Marriage, Family & Parenthood
Rituals
Isabella, almost 3-years-old: “Do you have to go to work today?” (She asks this every morning.)
Me: “No, today we go to church.”
Isabella: “And then we have to have pancakes after church.”
Of course. That’s the way of things. Every week we have to have pancakes after church. It’s like the eighth sacrament.
Advice on cutting back kids’ TV time
A reader sends in the following question:
Hey, Dom, just a thought, but do any of your readers have any advice on how to smoothly cut back the amount of TV kids watch? I mean, cold turkey is a possibility, but the difference does disturb the kids’ behavior. I’ve thought of gradually reducing it or making a point of a few days of much outings to distract from a cold turkey approach. Honestly, when I’ve tried the cold turkey approach at home, my 3 year old simply heads straight for my computer, where she knows how to flip to her account and open Disney webpages and would play for hours if I let her and I don’t see how it is much of an improvement - interactive, yes, but still on a screen. I can then turn off my computer and the TV but then, not only am I not thrilled not having my computer accessible, but I wind up with upset, cranky kids. She does play and like to read, but she likes the TV and computer a bit more. I admit being pregnant with off thyroid levels have made me especially tired and impatient to deal with the whole thing, but I thought maybe some of your readers might have some advice?
I don’t have any advice since, as I’ve said, Isabella and Sophia don’t watch TV. Anyone?
More about getting kids to behave at Mass
A couple weeks ago I wrote a post that garnered a lot of attention about the people who glared at my children during Mass, even when they were making a minimal amount of noise. This week, Jen of Conversion Diary wrote about getting kids to behave in church, including a lot of good advice in her post and the comments. Best bit of advice was that good behavior on Sunday depends on how you work with them on good behavior during the week.
And here I’ll throw out my controversial bit: I think one reason our kids are well-behaved at Mass is that they don’t watch TV. Hey, I’m not a “TV is evil” guy. I watch plenty of TV myself. But it’s my opinion, that for my kids, TV isn’t something they need to be watching regularly and I think our experience shows the benefit, not just at Mass, but also in how Iabella plays and reads and entertains herself and behaves.
Again, this is not to say that this applies to anyone but my own kids, but if someone’s looking for advice, this is what I’d suggest.
Because it really is a wonderful life
Merry Christmas everyone! It’s a wonderful time of year, especially for family, and especially when you’re a dad. Sure, it’s fraught with stress and worry, but that’s usually something to do with wanting to bring joy to everyone you love. And once Christmas Day rolls around, you can relax, celebrate the Nativity of Our Lord, pray with the family, and then gather around the table. Until then, it’s rush, rush, rush, like last night. As soon as I got home, I had to go out again to go buy our tree, Then when I got back with it, I found out that our current tree stand was too small, so it was back out into the night again. After searching three stores, I found a stand hidden on a top shelf at Walgreen’s.
Anyway, Christmas is such a good time to demonstrate what it means to be a father, and so it’s fun to see that the Art of Manliness blog presents us with lessons in manliness from that qintessential Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”.
I’ll list the high points here and you can go to their site for all the expansion and explanation:
- Be a hero where you stand
- Treat women well
- Live your family/family fidelity
- Facilitate others’ success
- Stand up for what is right
- Know your faults and correct them
- Live your life with gratitude
To add my own spin on one of those is that you don’t have to be extraordinary to be a hero. The vast majority of men will lead ordinary lives, going to work every day, managing limited finances, loving their wives and children, going to church, being a good friend, maintaining their homes. Some men will fly to the moon or save people from burning buildings—which is an extraordinary heroism for which I’m grateful—but the rest of us have the opportunity for a quiet heroism recognized by only a few.
And so on this Christmas Eve, I think the greatest gift I can ever receive is the love and appreciation from my children and especially my beautiful wife. Because it really is a wonderful life.
Now they’re re-defining “parent”
The US Census Bureau has redefined the word “parent”, according to a New York Times story on a spike in the percentage of black children being raised in two-“parent” families.
The point of the story is to tout this gain, which may be entirely due to a re-definition of terms and not any actual change in society. Other possible drivers of the “trend” include more immigrants with traditional family structures who are part of the group known as the “black population” and an emerging black middle class. Yet, without giving us a breakdown, the bureau drops this bomb in the middle of their report, which to my mind invalidates the conclusions.
The Census Bureau attributed an indeterminate amount of the increase to revised definitions adopted in 2007, which identify as parents any man and woman living together, whether or not they are married or the child’s biological parents.
