By Su Xin, China

My parents didn’t have much education and could only do hard labor, so they placed great importance on my brother’s and my education, and they scrimped and saved to send us to school. My mom often said that her father hadn’t let her go to school, so she had no choice but to spend her life as a housewife, and she told us not to end up like her. She was willing to sacrifice everything to send us to college, just so we could have a good job in the future. After my brother got into a top high school, though we were a little hard up back home, my parents still asked others to buy all kinds of study materials and supplements for my brother. As for me, I was just a few points short of getting into high school, so my parents spent over 7,000 yuan to send me to high school. After graduation, I learned a trade and opened a small shop. Seeing all the other similar shops around me, I felt a lot of pressure. I thought it really wasn’t easy to get a foothold in the market. I came to understand somewhat why my parents were willing to work hard to give us the best education. It was so we could get a better footing in society. I thought that if I had children, I would be a dutiful mother, work hard to earn money, and cultivate my children to study well.

After I got married, I had a daughter, and I thought, “I can’t let my daughter lose at the starting line. Since I’ve given birth to her, I have to fulfill my responsibility as a mother, cultivate her properly, and do my best to pave the way for her and to plan for her future. This way, she’ll be able to get a good job and live a life without worrying about the basics. If I don’t prepare for her future now, it’d be irresponsible of me as a mother.” When my child was just learning to talk, I would tell her stories, read her classical poems, and teach her to recognize characters, and I even played children’s English learning programs for her. My daughter started speaking early, and from a young age, she could already read storybooks by herself. Seeing how smart she was, I had more confidence in cultivating her properly, thinking that if she became successful, she would make me proud as a mother.

When my daughter started kindergarten, I thought early education was very important for developing a child’s intelligence, so I carefully chose a mental arithmetic kindergarten for her, and to ensure my child would have poise and physical beauty, I enrolled her in dance lessons at five. When she was about to start elementary school, I asked someone to find the best school for her, and I made sure she had a homeroom teacher with good qualifications who taught high-quality classes. I worked hard to earn money to send my daughter to school. I worked from morning till night, and I often ate at irregular times. Sometimes, I only ate one meal a day. Every time my daughter came home from school, I would rush her to finish her homework and then I’d check it, and if I found a single mistake, I’d make her do ten more problems as a penalty. Sometimes when I walked with my daughter on the street, we’d see people picking up trash, and I’d quietly say to my daughter, “If you don’t study well, that’s what you’ll end up doing. Is that what you want?” And she’d just shake her head. Later, I discovered that my daughter really liked music, and that no matter the song, she could sing it after only two listens. I thought to myself, “She still only has a child’s voice, so it might be too early for her to learn vocal music. Let me have her learn an instrument first so that she’ll be able to read music. That way, if she wants to keep going in music later on, it’ll be easier.” So, when she was in second grade, I enrolled her in guzheng classes. At first, out of curiosity, my daughter agreed to learn the guzheng, but as she sat in front of the guzheng every day, practicing various finger techniques and playing monotonous notes, she became unwilling. She’d often pout and look at me with tears in her eyes, saying, “Mom, I don’t want to practice anymore. I want to play for a while.” But I’d coax her to keep practicing, and my daughter was left with no choice but to continue practicing through her tears. Seeing her feel so unfairly treated made me feel bad too. Especially when I saw all my daughter’s delicate fingers were covered in hangnails, I felt heartbroken and torn. I also wanted to let my daughter play freely, but society is so reality-centered and cruel, and without a good education or skills, how would she make it in society? All the kids were working hard, and I couldn’t let my daughter slack off. If she didn’t want to be at the bottom of the pile later, she had to work hard now, and I had to take responsibility and make sure she didn’t fall behind. I just hoped my daughter could understand my painstaking considerations as a mother. Later, I often said to my daughter, “Now, the competition in society is intense, and if your education isn’t good, and you don’t have any special skills, then you’ll just be looked down upon as being at the bottom of the pile. Mom wants you to learn the guzheng so that you’ll have more job options in the future. You might not understand me now, but you will when you grow up.” With resignation, my daughter said, “Mom, can you stop nagging me? I don’t get to make any choices of my own. I just have to do everything you say.” When I saw my daughter like this, I sometimes asked myself, “Is this really the right thing to do?” At that time, I had already found God, and a sister also fellowshipped with me, telling me that we shouldn’t be too demanding of our children, and just do our part as parents, and as for whether our children will succeed or have a good career, this isn’t up to parents, and is all part of God’s ordinations, and we should entrust everything to God. I felt that with such intense competition in society, if a person doesn’t have a good education or special talents, it’s really hard for them to gain a foothold. My daughter was quite talented, and if I didn’t cultivate her properly, wouldn’t she blame me for being irresponsible as a mother when she grew up? I didn’t take my sister’s advice seriously, and I continued to cultivate my daughter according to my own plan.

