Be Aware of Your Example
One of the books that I’ve read this year was Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People by Truett Cathy. The book was Truett’s way of sharing his thoughts on business, how he built Chick-fil-a into a national brand, and how he treats people. In the book, Truett tells a story about a man who sat down next to him on a plane and inquired about how to keep his teenage kids on the straight and narrow. While he was listening to Truett, he ordered a beer. Truett asked if he drank beer in front of his kids and intimated the importance of the example set by this gentleman for his children.
One of the most common axioms in parenting today is, “More is caught than taught.” Essentially, modern parenting stresses the fact that children are always watching, learning more about how to behave based on the behaviors of their parents than the actual words or lessons being shared with them. While it can be a daunting thought to consider that your children are learning mainly from your own example, it can also be the catalyst to make behavior changes that you’ve always wanted to make.
Many of us have added a few words to our vocabulary that we wish we hadn’t. Along with these unsavory words have been developed some acceptable alternatives that amount to speaking nonsense, such as “heck” and “shoot." Yet, from time to time, a word that we wish we hadn’t spoken comes first out of our mouths and then out of our children’s. This attitude that you’re constantly being observed might be the right motivation to get you to a point where you finally eliminate words that you don’t want from your vocabulary. The same goes for your TV, movie, and book choices. There’s nothing wrong with a toddler watching a show not aimed at them, but you just might find yourself horrified at the thought of your child seeing the level of violence or sexuality on constant display in some of those programs.
As we start to make these changes, some of which are changes to behavior that have been ingrained in us for years, it’s important for us to be reminded of the role that grace plays in our lives. We have to be patient with ourselves when we make mistakes. We also have to share that grace with our kids. Children need firm discipline, but not a tyrant. They need to have boundaries enforced, but also need to be smothered in love. When you make a mistake, give yourself a bit of grace, and if your child witnesses your mistake, explain to them why that was wrong. If your child makes a mistake, especially one learned from your behaviors, help them understand why that particular behavior isn’t acceptable.
Parenting is a daily struggle on two fronts. We battle our own bad habits and we battle to rightly form an entirely new person. Be aware of the example you give and let grace cover your mistakes and those of your children.
The Burden of Freedom
Freedom is a wonderful thing. Since you’re reading this, you’re one of the lucky ones who has the freedom to use the Internet. You have the freedom to read uncensored content. You have the freedom to determine the course of your life. As Catholics, we also have freedom. We can choose the right or the wrong. We can do good or we can do evil. Freedom, in all of its glory, is morally neutral. In fact, freedom is a curse if you can’t control yourself.
Freedom is nothing without personal responsibility. We all have the opportunity to break laws and commit felonies, but personal responsibility demands that we conform our actions to just laws. We all have the opportunity to commit grave sin, but personal responsibility demands that we conform our actions to the direction of our rightly formed conscience. Addictions take away our freedom and make us subject to base desires. This lack of control becomes a curse as all of our actions and choices are determined by that which holds greatest sway over us.
Interestingly, unbridled freedom leads to a deep sense of unhappiness. Unbridled freedom allows us to hurt people and to act contrary to our own well being. We become consumed with self-centeredness, greed, and envy. We make choices that work against us. In some sense, while we don’t have unbridled freedom in society, we do have it in our morality. We’re given aids and controls through our faith, but it’s up to us to employ them. Our morality is given to us unbridled and it’s up to us to restrain it appropriately. God wants what’s best for you, and the boundaries that He suggests will do just that. It’s when we go outside of those boundaries that we become unhappy.
When it comes to happiness, good begets good. Like a good day that just keeps getting better, happiness tends to snowball. When it gets big enough, even the bad things that happen are minimized. Choosing the good and having control over oneself results in continuously happier outcomes. When we choose to reject unbridled freedom and instead insert personal responsibility into our morality and decision making, we experience the natural lift of good actions and choices stacked on top of each other.
Freedom is a burden for those who can’t control it. By adopting positive boundaries and embracing personal responsibility, we can maintain control over our lives and grow in peace, happiness, and joy.
For Granted
In life, it becomes incredibly easy to take things for granted. Small joys and simple pleasures tend to melt into the background after their initial newness fades. Something as wonderfully cute as a snoring baby can amount to little if we don’t consciously take a moment to enjoy it.