According to the bureau’s estimates, the number of black children living with two parents was 59 percent in 1970, falling to 42 percent in 1980, 38 percent in 1990 and 35 percent in 2004. In 2007, the latest year for which data is available, it was 40 percent.
There’s no denying that grandparents, aunts and uncles, foster parents, or just good-hearted folks who raise other people’s children are better for these children than not having anything, the re-definition of the word and concept of “parent” broadens its meaning to insensibility and risks watering it down, not unlike what has been done to the word and concept of “marriage” by civil partnerships, same-sex “marriage” and no-fault divorce.
It is undeniable that children are better off when raised by both parents living together in a loving household. And, yes, it is better for children not to be raised by abusive or neglectful parents. I would agree with author Orson Scott Card on this point:
There are marriages that desperately need to be dissolved for the safety of the children, for instance, and divorced parents who do a very good job of keeping both parents closely involved in the children’s lives.
But you have to be in gross denial not to know that children would almost always rather have grown up with Dad and Mom in their proper places at home. Most kids would rather that, instead of divorcing, their parents would acquire the strength or maturity to stop doing the things that make the other parent want to leave.
Let’s also not forget the statistic that children whose biological mother is divorced or never-married are “six to 30 times more likely to suffer from serious child abuse” and some studies show that children whose mother co-habits with a man whose not their father are 33 times more likely to suffer serious abuse and up to 73 times more likely to suffer fatal abuse than children living with their married parents.
So why re-define parenthood? For one thing, it’s the bureaucratic impulse. When faced with a difficult problem not easily solved in one budget year or one administration’s term, you redefine “victory” in order to show that you’re doing a good job. But there’s also another impulse, connected to the marriage issue, which is the effort to re-engineer society, to break down the old structures with their traditional morality and strictures to usher in a new age that conforms to new desires and trends. Plus, it does away with all the inconvenient guilt over “broken” homes. Pretty soon you won’t be allowed to talk about the nuclear or traditional family. Already we’re made to feel guilty for excluding single-parent families and families where the grandparents are raising their grandkids in the absence of the parents.
The family is the most fundamental building block of society, not the state, not even the Church. Everything else is built on that foundation and we’re now tinkering with that foundation. If we’re not careful the whole tower of civilization will come tumbling down on our heads.
Photo credit: Flickr user Ela2007. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Parents teaching their children about sexuality
Right on line with my previous post on parents abdicating their responsibilities to their children and institutions arrogating it to themselves, I received an email today from Catholic Parents OnLine, which has produced a DVD entitled “A Parent’s Guide: Teaching the Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality.” (There’s a trailer on their site; go watch it.)
The video is based on the 1995 document from the Pontifical Council for the Family entitled “The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality - Guidelines for Education Within the Family”. The document was a response to the growing push for sex education in schools and even in religious education programs, everywhere but in the home. However, this document reiterates the Church’s teaching that parents are the “primary educators of their children,” including in matters relating to sexuality. This is primacy not just in chronology (i.e. because they’re the first to have contact with the baby), but in the order of authority. Not even the institution of the Church can usurp that primacy.
The web site also clarifies that the DVD is not intended as a sex education program, quoting Father Robert Altier:
This video does not attempt to teach sex education not does it attempt to bypass the parents or take their place, rather it is an attempt to provide a context and some confidence to parents as they strive to educate their children.
My parental responsibility
I’ve come to the realization that much of what we as a Church and a society do for children assumes a certain kind of abdication of duty (or even ignorance of such) by parents. Now, let me pause here and say that this is neither a criticism of parents or of those who engage in these practices. This is more about larger trends than about anything observed as the actions of any particular people.
Let’s start with an example. At some point in the past 40 years, as a Church we started the trend of children’s Masses. In some places this means music directed at children; or the children receive a special Liturgy of the Word with Scripture paraphrased into simpler language; or they are called up to the sanctuary where they sit around the homilist and the homily is directed at them. But why must this be so? The way it should work is that the homilist speaks to the whole congregation, not just the kids, and then the parents spend the week breaking open that word for their own children. And eventually the children grow to understand and appreciate the Mass and Scripture and homilies for what they are.
I’ve always thought that the danger of “personalizing” the Mass for particular identity groups — children, teens, young adults, Charismatics, divorced, gays, etc.— was that it trains people to believe that a more universal expression of the Mass is not for them. When the 18-year-old who has spent the last four years going to rock-and-roll, skit-filled youth Masses where it’s all about him, what happens when he goes off to college or into the world and is presented with a regular parish Mass? Will he determine that it’s just not for him anymore? Have we fallen into the marketing demographic trap?