While my daughter was learning the guzheng, I also enrolled her in other classes such as English and writing. Weekends and holidays were the busiest times for my daughter, and every day it felt like she was rushing from one place to another—finishing one class and then hurrying off to the next. Every time my daughter saw children playing downstairs, she’d look at them with longing and envy, and she’d say, “Mom, I want to go play outside like the other kids. Aren’t we supposed to have a day off on Sundays? But I’m busier now than on school days. When can I stop tiring myself out and just do whatever I want?” I said with resignation, “I know you’re tired and that you want to relax and have fun, but while you’d be playing, other kids would be working hard, and you could well fall behind. If you want a good future, you need to work hard now. You’re still young and so you don’t understand how intense the competition in society is. You’ll understand when you grow up.” I used all kinds of methods to encourage her to study. My daughter worked hard to live up to my expectations, and her writing was published in the local paper. She learned the guzheng well and often performed and participated in competitions, and she also often performed in dance shows. I felt gratified by my daughter’s successes and believed my efforts were justified. I felt that if my daughter had a good future, I would have fulfilled my responsibilities as a mother.

Later, my daughter entered middle school, and I found a homeroom teacher with a high advancement rate for her. To ensure her studies weren’t delayed, I vetted all the classmates my daughter interacted with at school, fearing that associating with less studious peers would affect her learning. My daughter often complained to me, “I’m like a bird in a cage. I don’t have any freedom at all. Every day I’m just going from school to home to cram classes. All I ever do is study, study, study. Mom, do you know how that feels? I want to be free. Even the fish in our aquarium have more freedom than me. At least they can swim about in that great big tank they’ve got. I don’t even have that much space.” Every time my daughter complained like this, I’d feel torn. I knew she was unhappy, but with such fierce competition in society, what else could I do? I could only try to persuade her patiently, “It’s not that I don’t want to give you freedom; it’s just that if you don’t work hard now, how are you going to get ahead in life? You haven’t entered society yet, so you don’t understand how harsh the competition is. I’ve been through it, and I’m doing this for your own good.” Every time my daughter heard this, she’d just stay silent. Gradually, I noticed my daughter was speaking less and less, and when she’d come home from school, she’d just lock herself in her room. I thought maybe she was going through a rebellious phase in adolescence, and that it would pass with time.

