty one--is only temporary, President Smith concluded, whereas success as a parent is 'universal and eternal greatness.' (Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1939, p. 285.)"
Topics: family, teaching, home, parenthood
(Dallin H. Oaks, "Parental Leadership in the Family," Ensign, June 1985, 7)
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