"It is at once the most overwhelmingly frustrating and exasperating task and the most joyous and rewarding experience to make human beings out of children"

Raising children into human beings is a paradoxical craft: a daily grind of repetition and resistance that somehow yields moments of piercing joy. The frustration comes first because growth refuses to be rushed. Children learn through missteps, and the adult’s impulse to control collides with the child’s right to experiment. You repeat the same lesson, say thank you, listen, try again, until it feels futile. Then, unexpectedly, a child acts with empathy unprompted, or takes responsibility without being asked, and the hours of friction are transfigured into meaning.

“Making human beings” is not about producing compliant adults; it is about midwifing persons with conscience, imagination, and agency. That work demands a thousand small judgments: when to set a boundary and when to bend; when to protect and when to let consequences teach; when to speak and when silence lets a child hear their own inner voice. It is exhausting because every decision carries moral weight and no script guarantees success. It is rewarding because the raw material is a living soul, and the craft is love practiced as habit.

Children draw adults into the same becoming. They expose impatience, ego, and inconsistency, forcing humility. They make integrity practical: if we ask for honesty, we must model it; if we ask for courage, we must risk comfort. The labor is communal, too, families, teachers, neighbors, since human beings are formed within webs of relation. Culture hands us tools and temptations; we choose which we pass on.

The joy is granular: a conflict resolved with words, a curiosity that deepens, an apology that is truly felt. Over time, these small victories cohere into character. The surrender is real, we guide, not script, and the reward is witnessing a distinct person take shape, capable of love and responsibility. The task never simplifies, yet the very difficulty testifies to its worth: there is no masterpiece more alive than a human heart learned into freedom.