I didn’t expect that one day, when she was in her third year of middle school, after just a few words, our conversation broke down completely. I saw my daughter on her phone sometimes, so I said to her, “Your classes are so intense right now and the exams are near. You should be on your phone less!” My daughter said, “I’m just looking at it for a little while during my break.” I continued, “What good is looking at your phone going to do you! It’s just interfering with your studies!” She was silent for a while, then suddenly screamed at me through her tears, “Why do I have to listen to everything you say? Have you ever thought about it? Have you ever given me freedom, from when I was little until now? You’ve been controlling and manipulating everything in my entire life: You chose my school, you picked out my elementary and middle school homeroom teachers, you made me study dance, guzheng, writing, English, and all sorts of other extracurricular classes, and I have to listen to everything you say! Have you ever even considered my feelings? Do you really even love me? I don’t want to see you!” That night, my daughter ran away from home. In that instant, I almost broke down. I just couldn’t understand; wasn’t everything I’d done for her all for her own good? Why didn’t my daughter understand what was in my heart? I was frantic with worry that something might happen to her, so I quickly called her close classmates to inquire about her whereabouts. They all said they didn’t know. My heart was in my throat. Where could she have gone? Could she have done something rash? If something happened to her, how could I live with myself? I cried helplessly and prayed to God, “God, my child is angry and has run away, and I’m afraid something will happen to her. God, please help keep my heart calm. I know that this situation is allowed by You, but I don’t understand what lesson I should learn from this. Please guide me to understand Your intention.”

Three or four days later, my daughter sent word saying that she didn’t want to come home, and that the last person she wanted to see was me. Hearing this, I felt like I was being stabbed through the heart, and tears poured down my face. I had always thought of myself as a responsible and dutiful mother, and ever since my daughter had been born, I had planned everything for her, wanting her to grow up without problems and to have a good job in the future. But after everything I’d done for her, all I received in return was her shunning and hating me. I felt like I’d utterly failed as a mother. I’d often cry alone in secret, and during my most helpless moments, I’d pour out my inner pain and confusion to God. At that moment, I read God’s latest words, in which He fellowships about the six junctures in a human life, and instantly, they unraveled the knot in my heart. I read God’s words. “Besides birth and childrearing, the parents’ responsibility in their children’s lives is simply to provide them with a formal environment to grow up in, for nothing except the predestination of the Creator has a bearing on a person’s fate. No one can control what kind of future a person will have; it is predetermined long in advance, and not even one’s parents can change one’s fate. As far as fate is concerned, everyone is independent, and everyone has their own fate. So, no one’s parents can stave off one’s fate in life or exert the slightest influence on the role one plays in life. It could be said that the family into which one is destined to be born and the environment in which one grows up are nothing more than the preconditions for fulfilling one’s mission in life. They do not in any way determine a person’s fate in life or the kind of destiny within which a person fulfills their mission. And so, no one’s parents can assist one in accomplishing one’s mission in life, and likewise, no one’s relatives can help one assume one’s role in life. How one accomplishes one’s mission and in what kind of living environment one performs one’s role are entirely determined by one’s fate in life. In other words, no other objective conditions can influence a person’s mission, which is predestined by the Creator. All people become mature in the particular environments in which they grow up; then gradually, step by step, they set off down their own roads in life and fulfill the destinies planned for them by the Creator. Naturally, involuntarily, they enter the vast sea of humanity and assume their own posts in life, where they begin to fulfill their responsibilities as created beings for the sake of the Creator’s predestination, for the sake of His sovereignty” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). “When one leaves one’s parents and becomes independent, the social conditions one faces, and the kind of work and career available to one are