Family Life
Silent Night
With last week’s brutal winter weather came all sorts of inconveniences. Plans changed, businesses closed, and flights were cancelled. In a way, it was appropriate that this massive storm caused us all to pause in the closing weeks of the year.
As the cold set in on Friday evening, we sat down to dinner. The Advent wreath was giving off plenty of light and, as we all made our way through the meal, the power went out.
The soft glow of the tree plunged into darkness; suddenly, our only source of light was the four burning candles. For a moment, I was confused. The overhead light was clearly out, but the brightness of the candles didn’t lead to a major reduction in overall light.
The kids became very excited, and Alison proposed lighting a fire. A few minutes later, we were all on the rug in front of the fireplace, wrapped up in blankets, enjoying a silent night.
At that moment, with the fire as the only source of light and heat in the house, I felt a very close connection to the Holy Family. It’s easy to imagine in the cold, damp caves, deep in winter, Joseph, Mary, and their newborn child huddled around a fire to keep warm. There’s no distraction, no agenda; there’s only presence.
A silent night, a holy night, in a cave in a rural town, an anonymous family witnessed the singular event that changed all of human history. In those ordinary moments, they thought not of the challenges ahead, but of the peace and quiet joy of the night.
May we all experience that serenity this Christmas season.
Homeschooling
Last Monday, just after breakfast this morning, my children gathered in our schoolroom at the sound of the bell. We stood together for morning prayer, and then my students took their seats at their desks to begin a new school year.
This is our third year of homeschooling. I now have three students and a tag-a-long little sister. This will undoubtedly be my most challenging year; it’ll be the first year that I’ll need to balance teaching and work.
Alison and I talked about homeschooling going back to the very beginning of our relationship. We weren’t committed, but it was an idea. In fact, we almost put Benedict into school his kindergarten year, only to pull him out just before the school year started. It would come to be our best parental decision to date, as a few months later, the pandemic shut everything down. I’m grateful that my children didn’t suffer any learning loss.
There are struggles in teaching, especially in subjects where I’m weakest, like math. We supplement with video instruction, but it’s still hard to teach a child something that I struggle with. There are moments of great edification, when my children know stories from the Bible better than I do!
Alison designed our curriculum, pulling together subjects from the vendors we determined to be the best. Benedict is starting Latin this year, and continuing to learn how to play piano. As we go through the weeks, I see the progress that they make. Felicity and Lucy are turning into strong readers.
There are many things to be said about homeschooling, but I think the simplest takeaway that I have is this. I like that my children are receiving a liberal arts education, starting from Day One of Kindergarten.
Parental Love
Our long holiday from democratic debate over one of the most contentious issues of our time appears to be ending. In the theme of this year, a return to reality is upon us. What’s so devastating is that we have to have this debate in the first place.
Society has become desensitized to the violence of abortion and anesthetized to reality. The process of performing an abortion, whether by depriving the child of a healthy environment or through the physical act of ending their life, is inherently violent and always wrong. Juries punish harshly those who perpetrate similar acts against children in their care, so why the rage over applying the same standard to children at the earliest stages of development?
Selfishness is a central element of the argument, along with a distortion of love. Like so many cornerstone components of the human experience, love is anything and nothing at all. Love is not a feeling. Love is not love. Love is complete surrender, total sacrifice for the other.
Accepting the gift and responsibility for the care of a child is the highest calling of humanity. That acceptance requires the fullest measure of devotion from the parents, and a life-long commitment to the child. To observe the beauty of that relationship unfold is one of the most beautiful things in the universe. The child enters into existence wholly dependent on their parents. Then, as they reach the mid-point in their lives, the dependence begins to reverse. Decades of parental self-sacrifice are repaid through decades of child self-sacrifice through elder care.
Parenthood is a journey of weighty responsibility. But it’s a journey that is necessarily rooted in the total gift of self, a complete surrender of the parent’s priorities for the child. That is true love.
Faith Enrichment
The Catholic faith offers many wonderful experiences and expressions. Pilgrimages, devotionals, even listening to a great sermon. Yesterday was the feast of Corpus Christi and there may have been a Eucharistic Procession at your parish or in your town.
As a parent of young children, I know that now is the time to plant in their minds the importance of faith. Church is a wonderful place, and it’s a place that they belong. The struggle with young children is that they have very short attention spans, and their mood swings like a barn door. So while there may be many opportunities to enrich their faith, parents sometimes have to pick their battles.
Our priest organized a Eucharistic procession around the parish grounds immediately after Mass. Four altars were set up and as we processed, we stopped for a scripture reading, prayer, and blessing at each one. Even better, the procession happened between the last English Mass and first Spanish Mass of the day, so it was a bilingual procession. The Parish, normally separated into two language-based communities, prayed as one.
