—Father David05/78DO No.688

© May 1978 by The Family of Love CP 748, 00100 Roma, Italia.

1. (RACHEL: I GOT ONE LETTER THAT I CRIED ABOUT ALL NIGHT. It was about a childcare situation where the mother has three children‚ is pregnant with her 4th and is married to a problem boy. She's a precious girl.

2. (THEY WERE SENT ON THE ROAD TO PIONEER a new Colony with no help. They have to litness for support and she's really skinny and unhealthy. Plus she has to care for her husband besides her children.) Why were they sent on the road, for goodness sake! (You see, nobody wants to take the responsibility of our families.—She said:

3. "I'D LOVE TO GET OUT AND LITNESS. I know it's only my lack of faith that I don't have enough time, but I just feel like "What Is That in Thy Hand?", that I need to teach my own children. But even just teaching my own children I feel like I'm doing a bad job and need help, let alone get out and litness.")

4. I THINK THEY SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME SPECIAL CONSIDERATION. I think you kids know I try to be merciful and easy on people, and I almost spoil them if anything. That's the thing that upsets me about the way that some of these kids and overburdened mothers are being treated.

5. IT'S HORRIBLE TO THINK THAT WE HAVE PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO BE SHEPHERDS WHO ARE THAT CRUEL and that tyrannical and that selfish that they're treating some of the kids the way they do. It's just almost unbelievable! They claim it's pressure from above and it's pressure from below, and blah blah blah! Well, now we're going to find out where the problem is.

6. I CERTAINLY DON'T THINK THEY OUGHT TO BE CRUEL AND SEND THEM ON THE ROAD! That's the utmost of cruelty! Just because a mother has three children and is expecting‚ the Shepherd decides to boot them out so he won't be responsible for them. I would say that is the height of cruelty!

7. ANY SUCH SHEPHERD OUGHT TO BE BOOTED OUT! Find out who put them on the road and get rid of him! He doesn't deserve to be a Shepherd! I mean to tell you, just from experience in handling goats, if there's any time the goats or sheep need the Shepherd and need a lot of extra care it's when they're lambing.

8. DID YOU KNOWN THAT SHEEP CANNOT SURVIVE WITHOUT MAN? They have to have care or they cannot survive.—Particularly when the sheep are lambing, usually in the Spring. You've got to run around from one to the other and take care of them and make sure they're okay and make sure the wild dogs or the wolves or the foxes and coyotes don't get them, and keep them in safe places.

9. USUALLY WE'D TAKE THE LAMBS AND MOTHERS AND PEN THEM UP and make sure they were in safely. They had to have a lot of special care. It's important not only just as a matter of humanitarianism, or kindness to animals that you do it, it's for your own good and your own profit too!

10. THE LAMBS ARE THE INCREASE OF THE FLOCK! And they are, in a sense, your future labour force. They'll soon begin bearing wool and meat and they are the increase.

11. AND ANY SHEPHERD WHO KICKS OUT A MOTHER with three children on the road‚ just because he doesn't want to have to support them‚ is just plain daffy, out of his mind! It won't be very many months before all those little kids are going to be good witnesses and good litnessers and some of the best assets he's got!

12. BUT IT COSTS YOU SOMETHING IN THE MEANTIME. It costs you something to have little kids, and it takes a lot of tender loving care and feeding and so on.

13. JUST LIKE THE FARMER WHEN HE WANTS TO GET A CROP, he has to go out there and he has to plow and sow and fertilise and water. He does a whole lot of work that he doesn't get anything out of for a long time until harvest and marketing, and then he finally gets the payoff.

14. ANY SHEPHERD WHO WOULD DO A TRICK LIKE THAT TO A MOTHER IS ABSOLUTELY INSANE! He'd be like a farmer saying, "Well, I don't want to spend all this time fiddling around with this seed and this hard work or plowing and planting and watering and fertilising and all this. This is a big waste of time!

15. "I WANT TO MAKE THE MONEY AND GET THE CROP RIGHT NOW! So I'll just take the crops that I've already grown and I'll just harvest them and we'll go out and enjoy that."

16. PRETTY SOON HE WON'T HAVE ANYTHING LEFT BECAUSE HE HASN'T PLANTED ANYTHING NEW. He hasn't got anything upcoming, he hasn't taken care of the potential. I certainly hope that's the exception rather than the rule in our outfit. I hope it's a rare thing, and I believe it is from most reports I've read.

17. I DON'T SEE WHY THERE SHOULD BE ANY PROBLEM ON THE CARE OF THE CHILDREN IN THE AVERAGE HOME. I'm not talking about the unusual kind of homes. Maybe now that we got rid of some of these offices we're not going to need anymore, we won't have a lot of children in one place.