both decreed by fate and have nothing to do with one’s parents. Some people choose a good major in college and end up finding a satisfactory job after graduation, making a triumphant first stride in the journey of their lives. Some people learn and master many different skills and yet never find a job that suits them or never find their position, much less have a career; at the outset of their life journey, they find themselves thwarted at every turn, beset by troubles, their prospects dismal and their lives uncertain. Some people apply themselves diligently to their studies, yet narrowly miss every chance to receive a higher education; they seem fated never to achieve success, their very first aspiration in the journey of their lives having dissolved into thin air. Not knowing whether the road ahead is smooth or rocky, they feel for the first time how full of variables human destiny is, and so regard life with expectation and dread. Some people, despite not being very well educated, write books and achieve a measure of fame; some, though almost totally illiterate, make money in business and are thereby able to support themselves. … Regardless of differences in ability, intelligence, and willpower, people are all equal before fate, which does not distinguish between the great and the small, the high and the low, the exalted and the mean. What occupation one pursues, what one does for a living, and how much wealth one amasses in life are not decided by one’s parents, one’s talents, one’s efforts or one’s ambitions, but are predetermined by the Creator” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). After reading God’s words, I understood that parents’ responsibilities include giving birth to and raising their children. But as for their children’s fate, career, or whether they will be poor or rich, these are not things parents can change. The fate God has ordained for a person is what it is, and no one can change this. I did not understand God’s sovereignty, and I thought that since society’s competition is so intense, to gain a foothold in society, a person must have education or a skill, otherwise, they’ll be stuck living a hard life, and that if I didn’t cultivate my daughter properly, I wouldn’t have fulfilled my responsibility as a mother. Because I held onto this wrong view, I started planning her future when she was very young. I chose the best kindergarten for her and enrolled her in classes for various skills, and while other children were playing outside, my daughter was running between classes. At a young age, she was already shackled, and she lived out her days like a robot. She was pushed forward step by step by the plan I’d set for her, and this made her lose the childhood happiness she was meant to have. Because I worked from dawn to dusk to earn money, for a long time, I was eating irregularly, and this led to stomach problems. I not only suffered in silence, but I even pushed my daughter to run away from home. All of this was caused by my failure to understand God’s sovereignty. Although I believed in God, I believed in His sovereignty in word only, and in reality, I didn’t truly believe in God’s words, and I didn’t view people or things or act and conduct myself according to God’s requirements, leaving both my child and me exhausted and suffering in both body and mind. I never reflected on whether my way of educating my daughter was actually right. Could it really change my child’s future? When I thought back, my grades weren’t terrible at school, and I thought I could go to a teacher training university and secure a stable job in the future, but unexpectedly, I failed my college entrance exam and didn’t get in anywhere. After graduating, I learned a craft, and I originally planned to open a clothing factory, but the clothing industry wasn’t doing well, so I had to change careers and opened a hair salon. I was thinking of expanding, but for various reasons, I let it go. Step by step, I’d arrived where I was, and none of it had happened according to my plans. I couldn’t even change my own fate, so how could I change my daughter’s? My daughter’s fate had already been ordained by God when she was born, and what kind of job she’d have in future and whether she’d live a good life, had all been ordained by God. No matter how well I planned or how comprehensively I cultivated and educated her, I couldn’t change her fate. I didn’t recognize God’s sovereignty or ordinations, and I thought I could change her fate through my own effort to cultivate and educate her. I was truly pitiful and ignorant. Everything I did for my daughter seemed right on the surface, and I was making plans for her future, but in fact, what I was doing went beyond the responsibilities of a parent. I was acting in opposition to God’s sovereignty and arrangements!