We spend most of our time looking forward or looking backward. We want to reach that next step, it will be better. We want to look at the past, it was better. When we do this, we forget to enjoy the here and now. When we spend too much time looking forward or backward, we miss out on the opportunities and joys that today has in store for us.
Our children are only young for so long. Your wife won’t be around forever. Don’t allow yourself to take the most precious things in your life for granted. These treasures are meant to be enjoyed.
Live today and be grateful for all of the little things that you have.
Peace Starts at Home
When we were younger, my brother and I fought. A lot. This was to the benefit of my sister, since our punishment was typically to work together cleaning the kitchen, meaning she had months of practically no kitchen cleaning chores. I remember, after one disagreement, my dad telling us, “If we can’t have peace at home, how can we expect to have peace in the world?” Following the news of the conflict in the Ukraine makes me grateful to be an American. I’m grateful that we have safety and security in our own homes and neighborhoods and don’t go to sleep at night afraid that our house will accidentally be shelled by artillery.
Our world has a vast array of cultures, ethnicities, and modes of thought. Each of us carries our own unique worldview, which has been informed by our upbringing and experiences. What my dad told my brother and I all those years ago still rings true today; in order to end violence and hatred in the world, we must start in our homes.
At the end of the day, you control you. You control your emotions and reactions to any given situation. You decide how you’ll act and how you’ll respond. Whether it be a potential conflict with your wife, child, coworker, or neighbor, it’s up to you to choose your actions. There’s a growing interest in scientific research into the reaction of the brain to outbursts of anger. Toxins are released into the body which, long term, can contribute to poor health. Even when a great injustice is done to you, you can still choose to patiently, calmly, and forcefully, respond. Although no one would argue that it’s an easy choice.
If we can’t have peace at home, where can we? Our single biggest opportunity to influence the world for the better is through our children. Kids take all of their cues from their parents, which means that if you model a strong, calm demeanor, they’ll take note. Families also provide a great opportunity for us to be able to learn how to work with people. As a microcosm of society, the family gives us a small playground to test out emotions and reactions to different situations. Often, we respond poorly, and need to make amends. At other times, however, we can respond with the strength and calm that we espouse, and can see the real, immediate impact. It’s of the utmost importance that we labor endlessly to foster and promote peace in our family. After all, if the proverbial world peace cannot be achieved, we can at least make progress in our tiny corner of the world.
Not surprisingly, attitudes towards people are generally formed in one’s youth. In today’s society, those attitudes most often are formed with a political basis. A family who are members of one political party will trash talk the opposing party and the child will likely assume the political views of their parents. In some cases, there may even be a degree of racism passed on. We can help stop the cycle with the next generation. The struggle will be overcoming our own views and presenting a clean view to our children. Instead of teaching kids that they’re entitled to something or should be given certain advantages because of past injustices, we should teach them to have pride in who they are and to share their story with the world.
We will not have peace anywhere until we can have peace in our homes. By better controlling our reactions, modeling good behavior for our kids, and teaching them to have pride in their heritage, we can bring peace to the world, home by home, block by block, and community by community.
Humility in Marriage
Marriage is unlike anything else in our world. It’s a relationship that cannot be fully comprehended without entering into one, and its many layers make it a lifetime effort of discovery. As is normal for human behavior, we try to compare marriage to a relationship that we do understand, bending it to fit into a reality that we can comprehend. The result is error, confusion, and misunderstanding. We often treat marriage like a business transaction, but marriage isn’t a joint venture or partnership.
Marriage requires the sort of humility that doesn’t demand preference, credit, or glory. Marriage requires that both spouses give up their selfishness, sacrifice for the good of the other, and act in ways that foster harmony. No other relationship demands this level of mutual sacrifice. No other relationship can reach this depth.
When we compare marriage to a business transaction, we misunderstand the fundamentals of what marriage is. In business, one must look out for oneself. There’s plenty of marketing, posturing, and the occasional crushing of a rival through scorched earth tactics. Conversely, in marriage, you look out for others before you look out for yourself. The relationship is not about what one can gain, but how one can serve their spouse in a way that helps them to grow and have a better life. While ethical businesses can, and do, survive and thrive, there’s always an element of looking over one’s shoulder at the competition. The permanence and safety of marriage allows spouses to always look to the other without fear of betrayal.
