out sacrifice of the
substance of individuality and its basic self-respect.

And when I venture to hint at the concession of outward conformity
without of course doing violence to the scruples of conscience, the
concession that will bid children to tread the pathway of conformity in
externals, I call to mind and to witness a quarter-century's experience
in the ministry. In the course of it, it has fallen to my lot to be
consulted by numerous children. In only one case has a child said to me,
I regret my obedience to my parents' will. But times without number have
children said to me, How I rejoice, though sometimes it seemed hard,
that I followed the counsel of my mother, that I yielded to my father's
will. But one may not bid parents reverence their children and respect
their sense of freedom without intimating to children, howsoever
reluctantly, that even parents have some inalienable rights, and that
children ought to accord some freedom to parents, even though these be
likely to abuse it. Parents, too, must be regarded as free agents.
Filial usurpation of parental freedom is not wholly unprecedented in
these days of reappraisal of most values.

Parents and children alike will be helped to reverence one another as
free agents when they learn that infringement upon the freedom of
another is for the most part such an obtrusion of self into the life
of another as grows out of the contentlessness of one's own life. No
man or woman whose life is full and worth-while has enough of spare
time and strength to find it possible to meddle in busy-bodying
fashion with the life of others. Nagging, no matter by whom, is just
domestic busy-bodying, growing out of the failure to respect the
personality of another and out of the vacuity of one's own life.
Nagging, however ceaseless, is not correction. Conflict must not be
confounded with scolding any more than love and petting are the same
thing. Scolding, nagging, ceaseless fault-finding, these are not
conflicts nor even the symptoms thereof. These are usually nothing
more than signs of inner conflict and unrest finding petty and
unavailing, because external, outlets. No home irrespective of
circumstance can be free from conflict in which there is a failure to
understand that every member of the household is a self-regarding and
inviolate personality and that the physical contacts of the family
life are no excuse for the ceaseless invasion of personality.

I have not said economi