I then read God’s words. “Where a person will go, what they will do, who or what they will encounter, what they will say, and what will happen to them during each day—can people predict any of these things? It may be said that people not only cannot foresee all these occurrences, but even more so, they cannot control how these things develop. In people’s daily lives, these unforeseeable events happen all the time, they are common occurrences. The occurrence of these ‘trivial affairs of daily life’ and the means and patterns of their development, are constant reminders to mankind that nothing happens at random, and that the process of each event’s development and the inevitableness of each event cannot be shifted by human will. The occurrence of every event conveys an admonition from the Creator to mankind, and it also sends the message that human beings cannot control their own fates. At the same time, it is also a rebuttal to mankind’s ambition and desire of futilely hoping to take its fate into its own hands. This rebuttal is like a powerful slap to the face that hits mankind over and over, forcing people to reflect on who exactly holds sovereignty over and controls their fate. And as their ambitions and desires are constantly dashed and shattered, people also cannot help but unconsciously conform to the arrangements of fate, and accept reality, the will of Heaven, and the Creator’s sovereignty” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). “The tragedy of man is not that he seeks a happy life, not that he pursues fame and fortune or struggles against his own fate through the fog, but that after he has seen the Creator’s existence, after he has learned the fact that the Creator has sovereignty over human fate, he still cannot turn back from the wrong path, cannot pull his feet out of the mire, but hardens his heart and persists in his errors. He would rather keep thrashing in the mud, vying obstinately against the Creator’s sovereignty, resisting it until the bitter end, all without the slightest shred of contrition. It is only when he lies broken and bleeding that he at last decides to give up and turn back. This is the true tragedy of man. So I say, those who choose to submit are wise, and those who choose to struggle and flee are foolish indeed” (The Word, Vol. 2. On Knowing God. God Himself, the Unique III). After reading God’s words, I started to reflect on myself. Looking back on how I’d cultivated my daughter, I always believed that as long as I planned my daughter’s future and carried out that plan, she would be sure to succeed in her career. After finding God, brothers and sisters fellowshipped with me that a child’s future is ordained by God, that parents cannot control this, and that we should submit to God’s orchestrations and arrangements. But I still held onto my own views, believing that whether my daughter would succeed in her career depended on her hard work. The people of the world don’t believe in God’s sovereignty, and they think that one’s destiny is in one’s own hands. They believe that only by enduring hardship can one rise above others, and blindly resist the Creator’s ordinations and sovereignty. Even though I believed in God, I didn’t believe in His sovereignty over human fate, and I had the same perspective as nonbelievers, wanting to change my daughter’s fate through human effort. In what way was I a believer? My views were just like those of disbelievers. I was truly unworthy of living before God! I was well aware that God is the Lord of all creation and sovereign over and controls everything, but for the sake of my own selfish desires, I stubbornly wanted to break free from God’s sovereignty and change my daughter’s future. This brought much pain and harm to both my daughter and me, and what’s more, this was resisting God’s ordinations. Realizing this, I no longer wanted to resist God’s sovereignty, and I became willing to place my daughter in God’s hands; whether she does well or poorly in her studies, I would be willing to submit. After praying, I felt more at peace in my heart.

Not long after, my daughter returned. She said she was working at a restaurant. Seeing that my daughter had lost weight, I asked sadly, “Are you going to leave again?” My daughter nodded, choking back tears. I controlled myself to keep my tears back, and I said, “It’s so hard out there. Why don’t you come back home?” My daughter cried and said, “I don’t have any freedom here.” My daughter’s answer was like a knife cutting into my flesh, and I felt like my heart was breaking. Wasn’t this all because I pushed her? I deprived my child of her freedom and happiness, to the point where she would rather go out and suffer than return home. In what way was I a dutiful mother? I couldn’t hold back my tears any longer and I hugged my daughter, crying uncontrollably. My daughter cried bitterly as well, and I said, “I was wrong. I wasn’t a good mom; I shouldn’t have pressured you so much. I deprived you of all your freedom at home, and I caused you so much pain…. Please come home. I won’t pressure you to study all the things you’ve been studying anymore.” After my daughter came back, I no longer pressured her to study like before. I let her develop naturally, and I focused more on caring for her everyday needs and daily life and I talked with her about faith. Gradually, my daughter spoke more and became much more cheerful, and the house became filled with laughter. One day, my daughter said, “Mom, you’ve changed; you don’t pressure me to study like before.” I said, “This small change in me is due to the guidance of God’s word. From God’s word, I’ve come to understand that my responsibility is to raise you healthily and to provide you with proper education in thought. Whether you will succeed academically or get a foothold in society in the future is all arranged and ordained by God. I was wrong for pressuring you before. It caused both of us so much pain, but don’t worry, I won’t pressure you again.” My daughter and I both cried. Later, my daughter enrolled in a vocational school and was always among the top students in her exams. She called me almost every night, telling me about everything that had happened at school that day, and our relationship became like that of friends. I truly felt in my heart how good it is to practice according to God’s words.