But back to my original point: It’s not just the Mass where the Church assumes parents aren’t doing the job. Safe-environment programs do that too. Schools make similar assumptions. I’ve heard more than one public school union apologist claim the need for one or another ideological indoctrination programs — like homosexual-education curricula—on the grounds that parents can’t be trusted to educate their own children “properly” or even that parents can’t be trusted not to be hurting their own children. Or that parents can’t choose where to educate their own children, whether in private schools or homeschooled, because they can’t be trusted to know what’s best for the children.
Our political leaders do the same thing. Recall Bill Clinton’s famous moment of truth in which he revealed that he wouldn’t follow through on his promise for a middle-class tax cut because we couldn’t be trusted to “spend it right.”
We’ve fallen into the trap of ceding these responsibilities to others and failing to demand that our rights as autonomous citizens and parents be respected. We’ve got to start taking our own duties as Christians, as Americans, as parents, as men and women seriously and stop abdicating them to others, no matter how well-intentioned they are.
Set another place at the Thanksgiving table
Melanie and I have lots to be thankful for this year (as we do every year). This year we have our first house, we’re all healthy, Melanie’s sister is staying with us, both of our extended families are as healthy this year as last year and perhaps even a little better. Sure, there are challenges: At least four members of our families are looking for jobs and two are worried about losing their homes to foreclosure.
But we are a people of hope and faith and trust in the Lord and we give thanks in good times and bad.
On top of all that, we have even more reason to give thanks on this Thanksgiving. Let me start from the beginning. Over the last week or two, Melanie has been exhausted. She thought it was because Sophia had been having allergic reactions to some foods (wheat and bananas, we’ve found out) and four teeth coming in at once, which had been keeping them both up at night.
And then Sunday night, while I was smoking out the house with a roast beef, Melanie declared herself to be somewhat nauseous. Neither of us said anything about it, but this is what wrote on Twitter:
Then Monday morning at 9:30 I got a phone call from Melanie; she had a hunch too and took a test.
Yep.
She’s pregnant.
Which is funny because we’d both been afraid this would happen before the move and she’d be several months pregnant and tired and nauseous and trying to pack. At least this way we’re mostly unpacked and her sister is here to be an extra helping hand.
And that’s why we’re extra thankful this Thanksgiving.
N.B.: And for the record: I’m not dead. She was very understanding, although it’s a good thing none of the family saw the tweet before we called to tell them.
Astronomy for Kids of Sci-Fi Nerd Dads
When we ride in the car, Isabella loves to look out the window and find the moon, if it’s visible. She yells out, “The moon! The moon!”
My reply is always the same: “That’s no moon. It’s a space station!”
Isabella has now started saying, “Space station! Space station!”
Melanie shakes her head and mutters about me corrupting our children or somesuch.
Sarah Palin and the end of feminism
I realize now I think I haven’t written anything about Sarah Palin— at least here; I’ve been very vocal on the subject on Twitter and Plurk— but I will say that I think she’s the best thing to happen to this election season. It is evidence of the apathy about the whole GOP slate until this point that both Republicans and Democrats have reacted to her like she’s running for President, not Vice-President.
What’s so exciting about Sarah? Is it that she’s good-looking? I suppose that’s part of it. But I think the greater part is that she represents so much of the hopes and dreams of conservatives (and the fears of libverals). She has a normal American family: five kids, a rugged blue-collar husband, beautiful kids, a son in the Army, a life lived open to all life, even when it’s a greater burden than expected. In her politics, too, she is a candidate unlike many we’ve seen in recent years: pro-life, fiscally and socially conservative, opposed to corruption in government no matter the party involved. Even in the so-called Troopergate scandal, Palin is accused of using the power of her office to remove a law enforcement officer about whom she has personal knowledge of his alleged acts, despite the niceties of regulations. In other words, even if she’s broken the ethics rules—which is by no means certain at this point—it’s an action with which most Americans can sympathize.
Meanwhile, many folks are trying to understand the reaction to Sarah Palin, from both sides of the aisle. Genevieve Kineke, an expert on both authentic Christian feminism as well as its deformed secular counterpart, says that what enrages the Left is not her motherhood, but the fact she doesn’t reject fatherhood. The piece is entitled “The End of Feminism.”
Genevieve considers that the aim of radical feminism over the years has been to undermine fatherhood.
