Do Not Forsake Your Mother's Teaching

Proverbs 1:8-9
8 Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
9 They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.

Parental advice is valuable in the life of a person. I realize some argue with that and I would have to agree that not all parental advice is valuable, especially if your parent was destructive, addictive, absent, or abusive. If you had that kind of parent then you understand how the lack of intelligent parental advice affects people. But for those with parents who sincerely loved them and did the best they could to be a good parent, parental advice can be valuable. There seems to be an immense lack of common sense not to mention wisdom in our society. We do what we feel is right. We do what we want to do. No one can demand us to act responsibly. No one is calling us to be accountable for our actions. As I read this verse this morning, it struck me that God set up the whole parenting system to give us a mentor for life. He set up parenting so that we would have someone who could tell us about their experiences, who could teach us from what they had learned, who could help us to avoid making the same mistakes they made. He also put them in place so that we would have someone to hold us accountable, to remind us of how we were raised, to challenge us to be responsible and noble. Now that I am a parent, I find I have been turning to my mother more and more for advice. She hesitated at first to give the advice to me, fearing it would hurt my feelings, but now freely gives when I ask. I am learning so much and she often comments that she is glad I choose to learn from her experiences. I don't always like what she has to say, but she is usually pretty accurate with her advice. I admit I tried to do it on my own for the first couple of years, but have since realized that if I am going to pursue Godly parenting, I need help.