Proverbs 23:25

What is the best way to make your mother happy? Be a righteous and wise child. A good mother has a great desire and hope that the children she carried and birthed will be godly.

This verse is the second half of the proverb. Here is the first half: “The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him” (Pr 23:24). After writing that a righteous and wise child will bring his father great joy, Solomon then proceeded to describe the gladness and joy of a mother with such a child.

Why would a woman conceive, carry, birth, nurse, and tirelessly raise a child? Because she did not know how to avoid it? Because other women do it? Because she was lonely? Memory of an infant nursing or taking its first steps is dangerous. A foolish and wicked child will shatter such memories and replace them with grief, pain, shame, and trouble.

Woman, the only way you should conceive, carry, birth, nurse, and raise a child is to train him or her to fear the LORD to please God, serve others, and comfort you. If you do not do this, you violate your sacred calling under heaven, give existence to a person that will suffer in life and eternity, and ruin your latter years before going to your grave in grief.

If you do not train your offspring, Solomon wrote, “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Pr 29:15). And, “A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother” (Pr 10:1). And, “A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him” (Pr 17:25).

God’s wisdom for you is that you will face great shame, heaviness, and bitterness for not training the children you conceive, carry, birth, nurse, and raise. But the opposite is even truer. If you will train your children in the fear of the Lord, they can and will bring you great delight, as Samuel did Hannah and Timothy did Eunice and Lois among others.

The man you marry and by which you conceive children had better be a faithful and godly man – one that will carefully and consistently train your children. Did your parents teach you this and require it when you were looking for a husband? Will you make this an important part of the protection you provide your daughters before marriage?

The father is the main teacher of children in God’s plan for the family (Gen 18:19; Josh 4:21-22; Ps 78:1-8; Is 38:19; Joel 1:1-3; Eph 6:4). But you also have a role, as Bathsheba did in Solomon’s life and Naamah in Rehoboam’s life (Pr 1:8; 4:1-3; 6:20). All of Proverbs chapter 31 is instruction from the queen mother to King Lemuel (Pr 31:1-31).

Child, what is the best way to make your mother happy? Be a righteous and wise child. A good mother has a great desire and hope that the children she carried and birthed will be godly. By honoring her with a godly life, you also honor God and bring double blessings.

You can make all she did for you seem as nothing as she rejoices in your godly and productive life, or you can cause her great shame, heaviness, and bitterness. Think upon the matter, for God and men will reward you according to the way you treat your mother.