Humility is the essential ingredient in a healthy marriage. Pride builds oneself up at the expense of another. It may not cause direct harm to someone else, but it does have an opportunity cost, funneling resources away from others to oneself. In a marriage laced with humility, everything is done out of love, not in search of credit or glory. Things are done because they’re right, beautiful, and loving. This reality, when lived and fully experienced, is sublime. This type of behavior goes against our fundamental human inclinations, rejects selfishness, and serves the greater good. When one spouse is able to achieve this level of humility, their marriage can’t help but grow. When both spouses reach this level, their marriage becomes utterly and completely boundless.
It’s wise not to be naive about achieving these levels of marital success and humility. Denying yourself and retraining your brain to resist selfishness is a lifelong process. Our humanity is strongly programmed into our decision making and it will prove a challenge to overcome. Yet, it is possible. As you try to grow in humility and charity, especially in your marriage, remember these truths:
• Great teams aren’t made overnight. It takes years of training to make a championship team. Great teams also don’t fail overnight. When a championship team enters the new season, they aren’t likely to end up in last place. But over time, without careful attention, they can fail.
• Expect lots of failures along the way. Leave your past in the past, but let it form and inform your present. By that I mean to understand how you’ve failed in the past, but don’t dwell on it.
• Leave your pride at the door. It doesn’t matter who’s right, who’s to blame, or who isn’t pulling their weight. Give as much grace as you expect to receive.
Marriage is a beautiful garden that requires attentiveness, care, and loving labor. Through time and discipline, you can overcome your innate selfishness, pour your whole self into loving your wife and together reap a bountiful harvest of love, peace, and serenity.
Prepare for Adventure
I don’t know where I’ll be living in two years. In fact, I can only think of one other time in my life when I lived in a house for more than two years, and that was my Junior and Senior years of high school. During college I was only living at home part of the year, meaning that my current stint in Virginia will be the longest I’ve ever lived in one place. As of right now, Alison and I have no idea where we’ll move when she graduates from residency, but I know it’ll be an adventure.
Life offers us all endless opportunities to try new foods, experience new activities, and visit new places. I hope that you’re prepared to enjoy the adventure that life has ready for you, no matter how old you are.
Given my relatively transient life, it’s all too easy for me to consider pulling up stakes and moving to a new town every year or two. In fact, it’s truly the only life that I’ve ever known. It’s from my experience that I hold the belief that we should all be ready and willing to leave the nest and explore the wide open world. Don’t be timid, take a chance and enjoy the adventure of life!
There are all types of adventures that we each get to experience. Parenting is certainly one of them. When Benedict started walking, I was floored (pun intended). I knew it was coming, but to finally see this little guy moving around on two legs, after having known him when he couldn’t even roll over on his own, is so much fun. The best part is the excitement and pride that he has in himself. Each step is deliberate and a cause for joy and celebration. Of course, parenting also has its challenges and I know I’ll have some rough days because of the things that he’ll do. I’m early in this adventure, but I know that despite the hardships, it’s going to be incredible.
We also have adventures of new jobs and careers. You may experience the devastation of a job loss or the uncertainty of a company teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Although any situation that involves job security can be terrifying, with the right perspective, it doesn’t have to be entirely uncomfortable. Change does present challenges, but it also presents lots of opportunity. You may lose your job, but you might get a better one. You may go on a vacation that’s a complete disaster, but because of the disaster, your family gets to spend lots of quality time together. Challenges are difficult to endure, but as with most things in life, it’s all about perspective.
The best way to experience adventure is to do so with your family. Hold them close and take the leap together. Make choices based on the best interest of your family, and make them with your wife. The absolute best part about being an American is that if this new adventure doesn’t work out, you can always find a new one. There will be another town that you could move to, another activity to try, or another company to work for. Moves are rarely fatal. The world is your oyster, waiting to meet you and share it’s best fruits with you.
We’ve been given this one life. Take care of your health, be open to change, and experience the adventure of a lifetime with your family.
Praying for Kids Vocations
A few weeks ago, Alison called me on her way home from the hospital. She was listening to Catholic radio and the host had suggested that parents pray a monthly novena for their children’s vocations. I instantly thought of the struggles in discerning my own vocation and the benefit that 18 years of constant prayer could gain. We shepherd our children’s lives, why not pray for their vocations?