Later, I read more of God’s word, and I gained some discernment of whether my expectations of my daughter had been reasonable. Almighty God says: “All parents place certain expectations on their children. Whether they be great or small, near or distant, these expectations are an attitude that parents have toward their children’s comportment, actions, lives, or how their children approach them. They are also a kind of specific requirement. These specific requirements are, from the perspective of their children, things that they ought to do, because, based on traditional notions, children cannot go against the orders of their parents—if they do, then they are unfilial. Consequently, many people carry great and heavy burdens regarding this matter. So, shouldn’t people understand whether the specific expectations that parents have for their offspring are reasonable or not, and whether their parents ought to have these expectations or not, as well as which of these expectations are reasonable, which are unreasonable, which are legitimate, and which are forced and illegitimate? Furthermore, there are truth principles that people ought to understand and observe when it comes to how they should approach parental expectations, how they should accept or reject them, and the attitude and perspective from which they should view and approach these expectations. When these things have not been resolved, parents often shoulder these kinds of burdens, thinking that it is their responsibility and obligation to have expectations for their children and offspring, and, naturally, that they are even more things that they ought to possess. They think that if they had no expectations for their offspring, it would be the same as not fulfilling their responsibilities or obligations to their offspring, and equivalent to not doing what parents ought to do. They think that this would make them bad parents, parents who do not fulfill their responsibilities. Therefore, when it comes to the matter of the expectations they have for their offspring, people involuntarily generate various requirements for their children. They have different requirements for different children at different times and under different circumstances. Since they have this kind of view and burden when it comes to their children, parents go and do the things that they ought to do according to these unwritten rules, no matter whether they are right or wrong. Parents make demands of their children while treating these approaches as a kind of obligation, and as a kind of responsibility, and at the same time, they force them upon their children, making their children achieve them” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (18)). “Regardless of how great parents’ expectations are for their children, and regardless of how right and proper parents may believe their expectations for their children to be, as long as these expectations go against the truth that God is sovereign over human destiny, then they are something people should let go of. It can be said that this is also a negative thing; it is neither proper nor positive. It goes against parental responsibilities and beyond the scope of those responsibilities, and constitutes unrealistic expectations and demands that run contrary to humanity. … some abnormal actions and conduct, as well as some extreme behavior, displayed by parents toward their children who are not yet adults, lead to all kinds of negative influences and pressure on their children, ruining young children’s physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. These things indicate that what parents are doing is inappropriate and unsuitable. These are thoughts and actions that people pursuing the truth should let go of, because, from the perspective of humanity, they are a cruel and inhuman way to wreck a child’s physical and mental well-being” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (19)). God exposes that when parents treat their unreasonable expectations and demands on their children as responsibilities and obligations that they must fulfill for their children, and then they force children to meet them, this harms and ruins children. I reflected on myself. Since childhood, I’d seen how much my parents sacrificed to ensure we would have good jobs in the future, and I truly admired my parents and thought they were dutiful, and I thought that when I had children, I would do the same as my parents, and that I’d be a responsible and good mother. After my daughter was born, I thought that since my daughter was so young, she didn’t know about the harsh reality and brutality of social competition, and that as I’d been through it, I had to plan for her future and pave the way ahead for her, and even if it involved some suffering or exhaustion, I had to scrimp and save money and do everything I could to educate and cultivate her so she could be multitalented and have a bright future. I thought this was my responsibility and obligation as a mother. I followed my plan to educate and cultivate my daughter, signing her up for various extracurricular classes, and even vetting her interactions with classmates to not delay her studies. I often gave her advice from my own experience, and even when my daughter complained about being tired and having no freedom, I would try to coax and persuade her to struggle through this temporary hardship. I never thought there was anything wrong with this. I believed I was doing this for her own good and being responsible for her. Even when my brothers and sisters fellowshipped with me, I wouldn’t reconsider, and I didn’t think about my daughter’s feelings at all. I didn’t think about how she was a child or about what she needed at her age, and I just imposed my own expectations on her, placing enormous pressure, constraints, and pain upon her young heart and mind. I wasn’t fulfilling my responsibilities or obligations as a mother in this, and my actions were entirely based on unreasonable human expectations. I treated all my expectations as a mother’s responsibility, and forced my daughter to the point of running away from home. My so-called “responsibility” brought pain to both me and my daughter.

