A Generation Grows Up—Quickly – Sunday, November 04, 1945
With the passing of a quarter century of radio broadcasting a generation has been born and grown to manhood that has never known what the world was like without it. A generation has grown up accustomed, by the touch of a button, to having a ringside seat at any major event at any time any place in the world. A generation has grown up in a world, where, theoretically at least, it would be possible for all mankind to hear the same message at the same time, by means which men direct and control in part—but so little understand. A generation has grown up—listening!
The fact that all this could be consummated within a scant twenty-five years brings us to a subject that would be trite if it were not so profoundly true. Where men are concerned, time does what it does quickly. How quickly our children grow up, and how exceedingly perishable are our opportunities for teaching them! Each hour adds its weight of impression to the total impressions of life. Each day adds some strength to the force of habit. Each week adds to the structure of character. Opportunities to teach our youth are perishable, because they pass quickly and never come again.
It would be impossible to say when the critical time of a boy’s or a girl’s life is going to be, but if as parents we should become too busy or too preoccupied to keep close to our children, to keep counsel with them, we might find any time that we had missed a perishable opportunity in a critical situation. Because we who have lived longer may have found principles and purpose and ideals that give stability to our lives, we may sometimes conveniently assume that these checks and balances will somehow, automatically, become known and understood by our children as we understand them; but, unless we conscientiously exert ourselves in passing on such knowledge, we have no right to this assurance. True, it is convenient at times to assume that our children are hearing what they should hear, that they are reading what they should read, that they are seeing what they should see, that they are learning what they should learn, that they know what they should know—but if we assume all this too lightly we may find that some of them have been led into, the error of believing that old fallacies and ancient evils are new and smart and modern. A generation grows up quickly.
A few short years of bad teaching and a generation has been misled. A few short years of neglect, and a generation grows up in confusion. Let no parent assume for convenience that there is time enough to consider these things at one’s comfortable leisure. Let no parent become too preoccupied to be concerned about the perishable opportunities for teaching youth. Where men are concerned, time does what it does quickly—as a generation grows up, listening and learning and taking their places among us.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Nov. 4, 1945. Copyright 1945.
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November 04, 1945
Broadcast Number 0,846