Discernment is a long and often confusing process. I remember exactly where I was when I realized that my discernment was over. Alison and I were riding in the car shortly before our wedding day and I remember putting my hand on her hand and saying, “We’ve discerned our vocation. I’m so glad that’s over.” Our calling was to the married life and we had found our partner. Since the discernment process isn’t an exact science, there are lots of turns, and ups and downs. Thankfully there are plenty of road signs along the way, but even then, those signs can be hard to read.
Prayer absolutely works. God often doesn’t respond in the way that we want or with the same level of immediacy that we seek. However, He does respond in a time and at a place that’s most beneficial to us. We should pray for our children for help in their discernment process and for their increased attunement with God. This attunement will put them in sync with God and help them to better understand His mind.
As your children grow, this monthly novena idea will provide you with a great chance to talk about vocations with your kids. We need to make sure that we’re giving them information that is both accurate and appropriate. We need to present all vocations as particular calls to holiness and that each can equally lead to sainthood, as well as to despair if one has a selfish heart. We need great priests, we need great religious, and we need great married couples. As this evolving discussion takes place, your children, supported by prayer, will be able to more fully understand the universal call to holiness and how vocation plays a central role in that call.
Praying for your children’s vocations is a wonderful habit that I’d recommend to your family. Alison and I are going to start this family tradition in May on Benedict’s behalf and intend on continuing until all of our children have fully answered their vocation in life.
Giving All of You
Earlier this year, Mark Hart from Life Teen was on Lino Rulli’s The Catholic Guy Show right after Super Bowl Sunday. Mark, an avid sports fan, was discussing how viewing the Super Bowl has changed in the years since he became a father. Predictably, he spent little time actually watching the game this year. Instead, he was helping his wife and interacting with his kids. Mark’s story perfectly illustrates how marriage requires both a full commitment and a willingness to make your wife and family the priority in your life.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of having an “undivided heart” in the married life. In that post, I discussed the internal predispositions that were important for a successful marriage; namely by pouring yourself totally into your marriage without distractions. Today, I want to focus on the exterior application.
None of us are ever fully prepared for marriage. There’s no marriage prep course or “trial marriage” that can accurately and completely portray the dynamics of the married life. In that sense, we’re all exploring and discovering what it takes to have a high quality, low conflict marriage. While we can’t get the full picture of marriage in our marriage prep courses, we can get pieces of the picture. I hope that you had a strong example of marriage in your life while you were growing up. I hope that your parents, grandparents, or an aunt and uncle gave you a good example of what a healthy marriage looks like. Even if you didn’t have a good model, you still understand what sacrifice is. You understand the concept of forsaking what you want for the good of another. You also know how to maintain a relationship, to a degree. It may just be a friendship or a dating relationship, but you know how to manage the various aspects of a relationship so that it’s both low conflict and enduring.
Marriage, unlike any other relationship, is always all-in. It’s not a rubber stamp and it’s not rolling over for the other. Instead, it’s both spouses bringing their best, putting it together, and benefiting and growing together. If either spouse holds back even the smallest amount of good, both suffer. A healthy marriage simply requires all of both spouses: intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. That means stopping whatever you’re doing when your wife needs you. It means making time to pray together, as a family, as difficult as that can be. That means having quality communication time over dinner or at some other point during the day. That means going on walks together, or hikes, or any other type of physical exercise that helps you both live a healthier lifestyle. That means turning off all distractions and devoting your full attention to your wife when she needs help with a problem or needs some other emotional need met. Although this is a sacrifice, it also presents a huge tangible benefit to you. You can’t walk away from quality time with your wife and be unchanged. You can’t walk away from quality time with your wife and not have a healthier, more vibrant, more robust relationship.
Marriage requires proper prioritization. Your spouse must be at the top of the list at all times. There’s never anything more important than what your wife needs. There’s never anything that you’d rather be doing than spending time with your wife. Although you might be fighting, there should be an even stronger desire for reconciliation. Like Mark’s story, even though you want to be watching the game, you’re more concerned with being present to your family.
In order to have a strong, healthy marriage you not only need to bring an undivided heart to the table, you need to back it up with action. Your wife is your top priority, and everything else can wait.
Integrate with Your In-Laws
One of the biggest changes for any newly married couple is feeling out the relationship with your in-laws. In-laws get a bad rap, some rightfully so. However, for the most part, your in-laws are simply a new family that you’re now a part of. It can certainly be awkward, after all, they’ve spent a lifetime together and have a vast trove of inside jokes and shared memories. Although there can be some awkward moments, the best approach is to fully integrate with your spouse’s family. Don’t settle for being an outsider.
