The members of the family all have duties and
responsibilities towards one another and to the family as a whole, and these
duties and responsibilities vary from member to member because of their natural
relationships. The parents have the inescapable duty to educate the children --
but not vice versa; the children have the duty to obey their parents -- the parents
do not obey the children; the mother -- not the father -- bears the children,
nurses them in babyhood, and is thus their first educator; hence daughters have
a prior right to education over sons and, as the Guardian's secretary has
written on his behalf, "The task of bringing up a Baha'i child, as
emphasized time and again in Baha'i Writings, is the chief responsibility of
the mother, whose unique privilege is indeed to create in her home such
conditions as would be the most conducive to both his material and spiritual
welfare and advancement. The training which a child first receives through his
mother constitutes the strongest foundation for his future development..."
(From a letter dated 24 December 1980 written on behalf of the Universal House
of Justice to an individual believer)
