Invest in Your Kids
Although Benedict is recently beginning to prefer walking to crawling, I’ve already begun to plan out all of the activities and hobbies that I want to introduce him to. He should learn Spanish and hey, maybe I’ll learn with him. He should learn to play the piano or saxophone… I’ll do it too! His grandfather and I are both pilots, so was his great grandfather, so he definitely needs to learn how to fly. There are literally endless possibilities and each of them is equally exciting.
I had a priest friend whose father was an OB/GYN with an extremely successful medical practice. He had 8 kids and drove a 15 passenger van. One day, as a child, the priest friend went with his dad somewhere and they ended up parking next to a corvette. The son said to his father, “Dad, I can’t believe you drive around this 15 passenger van when you could be driving that corvette.” His father replied, simply, “Son, I’d rather have you than a car.”
In those eight words are perfectly encapsulated the mystery of parenting. Adults, with their own hopes, wants, needs, and desires are more interested in spending their hard earned money and resources on the needs of their children than on their own wants.
The world is a wide open place and introducing your children to new things is a healthy pursuit. In the hobbies or activities that they participate in, they may find a life-long hobby or even their life’s work. They may only participate for a year, a few months, or even a few measly weeks, however, they’ll forever carry with them the lessons and memories from that time. Hobbies, museums, books, classes, sports, theater, and the thousands of opportunities open to kids provide endless outlets for creativity, energy, and exploration.
A big struggle that I faced when I was working with a youth organization was parents struggling to get their children to commit. Elementary school kids are well known for their ability to change their minds in an instant and many parents seemed to be frustrated with what they saw as wasted money that could have been put to better use. Activities are teachable moments in a child’s life and letting your child take up and quit activities at the drop of a hat isn’t good stewardship of your family’s finances. A better approach is to use activities to teach your children about commitment. When they want to try something beyond the first free session, they need to agree to very clear terms. They need to know how long they’re committing to and that they may not be able to get out of their obligations. They also need to understand that if they do activity A, they won’t be able to do activity B. This life lesson can help them to not be flaky in their adult life. It certainly will be a battle when they inevitably want to quit, but giving in to them will be extremely damaging to the development of good moral character.
After trying many different activities, perhaps over the course of several years, the time will come when you need to guide them to committing to a few that they’ll pursue long-term. This evolving discussion should focus on their passions and natural strengths and encourage structured decision making. We know that when you put focus and resources on a few things, you’ll make far more progress than if you had put your energy into many things. By helping your kids determine which activities to edit out of their schedule, you’ll again be teaching them an important life lesson. Taking on too many things is unwise and you’ll do much better if you focus on a few things.
Your kids will have endless opportunities to pursue new things. Be prepared to inspire them, cheer for them, and help them to learn the inherent life lessons that come with choosing one’s activities.
Staring Down Medical Problems
In life, there may be nothing more disruptive than a major medical problem. Whether it’s one that you’re facing, or one that someone in your family is dealing with, medical problems consume the thoughts and time of those afflicted with them. This dilemma is one that is common in the human experience; despite our best efforts, we will get sick.
When I was a senior in high school, I was delivered a knock out blow from migraines. Nearly every day I had to be removed from class and sent home to recover. The situation got to a point where, near the end of the school year, I was asked to stay home. It was disruptive to the learning environment and, frankly, embarrassing to be taken out of class with such frequency. The attacks were only the beginning. My experience with the physicians that I sought treatment from proved just as difficult. Migraines are relatively misunderstood and I didn’t fit into the typical patient profile. Many of the neurologists that cared for me had little experience with migraine patients outside of middle aged women, so they either prescribed treatments as if I was a middle aged woman or they just didn’t believe me. It took four years to find the right neurologist and only then was I finally able to get my life back.
When you or someone that you love is forced to stare down a major medical problem, it’s important to have courage in the face of uncertainty. While our physical health does dictate many of our daily decisions, there’s almost always things that we can do to improve our situation. A health crisis will face each of us at some point in our lives. This fact alone should be enough to motivate us to make good decisions today to help mitigate the factors that contribute to poor health later.
We put too much faith in modern medicine. It’s true that medicine can do amazing things to help correct imbalances in our body. However, it isn’t an exact science. With each body being completely unique, albeit with similar structures, pinpointing and treating causes of illness and disease can be difficult. There’s a lot that we know but there’s even more that we still don’t understand. Alison is brilliant and knows an unbelievable amount about the body, how the systems work, and what type of afflictions can impact each organ and tissue. Even she will admit that there’s a lot of unknown and that the best defense is a good diet and exercise. That means that although we will face major medical problems, we have the power to fight back by making good choices daily. Your doctor can’t force you to make good decisions, those are choices that you need to make on your own.