This integration with in-laws is arguably the biggest change in new marriages. Both spouses face an entirely new set of traditions and customs. Holiday visitation schedules must be carefully arranged and one set of parents may live considerably closer than the other set. Although you may have dated your beloved for a considerable amount of time before you tied the knot, you likely didn’t have a ton of time to get to know your in-laws. The hurdle is not a barrier, per se, rather the challenge is working through the awkward stage to figure out how the new dynamic will work. You both now have two sets of parents and that’s something totally new.
The best approach to the situation is to go all in. You and your spouse should rely on each other’s knowledge base to help you through all types of situations. For example, while your family might call people on their birthdays, your wife might be able to tell you that particular people don’t enjoy them. Another example would be if her family expects thank you notes for every occasion and yours doesn’t, your wife can help you avoid a serious relationship faux pas. You both have entirely new families that may include multiple siblings and the best thing you can do is to acknowledge that you’re part of the family and integrate as such.
Being a part of a family is a wonderful thing and embracing the wholeness of the married life is critical to your long-term stability and happiness. You now have two support structures, and two families to celebrate in good times, and to comfort in bad times. Your family is now twice as big and that can be a lot of fun as you explore new and different ways to celebrate holidays and to enjoy vacations.
Far too many people allow in-laws to be a hinderance to their married life. By accepting, embracing, and integrating with your newly expanded family, you can enjoy all that an expanded family has to offer.
Complex Sexual Histories
Recently, I’ve been considering the role of men in the family life. It’s a complex issue, and one that no longer has consensus among the masses. In a sense, we’ve forgotten how men should behave and interact with their families. There are many men who want to be good husbands and fathers, but these men find few clues as to how to do it properly. There are also many men who wish to pursue their own desires before being the husband and father that they ought to be, and there are few societal pressures to push them back in the right direction.
As we continue to track towards extreme sexual liberation and rugged individualism, our children are going to face a crippling decision when seeking out a spouse. They will have to untangle extremely complex sexual histories and decide if they can marry someone who has not lived a chaste life. There will always be a certain percentage of young people who will remain chaste before marriage. These young people may have chosen to for religious reasons, out of obedience to the instruction that they had been given by their parents, or out of fear of contracting sexually transmitted infections or becoming pregnant. Although their reasons are varied, they still reach the same conclusion, that sex is reserved for the married state.
Regardless of their reasons and motivations, these chaste young adults may have difficulty finding a spouse who espoused a similar ideal during their teenage and young adult years. Public Health policy and social policies are promoting sexual activity among teenagers by presenting treatments, certain vaccines, and contraceptives as ways of preventing STIs and pregnancy. The real damage of these policies is that, combined with young people’s illusions of invincibility, they remove all objections to having sex and, as a result, kids are engaging in sex at higher rates. These young people don’t have informed consent because they haven’t been presented with the full picture, including the rate of failure of contraceptives and the psychological effects of engaging in sex. In fact, according to clinical studies, 16% of young women will become pregnant in their first year of oral contraceptive pill use. While some teens and young adults will remain chaste, a larger portion will not.
The question then becomes, for those who remained chaste, does an active sexual lifestyle automatically disqualify a future potential spouse? On the one hand, if a person was sexually active in high school, but has abstained since, does that make it a “forgive and forget” the mistakes of youth situation? Or does it demonstrate the moral character of an individual? How do we balance our Christian beliefs of forgiveness with the reality of the consequences of a sexually active lifestyle outside of the married life?
It’s a challenging issue, that’s for certain, and one that I don’t have the answer to. As parents, however, it underscores the importance helping our children understand their sexuality and its proper use. It underscores the importance of helping our kids make good choices and to understand fully the issue of human sexuality. They need to know the beauty of sex expressed in the proper context, the illusion and posturing that their sexually active classmates are projecting, and the medical realities of sex. They need to understand the whole picture by being given fact, not fiction. The pragmatic bottom line is that if a teenager or young adult isn’t ready to be a parent, then they’re not ready for sex. The true bottom line is that a teenager or young adult needs to preserve their chastity not only because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s the loving thing to do.
Parenting is evolving daily, and if we shy away from discussing the hard topics with our kids, we do them a real disservice. Not only will their decision making abilities be compromised, they’ll learn morality from their peers who are no more an authority on the subject than they are.