Tom Carver and Ruth Brewster are the children of competing business rivals. Secretly lovers, they are unable to marry because of their parents' feud. Their only ally is Harry Davidson, a profoundly religious man. He advises the young couple to make their own way, so they escape to the country to elope. Settling on a farm, Tom and Ruth find contentment fending for themselves for the first time in their lives. But news soon reaches them that Davidson is in trouble with the law for inciting the youngsters to run away. The newlyweds must return to the world they rejected and come to Davidson's defense, even if it costs them their own happiness.

Sins of Children was the first film produced by the relatively short-lived studio Grand National Pictures (they would be defunct by 1939.) For their initial release, the fledgling studio chose to adapt the best-selling 1896 religious novel, In His Steps, by Charles Monroe Sheldon. The book had previously been filmed by the Edison Company as The Martyrdom of Philip Strong in 1916. Grand National borrowed Eric Linden and Cecilia Parker from MGM to headline what they saw as an extremely prestigious production. Linden and Parker had proven a hit as a screen couple the previous year in Ah, Wilderness! (1935). Initially released as In His Steps, the film was a subject of controversy when critics discovered its plot line bore almost no relation to the source material. This led to a re-release the following year as Sins of Children. Ironically, profits doubled under the new title. Beloved comic actor Franklin Pangborn appears, uncredited, as the clerk who sells Tom and Ruth their marriage license. Though Pangborn's involvement in the film was announced in trade publications of the day, his name did not appear in the credits for unknown reasons.