Today's Maxwell Quote

From That My Family Should Partake (1974), 2:

All parents should be grateful for those models about us of parents who, though they have other church, civic, and community roles that matter, show us by their words and actions that they know they have no more important assignment under heaven than as parents. Yet too much multiplication of other roles can divide our effectiveness at home.

We should be grateful not only for living models, but also for model families in the past, such as that of Joseph Smith, Sr., who, along with his wife, Lucy Mack Smith, gave a boy prophet love, leadership, example, and support. Suppose, after walking back from that theophany at Palmyra, young Joseph Smith had encountered task-oriented ("Get the chores done!"), nonlistening parents? Or a jealous older brother? With all else he had to meet in the way of ridicule and persecution, could that lad have done his special work without the love and courage of a family that quietly, uncomplainingly agreed to share in his work and in his fate?