It was a long Mass, followed by a long procession. All told, we were at Church for three hours, some of it walking outside in the heat and sun. But the kids were there, praying, and experiencing the richness of their faith.
Raising kids is not easy, and parenting is entirely tiresome. The temptation is to take the path of least resistance. If we want our kids to grow up into mature adults who take ownership of their faith, we need to go the extra mile in exposing them to it while they’re young.
In the Backyard
This is our first house with a fence. A simple wooden structure that encloses our backyard doesn’t seem like much. In fact, it was built years ago and no one ever stained it. To me, it provides a safe place to let the children run free while I supervise through the kitchen windows. To my kids, it’s the boundary around their kingdom.
As I sit here at the kitchen table with my laptop, the big kids are out back playing. It’s a beautiful spring day with a clear blue sky. A large, leafy tree is giving the backyard plenty of shade. Looking out the window, I see my kids running back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. We have a toy bin on the deck that occasionally gets used, but for the most part, they just run around.
My three-year-old girl is seeking refuge under a tree, while her big sister walks around picking flowers and looking for little creatures. It looks like she found a caterpillar that she’s gingerly carrying around to show everyone. My son is running laps, no doubt on a grand imaginary expedition.
There’s soft music on the speaker playing here in the kitchen, the laundry running in the background. Other than that, it’s quiet.
Being an at-home dad, I have hours each day with my kids. They’re constantly looking to me for guidance, direction, and programming. That’s a great thing, but it’s also great for them to have their space. It’s a great thing for them to turn on their imaginations and to be curious about the world around them. It’s a great thing for them to be out in creation, free to do as they please. They run, they hunt, they explore, they play, they connect.
When they come inside, their little cheeks will be all flush. In those minutes that they spent in the backyard, they were whatever they wanted to be and exactly who they are. Backyards are special places.
Bribe
There’s a truth that is never clear in the mind of a child: everything a parent does is for a reason. They rarely can see the bigger picture, so an individual request (command?) is easily resisted. They miss the love that is behind the guidance laid out by their parents.
I love my children and want what’s best for them. Patience is not a virtue that I have in great supply, but on some subjects, I am quite patient. When my patience expires, it’s time to change my strategy. Occasionally, that strategy is a well-placed bribe.
As the eldest of four children, my son hasn’t quite grasped his standing among his siblings. If he understood just how much his younger sisters follow his example and leadership, he might be tempted to use it for his personal gain. While it’s amusing to observe, it can cut both ways.
Like many kids, he prefers not to try new foods. He has his core rotation and never ventures far from it. Unbeknownst to him, the moment he refuses food, his sisters follow suit. Talk about frustrating.
No parent wants to spoil their children, but after all the work that goes into planning, shopping for, and preparing a dinner, it can be a little much. We’ve tried strategy after strategy for years, and it was time for a change. Alison and I tried to bribe them with rewards for clean plate awards. To our great delight, it worked!
My middle daughter declared me the “greatest chef ever,” and now they ask me for the previous night’s dinner at lunch. Frittatas, chicken cordon blue, they love it all!
Sadly, it didn’t stick. The kids collected their prizes, and we’re back to the trenches. I don’t think that we failed, I think it’s simply another bump in the road. Despite their refusal to try anything new as of late, we did get them to try several new dishes. I’m also happy when they ask for me to make some of those favorites again.
I think that children should do the right thing because it’s what’s asked of them. But now and then, it’s okay to hold out a carrot and see what happens.
The Family Home
Alison and I bought our first home last year. Leading up to the purchase, I failed to anticipate how much different ownership would make me feel. I figured it was a simple transaction in which we traded one house we were living in for another. I was so wrong.
A few months in and we’re getting more settled by the day. Our weekly routine, where we play, where we read, and where we hang out are all well established. Now that we have a good sense of the house, we’re ready to make our mark. Our home has suffered from a bit of neglect and, thankfully, most repairs and improvements are simple.
With Spring here, we started work in earnest on the exterior last weekend. We spent all afternoon on Saturday working our way around the house, punching things off our list. I cleaned a gutter that wasn’t draining properly, Alison replanted a flowerbed by our mailbox. We pulled down an unused satellite dish, fixed a dilapidated gate, and removed dozens of yards of superfluous wiring. I bought a chainsaw, our new favorite tool, and we cut down our first bush. It was a very full afternoon.
The whole time while Alison and I were working, our kids ran around playing. They’d climb my ladder, help Alison dig, check out various tools, and explore their kingdom. Veronica happily (at least for a bit) rolled around in her playpen. She also spent a fair amount of time sitting up, watching people work.
As I stood on the ladder vacuuming debris out of the gutter, I realized how satisfying it is to be a homeowner. I’m empowered to address any issue and do so on my schedule. Each afternoon of work leaves our home that much better.
