Rights and Duties of Parents

The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others. In addition to these characteristics, it cannot be forgotten that the most basic element, so basic that it qualifies the educational role of parents, is parental love, which finds fulfilment in the task of education as it completes and perfects its service of life: as well as being a source, the parents’ love is also the animating principle and therefore the norm inspiring and guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it with the values of kindness, Constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruit of love. (FC, #36)

It is therefore the duty of parents to create a family atmosphere inspired by love and devotion to God and their fellow-men...(GE, #3)

As it is the parents who have given life to their children on them lies the gravest obligation of educating their family. They must therefore be recognized as being primarily and principally responsible for their education. The role of the parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute..(GE, #3)

The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. “The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.” The right and duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable. (Catechism, 2221)

Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven, they educate their children to fulfill God’s law.

(Catechism, 2222)

Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility firs by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgement, and self mastery

- the preconditions of all true freedom. Parents should teach their children to subordinate the “material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones.”

Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:

He who loves his son will no spare the rod....He who disciplines his son will profit him. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Catechism, 2223)

Through the grace of the sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are the “first heralds” for their children. They should associate them from their tenderest years with the life of the Church. A wholesome family life can foster interior dispositions that are a genuine preparation for a living faith and remain a support for it throughout one’s life. (Catechism, 2225)