The motherhood of Mary is instructive for all mothers, in that she received the seed of God and that she restored our relationship with the Creator, thus placing motherhood within a constellation of family of relationships. The enemies of motherhood strategically attack it — not primarily because of its capacity for life but because of the truth it contains: motherhood is the bridge to fatherhood, and fatherhood is the icon of God Himself. The war on motherhood is of a transitive nature: fatherhood is the true enemy.
And so, when we are presented with the image of a woman who not only does not choose to take the life of a child the world considers flawed and a burden on society—despite their vaunted rhetoric of choice—but she also does not present the men in her life as obstacles. Instead she shows reliance upon her husband. Contrast that with feminist icon Hilary Clinton: Is there anyone who seriously doesn’t believe that Hilary has actual contempt for Bill? It’s a given in the national political narrative that their marriage is a convenient sham left in place for the sake of her career.
Pope Benedict XVI long ago diagnosed this particular disease, when as Cardinal Ratzinger, he said that the root cause of nearly every ill facing humanity is a crisis of fatherhood. After all, at its root, wasn’t that the crisis in the Garden of Eden? A crisis of trust in the father? A crisis of fatherhood that transmitted itself to Adam’s own children, Cain and Abel.
I guess this goes a bit far afield from the political discussion about Sarah Palin, but her candidacy does raise some interesting questions on larger issues.
Photo by er3465.
Liberals wrestle with conscience over conservative artists
With the advent of blogs and Twitter and other avenues for personal expression online, it has become ever easier for public figures (and private ones as well) to make known their personal opinions on all manner of subjects unrelated to their cause for fame. What’s interesting is that when some fans find their favorite author/actor/artist/what-have-you espousing ideas they find repugnant they have an existential crisis.
Now, to be sure, this is nothing new for most conservative and/or traditionally religious people. The ranks of the cultural elites are filled with those who espouse all kinds of liberal notions that are the opposite of our own cherished beliefs, even going so far as to express disgust for that to which we hold fast. We’ve become accustomed to that actor in our favorite show/movie or this author of our favorite book giving us pause. And with these celebrities venturing onto the Internet where they can make their opinions even more transparent, this becomes a more common occurrence.
What’s interesting is that liberal fans are now dealing with this problem. I’ve seen this crop up most recently with regard to Orson Scott Card, the author of the sci-fi classic “Ender’s Game” and a devout Mormon who espouses social conservative political views. Card has been a newspaper columnist and commentator for some time, but recently he’s been very vocal about the travesty of courts redefining marriage as well as giving free rein to abortion.
Protestants discovering NFP
More and more Protestants are turning to natural family planning not just for medical reasons, but also for spiritual reasons. While some are using NFP as a form of contraception, as opposed to the Catholic sense of the openness to life, most of the Protestants interviewed for the article in the Austin American-Statesman say they’ve rejected artificial contraception because they believe it doesn’t show complete trust in God and they’d rather work with the way God created women’s fertility, rather than impose upon it.
It is gratifying to see that the reporter did her homework and got most of the Catholic teaching right, and did at least as well as any other secular story I’ve read. Not perfect, but not bad either.
Natural family planning is frequently dismissed by Protestants as an outmoded Catholic practice that most Catholics don’t even follow anymore. But 40 years after Pope Paul VI released Humanae Vitae, the document outlining the church’s position on marital sex and procreation, the method and the theology behind it are earning respect among some young Protestants, according to Christian scholars.
The 1968 papal encyclical explains the church’s interpretation of the moral and natural laws, which includes a prohibition against artificial contraception but allows couples who want to plan their children to “take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse … during those times that are infertile.”
This approach, for years known as the rhythm method because it relied on a calendar to track a woman’s ovulation based on past cycles, underwent improvements over the years, becoming a more reliable system known as natural family planning.
In seeking balance in the story, the reporter also found a Protestant couple who had tried NFP, but then gave up on it, although I found the reasoning to be curious.
Though the book said that natural family planning only involved a short period of abstinence, the couple wrote that they didn’t know that during breast-feeding cycles it often involves month-long periods of abstinence and what they called intense stress. “During such times (as well as during menopause and stressful life seasons), strict NFP reaches a point where it is more harmful for a marriage than good,” they wrote.
I was baffled by the reference to a month-long periods of abstinence during breastfeeding, especially since we know that if your child is exclusively nursing, the mom’s fertility does not return for some months. Yes, we learned that breastfeeding does throw off the usual charting method, but Melanie took a supplemental class that taught a way to compensate. (Frankly, we just wing it anyway, which is probably why Melanie gets pregnant almost as soon as fertility returns.)
