The Ideal Home

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The Ideal Home
by Joseph F. Smith

What then is an ideal home – model home, such as it should be the ambition of the Latter-day Saints to build; such as a young man starting out in life should wish to erect for himself? And the answer came to me: It is one in which all worldly considerations are secondary. One in which the Father is devoted to the family with which God has blessed him, counting them of first importance, and in which they in turn permit him to live in their hearts. One in which there is confidence, union, love, sacred devotion between Father and Mother and children and parents. One in which the Mother takes every pleasure in her children, supported by the Father – all being moral, pure, God-fearing.

As the tree is judged by its fruit, so also do we judge the home by the children. In the ideal home true parents rear loving, thoughtful children, loyal to the death, to Father and Mother and home! In it there is the religious spirit, for both parents and children have faith in God, and their practices are in conformity with that faith; the members are free from the vices and contaminations of the world, are pure in morals, having upright hearts beyond bribes and temptations, ranging high in the exalted standards of manhood and womanhood. Peace, order, and contentment reign in the hearts of the inmates – let them be rich or poor, in things material.

There are no vain regrets; no expressions of discontent against Father, from the boys and girls, in which they complain: “If we only had this or that, or were like this family or that, or could do like so and so!” – complaints that have caused Fathers many uncertain steps, dim eyes, restless nights, and untold anxiety. In their place is the loving thoughtfulness to Mother and Father by which the boys and girls work with a will and a determination to carry some of the burden that the parents have staggered under these many years. There is the kiss for Mother, the caress for Father, the thought that they have sacrificed their own hopes and ambitions, their strength, even life itself to their children – there is gratitude in payment for all that has been given them!

In the ideal home the soul is not starved, neither are the growth and expansion of the finer sentiments paralyzed for the coarse and sensual pleasures. The main aim is not to heap up material wealth, which generally draws further and further from the true, the ideal, the spiritual life; but it is rather to create soul-wealth, consciousness of noble achievement, an outflow of love and helpfulness.It is not costly paintings, tapestries, priceless bric-a-brac, various ornaments, costly furniture, fields, herds, houses and lands which constitute the ideal home, nor yet the social enjoyments and ease so tenaciously sought by many; but it is rather beauty of soul, cultivated, loving, faithful, true spirits; hands that help and hearts that sympathize; love that seeks not its own, thoughts and acts that touch our lives to finer issues – these lie at the foundation of the ideal home.

Gospel Doctrine p. 302, Joseph F. Smith, Improvement Era, Vol. 8, 1904-05, pp. 385-388