18. FRANKLY‚ I'M GETTING AWAY FROM THE IDEA OF SCHOOLS. I think they got the cart before the horse. That was fine when we had those monster blobs like 250 at TSC and we had nurseries and schools and all that kind of stuff—we had to! The quarters were skimpy and horrible and the parents were hardly able to take care of them.

19. I BELIEVE THAT SCHOOL COLONIES AIN'T NECESSARILY SO! Perhaps instead of keeping the kids in school five days a week and the parents only having them on the weekend, maybe we ought to just turn that around and the parents have the kids five days a week and send them to school for the weekend instead.

20. WE WILL HAVE TO HAVE SOME KIND OF PROVISION FOR THE CHILDREN OF TOP OFFICERS like the KQSs and possibly some of the WS staff, and probably some of the VSs who have to be on the road most of the time without their children, special childcare workers, nurses and teachers and so on to take care of them.

21. BUT SINCE THERE WILL NOT BE ANY UNDER-OFFICERS ANYMORE, everybody from them on down can get themselves out into a Home or pioneer their own Home and take care of their own children the normal way in the normal Home.

22. OUR AVERAGE HOME THROUGHOUT THE WORLD TODAY DOES NOT HAVE ACCESS TO A SCHOOL to keep their children in and they have to take care of their own. And frankly, I think that's the way God intended for it to be.

23. GOD GAVE MOST CHILDREN JUST TWO PARENTS‚ and sometimes a handmaid or a nursemaid. Some of the kids in the Bible had nurses and handmaidens, and in a few cases they even had eunuchs to help to take care of the kids, some of the single men.

24. I BELIEVE THE LOCAL HOME IS ABLE TO HANDLE THOSE AVERAGE FEW CHILDREN.—If it has several children of various age groups, fine, then it merits an extra worker or two to help them take care of the extra children—but right in the Home! Right there!—Where the parents can constantly keep an eye on how well they're being taken care of!

25. IF THE PARENTS ARE BUSY AND THEY'VE GOT A LOT OF OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES and they can't be taking care of their own children all the time, they should have workers to help them‚ like we do.

26. PEOPLE THINK THAT SCHOOLS ARE WHERE TO POOL ALL YOUR MONEY TO BUY ALL THIS EXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT that isn't even suitable for our children. Much of that expensive Montessori junk is not even worth putting in your house!

27. A HOME SHOULD BE A PLACE WHERE THE CHILD CAN LEARN ABOUT JESUS—not just about toys and Montessori bells & all that junk they buy with their money. So if the kids get the MO Letters and the Davidito series and some of the new Family Care material they'll know how to teach the children. It's been in the MO Letters time and again.

28. STICK TO THE NEW TESTAMENT AND THE MO LETTERS and teach the children at home. Take the children litnessing‚ take the children provisioning in every single Home. Then the kids will be getting the best school possible every day!

29. THEN THEY'RE WITH THEIR PARENTS MORE and the parents get to see that they're cared for. The kids know that their parents love them even if they are busy and can't be with them all the time.

30. THE BIG BLOBBERS WERE THE ONES WHO PROMOTED THE SCHOOLS because they had to have something for so many kids. When you had a blob of 100 people and scores and scores of kids driving you wild, you had to have schools.

31. NOW I THINK EVERY INDIVIDUAL HOME IS ABLE TO TAKE CARE OF THEIR OWN CHILDREN. The parents who need to take more of an interest will be forced to, and the parents who want to have their children around to care for will be able to.

32. PEOPLE WITH CHILDREN ARE NOT EXCEPTIONS.—They're a third of the Family stats! They're a part of the Body, and it's very few and far between that you find a couple who don't have children at all, it's almost impossible!

33. CARING FOR CHILDREN IS PART OF YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE. Each Home has an average of two children, and everyone in the Home should know that they're expected to help out with the children while the parents do dishes or do other essential work.

34. EVERY CHILD SHOULD BE A LITNESSER OR A LITNESSING ASSET. …

35. I DON'T SEE WHY MOTHERS CAN'T ALSO DO SOME LITNESSING, and most mothers have proved very successful litnessers with their children, little extra assets.

36. I DON'T KNOW WHY WE SHOULD MAKE AN EXCEPTION FOR THEM. Why should we give them the idea that now that they have children they can just stay home and we have to support them?

37. (SARA: IT SEEMS THAT WHATEVER A CHILDCARE WORKER DOES, THEIR MAIN RESPONSIBILITY ON THE STREET IS TO THE CHILD, not just their quota. They need to see that he enjoys litnessing.) Of course! Your first responsibility is the child; if you can get out any lit, praise the Lord!

