On Fatherhood, from Terence's "The Brothers"

     Yesterday, I was late in doing my daily Latin reading, so I picked up my Loeb Classical Library Reader at the end of the day and flipped it open past the Greek selections to the first Latin selection, a bit from "The Brothers" by Publius Terentius Afer (better known in English as "Terence"). The selection includes the following in a speech from the character Micio:

hoc patriumst, potius consuefacere filium

sua sponte recte facere quam alieno metu:

hoc pater et dominus interest. hoc qui nequit,

fateatur necire imperare liberis.

Roughly in English, this is :

"It is the task of fathers to make a son accustomed

to act rightly of his own accord, rather than by external fear:

That is the difference between a father and a master. He who denies this

Should admit that he does not know how to manage children."

     As I am both a stepfather and a foster father, and at the moment I am father to no less than four boys, this struck me as quite relevant, and a nice passage to find through random happenstance.