It’ll be 121 years ago this coming Tuesday (December 17) that Orville and Wilbur Wright took their Kitty Hawk flyer to the skies for man’s first successful powered flight.
That first journey covered just 180 feet and lasted 12 seconds. By the end of the day, they had figured out how to soar 852 feet and stay aloft for 59 seconds.
For perspective, the Airbus A380 can now fly 9,200 miles carrying over 500 passengers for upwards of 19 hours without stopping.
In the years following this world-changing triumph, the Wright Brothers were asked to explain how they were able to do what prior to that December day had never been done.
During one interview, a reporter posited to Orville that he and Wilbur were just two young men with “no money, no influence, and no other special advantages” who had somehow managed to pull off the impossible.
Orville politely pushed back.
It isn’t true to say we had no special advantages,” the now aging pioneering aviator replied.
He continued:
“We did have unusual advantages in childhood, without which I doubt we could have accomplished much. The greatest thing in our favor was growing up in a family where there was always much encouragement to intellectual curiosity. If my father had not been the kind who encouraged his children to pursue intellectual interests without any thought of profit, our early curiosity about flying would have been nipped too early to bear fruit.”
Milton Wright was a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren, a Christian denomination that dates back to the Great Awakening in 1767. Historians credit “circuit-riding preachers” for building the movement, men who would travel on horseback throughout the Midwest preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ.
A strong abolitionist, Bishop Wright preached on the biblical connections of freedom, riding upwards of 8,000 miles a year between churches. It was on one of his itinerant journeys that Milton brought back to Orville and Wilbur something akin to a rubber band-powered helicopter. His sons were intrigued and worked to replicate it.
Despite meager financial resources, no electricity, and no indoor plumbing, Milton and Susan Wright filled their home with stimulating and encouraging Christian conversation, good books on a wide range of subjects, and an uplifting spirit that challenged the children to reach for things beyond their grasp. They were all voracious readers and fiercely curious.
Wilbur was 22 and Orville was 17 when Susan died of tuberculosis, a major blow. But while their mother never saw them fly, it’s been said her care and upbringing nevertheless gave them the metaphorical wings they needed to pursue manned flight.
Much is said of the importance of formal education, and for good reason. But it would be impossible to overstate the importance of the environment inside the homes we grow up in.
The social science confirms that children raised in a home with a married mother and father perform better on every level. But it’s not just their physical presence. The stabilizing and comforting dynamic of loving and engaged parents improves the quality of everything from mealtimes to casual interactions – everyday occurrences that are the equivalent of making regular financial contributions that compound over time.
“Marriage is the most reliable institution for delivering a high level of resources and long-term stability to children,” writes Melissa S. Kearney, author of The Two-Parent Privilege.
“There is simply not currently a robust, widespread alternative to marriage in US society. Cohabitation, in theory, could deliver similar resources as marriage, but the data show that in the US, these partnerships are not, on average, as stable as marriages.”
At the time they were experimenting with flight, neither Orville nor Wilbur Wright knew just how much of an influence their mother and father had on their efforts. That’s the beauty and somewhat mystical nature of good parenting. Christian mothers and fathers pour into their children, often never seeing the fruit of their heartfelt labor.
But now, when you take your next flight, or hear a plane overhead, perhaps you’ll think of Bishop Milton and Susan, parents who lovingly and committedly brought their boys “up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).
Image credit: Space Center Houston
The post Good Christian Parenting Led to Man’s First Flight appeared first on Daily Citizen.
Daily Citizen