teaching the younger ones

Scripture teaches that older women have the responsibility of teaching younger ones to love their children. Love certainly involves attention to basic bodily needs, and in allowing me to share in her preparations, Mother was teaching me things I would remember perfectly when my own child came. She being the youngest in her family had not participated in the care of a baby, and her own mother was of course long dead by the time her children were born. Children don't come with a set of instructions, so mothers need help. It is sad that so few older women think of offering it to bewildered young mothers who hardly know where to begin. It's sad, too, that the young ones seldom think of asking.

Elisabeth Elliot, The Shaping of a Christian Family, "A Mother is a Chalice," p. 121