One day, a sister I was partnered with asked me, “You always thought that cultivating your daughter was fulfilling a mother’s responsibility, but you never let her do what she enjoyed, and instead, you demanded that she meet your expectations. Isn’t there some kind of corrupt disposition behind this?” I brought this question before God in prayer, and I read His words. “What are these parental expectations based upon? Where do they come from? They come from society and the world. The point of all these parental expectations is to enable children to adapt to this world and society, to avoid being eliminated by the world or by society, and to establish themselves in society, to get a secure job, a stable family, and a stable future, so parents have various subjective expectations for their offspring. For example, right now it is quite fashionable to be a computer engineer. Some people say: ‘My child is going to be a computer engineer in the future. They can earn a lot of money in this field, carrying around a computer all day, doing computer engineering. This will make me look good too!’ In these circumstances, where children have no concept of anything at all, their parents lay down their futures. Isn’t this wrong? (It is.) Their parents are pinning hopes on their children entirely on the basis of an adult’s way of looking at things, as well as an adult’s views, perspectives, and preferences about matters of the world. Isn’t this subjective? (Yes.) If you were to put it nicely, you could say that it is subjective, but what is it really? What is another interpretation of this subjectivity? Is it not selfishness? Isn’t it coercion? (It is.) You like this or that job and such-and-such career, you enjoy being established, living a glamorous life, serving as an official, or being wealthy in society, so you make your children do those things too, be that kind of person too, and walk that kind of path—but will they enjoy living in that environment and engaging in that work in the future? Are they suited to it? What are their destinies? What are God’s arrangements and rulings regarding them? Do you know these things? Some people say: ‘I don’t care about those things, what matters are the things that I, as their parent, like. I’ll pin hopes on them based on my own preferences.’ Isn’t that so selfish? (It is.) It is so selfish! To put it nicely, it’s very subjective, it’s calling all of the shots themselves, but what is it, in reality? It is very selfish! These parents don’t consider their children’s caliber or talents, they don’t care about the arrangements that God has for each person’s destiny and life. They don’t consider these things, they just force their own preferences, intentions, and plans onto their children through wishful thinking. Some people say: ‘I have to force these things onto my child. They’re too young to understand them, and by the time they do, it’ll be too late.’ Is that the case? (No.) If it really is too late, then that’s their fate, it’s not the responsibility of their parents. If you force the things that you understand onto your children, will they understand them quicker just because you understand them? (No.) There is no relationship between how parents educate their children and when those children come to understand matters like what kind of life path to choose, what kind of career to choose, and what their lives will be like. They have their own paths, their own pace, and their own laws. … You are making your children shoulder that pressure early on so that they might suffer less in the future, and they have to bear that pressure starting at an age where they still don’t understand anything—in doing this, are you not harming your children? Are you really doing this for their own good? It is better that they do not understand these things, then they can live a few years in a comfortable, happy, pure, and simple way. If they were to understand those things early, would that be a blessing or a misfortune? (It would be a misfortune.) Yes, it would be a misfortune” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (18)). From God’s words, I saw that the unreasonable expectations parents have for their children are influenced by evil trends and society, and that all these things are from Satan. Just like in my case, I had little education and no special skills, and I could only barely scrape out a living through my own efforts in society, while those with high education or special skills suffer less, and can live a life without worrying about the essentials by using their brains and speaking. I was influenced by the misleading and deceptive satanic philosophies of “Other pursuits are small, books excel them all,” “Knowledge can change your fate,” and “Those who toil with their minds govern others, and those who toil with their hands are governed by others.” I thought