"God wants us to fill our homes with happiness. He made childhood joyous, full of life, bubbling over with laughter, playful, bright and sunny.  It is a crime to repress the mirth and the gladness and to try to make children grave and stately.  Life's burdens will come soon enough to lie upon their shoulders.  Life will soon enough bring care and anxiety and hardship and a weight of responsibility. We should let them be young and free from care just as long as possible.  

We should put into their childhood days just as much sunshine and gladness, just as much cheerful pleasure as possible. Besides the way also to make them strong and noble in character when they grow up to manhood and womanhood is to make their childhood and youth both bright and happy.  If you want to produce a vigorous, healthy plant, you will not bring it up in a dark room; you will give it all the sunshine it will take.  Human lives will never grow into their best in gloom.  

Pour the sunshine about them in youth

let them be happy

encourage all innocent joy

provide pleasant games for them

romp and play with them

be a child again among them

Then God's blessing will come upon your home, and your children will grow up sunny hearted, gentle, affectionate, joyous themselves and joy-bearers to the world."

Home-Making by JR Miller

Nothing brings me greater happiness that the little clips of video my children send me of their children everyday.  It is truly beautiful to see them them playing and laughing together, greatly enjoying one another.  To be sure there are many sleepless nights, a multitude of new chores, medical bills, and responsibilities.  But as my son said the other day, "You can't know what will happen to your heart when you have a child."  

He's right.  It expands in untold ways.  The smile of a child is contagious.  Encourage it.  Share it.  Throw the windows open to let all the light of childhood flood your home and your hearts.  It makes the yoke of those responsibilities lighter and easier to carry.  

It is a fine thing if your child becomes a doctor or a lawyer, but nothing compares to sending joy-bearers out into a weary world.