I completed my second Consecration to St. Joseph last week. Throughout that process, several times a day, I’d think about him, his life, and his titles. As we worked out in the yard, I thought about how Joseph worked to make the Holy Family’s home more comfortable. He had to take care of all the little things, just like me.
Our connection to the saints, is something exceptional within the theology of Catholicism. These holy men and women were people, just like us. They lived mostly ordinary lives except for their extraordinary virtue. If St. Joseph could attain holiness in the simple act of patching a hole in his home’s wall or addressing a leak from the roof, so can I.
A Day of Play
This weekend was pretty special. My father-in-law is in town for the week. He came for a visit and to assemble a playground for my kids in our new backyard. On Sunday, we came home from Mass and went outside to play for a bit and eat our lunch. We then stayed outside until dinner time.
It was a beautiful afternoon. The warm sun shone down on us in a clear blue sky. Alison took down some more chicken wire and picked up bricks that were inexplicably strew across our backyard. I cleaned up my workbench, swept the garage, and washed cars. Grandpa got to play and play with the kids on their new fort.
There was something cathartic about a day well spent, and one spent outside. It’s been a long, hard winter. More than that, we’re all fatigued from a year of being cooped up. An entire afternoon spent in the great outdoors and checking off projects just felt good. I breathed deeply and felt the hope that comes with the first signs of Spring.
In the eight years that I’ve shared my thoughts and life on this blog, I’ve observed many times that idleness seems like rest, but rarely is. When the sun went down and the kids tucked into their beds, I spent another 90 minutes cleaning and tidying up inside. I felt tired. That tired feeling that affirms that I spent my day the right way, using it to accomplish good work.
Work and play may be exhausting, but they can also be restorative. I’m going to try to spend more days working, playing, and praying.
A Week of Warmth
It was a week of snow and ice, sleet and freezing rain. It was a week of downed power lines, rolling blackouts, and water boil advisories. Not only that, but it was a week of blistering cold, scarce food, and misery. But in my house, it was a week of warmth.
The Polar Vortex that plunged our country into a deep freeze touched people from coast to coast. Over 75% of the nation was covered in snow. Widespread power outages and impassible roads sent many communities into chaos. I watched in advance as the seven-day weather forecast predicted a catastrophic weather event. It came to pass, but my home was protected.
It was cold, indeed, and we had our fair share of snow and ice. All week, with Alison’s office closed, my family stayed home. Morning after morning, we looked outside at a serene winter landscape, preparing for the moment when the power would go out and a deep cold would set it. The moment never came.
Instead, we had a wonderful week as a family. We tackled projects together, played games together, and even had time to play out in the snow. I credit this week of blessings to the protection of St. Joseph.
I launched this blog eight years ago on his feast day, and I share his name, along with my father, my brother, and my son. Last year, I consecrated myself to St. Joseph, and this week I began the 33-day preparation to renew that consecration. Each day and each night, I prayed for his protection over my family and our home. And each day, through his intercession, we were safe and warm.
St. Joseph protected his family as he walked through the desert to Egypt. He protected his family during their time in a foreign land, and all the way back home. This week, he protected my family. For his intercession, I am grateful.
Reading Together
Filling up every minute of the day with activity for my kids is a real struggle. My kids are always up for adventure or doing something new, but each day presents the same challenge. How can we spend our day in a way that allows my children to grow and me to thrive?
Each day is different. Children wake up at different times, in different moods, and with different energy levels. The same is true for me. I’m not the same dad every morning. Some days I’m revving my engine ready to go, and others I’m counting down to bedtime.
It’s easy for me to set an agenda for the day, but filling those little empty moments that bubble up throughout the day is hard for me. Those moments show up in the in-between time from when the morning is almost over, but it’s not quite time to start making lunch. It happens again in the afternoon lull when I want to just close my eyes for a few minutes, but my kids need something else to get them over the hump. Even just a quick 20-minute car ride might need some sort of activity.
Last year I read a book called The Read Aloud Family. Research confirms that children benefit greatly from having stories read to them. Listening to stories helps their minds to grow. They learn to understand sentence structure, plot development, vocabulary, and more generally stimulates learning. Children who have wide exposure to reading perform better academically and grow into better readers themselves.
Those in-between times are the perfect daily opportunity to pick up a book and reading it aloud to my children is the perfect time filler. It’s a calming activity that allows me to be fully in charge of the energy levels. In the car, we’ve listened to audiobooks. We can then discuss the stories, the characters, and I can ask questions that place my children in the plot.
Time spent reading aloud to my children is more than education, it’s bonding. It’s special time in our day when we can sit next to each other, snuggled on the couch, and explore a new world together. I hope that this simple activity builds not only their curiosity and academic prowess, but memories of us that they’ll treasure forever.