that only knowledge and special skills could change one’s fate and lead to a good life, so with my experience, I took it upon myself to make plans for my young daughter, forcing her to learn knowledge and skills, without considering in the slightest whether these were things my daughter liked. I was solely focused on cultivating my daughter to become a talented and outstanding person. Satan uses these philosophies to mislead people, making me mistakenly believe that only knowledge could change one’s fate, and all I could think about was how to cultivate my daughter to change her fate. Looking back, I realized that what I did had no real meaning, that God has already ordained what my daughter will become, and that no one can change that. I had no discernment of Satan’s corrupt methods or malicious intentions, and I willfully forced my daughter to act as I wished. As a result, my daughter, at such a young age, bore so much pressure and pain, and her once innocent and carefree childhood was ruined by my selfishness. Was I not harming my child? On the surface, it seemed like I was considering my daughter’s future, but in reality, I was imposing my own preferences and desires on her, all for my own selfish desires and to bring myself glory. I was truly selfish! I can hardly bear to think— if it weren’t for God’s words guiding me, what would have happened to my daughter if I continued binding and suppressing her? Realizing this, I sincerely thanked God for enlightening and guiding me, allowing me to understand my corrupt nature a bit more.

I read more of God’s words. “Through dissecting the essence of parents’ expectations for their children, we can see that these expectations are selfish, that they go against humanity, and that they furthermore have nothing to do with the responsibilities of parents. When parents impose various expectations and requirements on their children, they are not fulfilling their responsibilities. So, what are their ‘responsibilities’? The most basic responsibilities that parents ought to fulfill are teaching their children to speak, instructing them to be kindhearted and to not be bad people, and guiding them in a positive direction. These are their most basic responsibilities. In addition, they should assist their children in studying any kinds of knowledge, talents, and so on, that suit them, based on their ages, how much they can handle, and their caliber and interests. Slightly better parents will help their children understand that people are created by God and that God exists in this universe, leading their children to pray and read God’s words, telling them some stories from the Bible, and hoping that they will follow God and perform the duty of a created being after they grow up, rather than chasing worldly trends, getting trapped within various complicated interpersonal relationships, and being devastated by the various trends of this world and society. The responsibilities that parents ought to fulfill have nothing to do with their expectations. The responsibilities they should fulfill in their role as parents are to provide their children with positive guidance and appropriate assistance before they reach adulthood, as well as to promptly care for them in their fleshly lives with regard to food, clothing, housing, or at times when they fall ill” (The Word, Vol. 6. On the Pursuit of the Truth. How to Pursue the Truth (18)). God’s words pointed out a path of practice to me, and I now knew how to properly treat my children. Parents should provide proper upbringing and education according to the child’s needs at different ages. When children are young, they need their parents to teach them how to conduct themselves, how to have normal human thoughts, how to be a kind person, and for their parents to take good care of their health, so that they can grow up healthily into adulthood. Parents shouldn’t impose wrong thoughts, pressures, and burdens on them, and when possible, they can tell them how God created the heavens and earth and all things, how He works to lead and save people, and they can guide them to believe in God, and provide them with positive direction and help. This is also the responsibility and obligation of a parent. Now my daughter is not working in a field related to her specialty, and my older sister asked me to persuade my daughter to find a job based on her specialty, but I know that whatever job my daughter does, God has already ordained it. I can give advice to my daughter, but she is free to choose as she wishes. I then shared my thoughts with her. My daughter said, “I like my current job.” I said, “Since you say so, I respect your choice.” It was an easy conversation to have with her and there wasn’t any coercion or pressure. I came to experience that practicing according to God’s words is truly liberating. Thank God for His guidance!