Of course, Melanie points out to me that the Archdiocese of Boston’s Family Life Office actually created its own curriculum for teaching NFP and that it’s exceptionally complete, whereas much of what’s out there is not as good. I suppose that there might be others teaching NFP who won’t go into the more complex charting during breastfeeding and just cop out with a blanket abstention.
In any case, it’s gratifying to see Protestants re-discovering more of their Catholic patrimony. I’ve seen anecdotal evidence in recent years of Protestants re-discovering devotion to Mary and the Rosary; the importance of Lent and Advent and Ash Wednesday; the value of rituals and ceremonies; and the Catholic teaching on human sexuality and the dignity of life.
Example chart from Institute for Reproductive Health, Georgetown University.
Finding the ideal spouse
Maureen Dowd (yes, that Maureen Dowd) has a column today which is essentially a long quote from a 79-year-old, Australian-born New Jersey priest on how women should judge whether a man would make “An Ideal Husband”.
While some of the advice is sound, some of Father Pat Connor’s snark is a bit off-putting, e.g. calling St. Paul a mysognist; is Father just pandering to his audience? I’m just a little tired of the de rigeur man-bashing. Yet, there is some worthy advice there for single women. I wonder, though, whether he has similar advice for men on finding the ideal wife.
He is right to counsel women to not let infatuation cloud their judgment. Same goes for men. Too many folks make bad decisions because they think the emotion of the moment trumps practical and level-headed decision-making.
“Never marry a man who has no friends,” he starts. “This usually means that he will be incapable of the intimacy that marriage demands. I am always amazed at the number of men I have counseled who have no friends. Since, as the Hebrew Scriptures say, ‘Iron shapes iron and friend shapes friend,’ what are his friends like? What do your friends and family members think of him? Sometimes, your friends can’t render an impartial judgment because they are envious that you are beating them in the race to the altar. Envy beclouds judgment.
The advice I would add is to be realistic, a trait in Melanie for which I am very grateful. By that I mean, be realistic about the sort of person you’re likely to marry. In this mass media culture so many people have been conditioned to believe that it’s possible some movie star or model is going to fall for them. They’re not. And good for us. Nobody leads a sadder life than celebrities.
Our standards of beauty have become very skewed. The fact is that most people are “average” looking, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Beauty is not just about skin tone and muscle and clothing measurements. I’m not just talking about the “She’s got a nice personality” cop-out either. Certainly physical attraction is important. But if you just open your eyes and shed society’s standard measures, you’ll find a lot more beautiful or handsome singles out there.
Interesting that Father doesn’t say that Catholics should only marry Catholics, etc., but only that “his goals and deepest beliefs [are] worthy and similar to yours.” I’ve known Catholic and Protestant couples who’ve had very successful marriages because they both took their faiths seriously and held similar beliefs, e.g. an openness to life. But religious adherence alone is not enough, Father Connor says, recalling that a marriage he knew between a very pious Catholic woman and a very pious Muslim man was doomed from the start because of the incompatibility of the faiths.
Are the standards strict? Sure, but when you take this decision seriously and you realize that you’re making this bond for life, then you should take your time making it. Certainly, it should take longer to decide on a husband or wife than it does to buy a car or a house.
On the other hand don’t be unrealistically strict. The right man or woman could be there under your nose all the time, if only you took the time to get to know them and to consider them in an unprejudiced light. Don’t rule anyone out too hastily.
The 1930’s Marital Scale for husbands and wives
 | 133 As a 1930s husband, I am |
How would you rate on a marital test from the 1930s. It’s all in good fun and shows how much marital expectations and roles have changed and how much they have not. Versions for both husband and wife. Incidentally, I think it’s easier for a man to score higher than a woman because husbands’ roles have not changed as much as wives’.
Hail Mary Salad
Melanie and I have taught Isabella to pray a Hail Mary whenever she hears a siren, on behalf of the person or people the emergency workers are going to help. It’s something we’ve picked up from my siblings and their kids.
Isabella’s now to the point where she does it on her own, even if she’s by herself in the other room. And while she what says is recognizable as a Hail Mary, it comes out a little mixed up.
“Full of grace. Womb. Jesus. Mother of God. Death.”
Melanie calls it “Isabella’s Hail Mary Salad”. Still, not bad for a two-year-old.