38. TAKE THE CHILDREN LITNESSING AND PROVISIONING AND USE THE CHILDREN! Train them up in the way they should go as a disciple, not as a school product!

39. OUR SCHOOLS ONLY GET ABOUT AN HOUR'S CLASS TIME DAILY and all the rest of the time they're going through daily Home life. So it's better for them to be at home with their parents.

40. WE HAVE DISCUSSED THIS A GREAT DEAL and we feel that just from watching Davidito and the treatment he's getting here and the fact that we can be with him and he knows at least we're near, that this is a better atmosphere to be reared in than being put in an orphanage-like school all week and only get to see us an hour or two a week.

41. WHEREAS IF THEY'RE RIGHT WITH YOU, YOU CAN HARDLY AVOID THEM—they'll find you sooner or later! Don't forget my family of six lived in a 7' x 14' camper for years, so it can be done!

42. IT SEEMS LIKE FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN ARE GETTING SORT OF UNPOPULAR in the Revolution. You want to ship them out or not let them in.

43. OUR CHILDREN OUGHT TO FEEL LOVED BY EVERYBODY. And we ought to feel like they are all our children. I said this a long time ago‚ clear back at TSC: "Don't you talk about my kids and your kids, they're our kids!"

44. WE'VE GOT TO STOP HAVING THIS SELFISH ATTITUDE TOWARD CHILDREN. We ought to treat every child as our children. I think that Maria and I are your first shining example.

45. I COULDN'T POSSIBLY LOVE DAVIDITO ANY MORE. Some people talk about him like he's some kind of a physical freak or something, but I consider him a gift of God. He's God's little love-gift to us.—Amen? So shouldn't you feel that way about a child of your own family, a child of your brother or sister?

46. I CONSIDER IT EVERYONE'S RESPONSIBILITY TO HELP SUPPORT THE CHILDREN. In London I came to the conclusion that it should not only be the parents and childcare helpers alone who contribute to the children's support, but that we needed to spread the load out a little more.

47. THEY'RE OUR CHILDREN, AND OUR SYSTEM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR WELFARE. The Family is responsible for all its children. "Well, I don't have any kids so why should I pay for it?"—Well, they're still your kids.

48. THEY ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FAMILY, THEREFORE THE ENTIRE FAMILY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEM. Not just those that happen to be their physical parents, but they are our coming generation.

49. THEY ARE OUR POPULATION, THEY ARE OUR FUTURE CITIZENS! Therefore we are all responsible for them and we should all contribute to their education and well-being, all of us!

50. THE KIDS ARE PULLING THEIR OWN WEIGHT‚ so as far as I'm concerned they're certainly worth it. They deserve our support simply because they are all of our children. They belong to all of us and they are our future.

51. CHILDREN ARE ONE OF THE BIGGEST ASSETS YOU'VE GOT! My children practically put me in business, and yours can do the same for you if you train them right and if you get them out witnessing and litnessing. My kids finally were supporting me!

52. NOW IF YOU THINK OUR KIDS ARE SOME KIND OF LIABILITY and a drawback and a drag, if it's because you just had quintuplets or something I might understand that. But if they've come along normally, you've time to catch your breath.

53. IT WASN'T LONG BEFORE MY KIDS WERE OUT THERE DOING BETTER THAN I WAS AND SUPPORTING ME! They don't have to be very old to do it. Don't tell me kids are a drawback or a liability, look at Davidito: He helps me know there's a reason for living!

54. YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD MARIA GROANING WHEN SHE FIRST FOUND OUT SHE WAS PREGNANT! "Oh my‚ now I'm not going to have any ministry, now I won't be able to do anything. Now what are we going to do, we can't live in a hotel with a baby!"

55. SHE COULDN'T THINK OF ANY GOOD REASON FOR BEING PREGNANT, especially when it wasn't mine. She was really feeling bad. But it wasn't until she got pregnant that we found out there was virtually no childcare ministry!

56. SO I THOUGHT, WELL‚ MY GOD, WHAT'S THE MATTER? They didn't have anything in London, so we wrote to the headquarters of our supposed Childcare Ministry and they didn't have anything either, they hadn't printed a thing!

57. SO DAVIDITO STARTED THE CHILDCARE REVOLUTION! When we finally got the lit we didn't like it, because it was not the way we believed in rearing kids!

58. YOU CAN THROW A LOT OF THAT OLD STUFF OUT! We're writing a whole new childcare series called the Davidito series. Maria was wondering why she had to get pregnant and have a baby, she couldn't see any good reason for it at all, but look what happened!—God knew why!—Amen? PTL! Davidito was to become an example to the world and inspire loads of childcare material! Thank God!