When the time does come, despite your good efforts, when you’re diagnosed with some condition, face the diagnosis with patience and humor. Don’t give up the fight and resign yourself to despair. Understand the process, ask lots of questions, and use humor to help you through the difficult days. Life is valuable and precious not because of the utility that one gives to society, but in and of itself. Not every medical problem is fatal, but every problem is impactful. Life may not be the way that it used to be, but you’re just as useful, valuable, and precious as you were before the diagnosis.
Medical problems present us each with two choices: resign the fight and slip into a sedentary lifestyle or take charge of your health and fight back by making good choices every day. When you face this dilemma, I hope that you’ll fight.
Adult Report Cards
When I was in high school, in my Junior and Senior year, I was introduced to something truly horrible. It was a system called EdLine and it gave my parents direct, realtime access to my teacher’s grade books. While I performed well academically, the pressure of constantly knowing one’s grade was almost too much. With the press of a button, a bad test grade could ruin an entire weekend. My parents loved it because they had a granular view of my progress and could spot trends.
While I dispute the morality of giving parents this level of access to grades, I do think that, as adults, we could benefit from this type of system. We set goals for ourselves or have dreams that we’d like to fulfill, most of which occur over time. Having a report card that gives us a realtime picture of our progress could be immensely helpful and could also translate into a higher success rate. As adults, we refer to these report cards as habit streaks. I use an app called Habit List on my phone to track daily progress with a simple yes or no challenge. Did I keep a food diary today? Yes. 1 day added to my streak. Did I drink 8 glasses of water? No. My streak begins again tomorrow. This frictionless system takes seconds to update each evening, but provides a powerful set of data and subtle motivation to keep a streak alive. We need report cards or habit streaks to give us feedback on progress towards our goals.
Goal setting requires tracking. While it can be ugly, feedback is our best path to success. No one likes negative feedback, so when we receive it, and when we have the means to stop it, we will change our behavior which, in turn, leads to success. We get that motivation back that we had when we started this goal achievement journey. It can literally get you back on the horse and moving again in the right direction.
We need accountability in our lives. Discipline isn’t pleasant and without someone or something holding up a mirror to us, we’ll fall victim to the laziness within us. No matter what the task is, we need help keeping on track. We need a person or a system to hold our hand and to keep moving us forward. Habit streaks can add that level of discipline back into the equation.
The longer the habit streak, the more likely your continued success. We see the number of days add up to a huge number and we have no interest in seeing it go back to 0, so we push ourselves to success. As an added bonus, the longer you avoid a bad habit, the better you’re able to resist it. The more you do a good habit, the more it becomes ingrained in you.
Report cards in school were the enemy, but habit streaks as an adult are an ally. Habit streaks will push you to places that you’ve never been and help you to become the best person that you can be.
The Joy of Serving
In the not too distant past, I engineered my weekly routine to involve cleaning a single room of the house every day. Since I spend almost all of my time at home, I want to have an environment that is clean and well maintained. When there’s clutter or mess or dirt I feel impeded in both my energy and my creativity. When all is in order I feel balanced and at peace.
After several months of trial and error, I determined that while daily cleaning allowed me to make progress every day, it was a huge time suck. I threw out the playbook and batched cleaning and laundry into one giant marathon. It turns out that while 15 minutes every day cleans the house, so does 1 hour on a Saturday morning at a rapid clip. My favorite time to clean is when Alison is at work. I love the thought of her leaving a dirty and messy home and coming home to a sparkling environment.
While serving often requires an increase in our workload, it paradoxically increases the joy in our lives.
Placing your wife at the center of your life is the ideal in marriage and it should be the end that we’re all actively working the achieve. By caring for her first, you take an active role of serving. This could be shown in small acts like getting her drink for dinner or big acts like taking care of the kids so she has the night off. If cleaning the house is typically in her domain, doing it for her once in a while can really rock her world. The objective is to discern her needs, decide how best to meet them, and then serve her.
The act of serving is something to be enjoyed. If you’ve ever used a premium service, you notice how great it feels to be well looked after. As the recipient of that service, I feel not only respected, but cared for. When you take good care of your wife, when you serve her well, she can have those same feelings. Think about how thrilled she’ll be now that she can read a book instead of having to clean the house. Think about how excited she’ll be getting to have a little extra time playing with the kids before bed because you’ve taken care of the other pre-bedtime preparations.
As you work to master the skill of serving your wife, do the same for your children. Your kids are certainly stuck with you, but it’s important to work daily on those relationships. Blow their minds by doing something unexpected for them. It could be a surprise trip, throwing around a ball with them, or even cleaning their room. Be a great dad and teach them a lesson at the same time.
Serving is a joy unto itself, but one that’s only derived from humility. Love your family, lead your family, and serve your family.
Intent Matters in Sex
One of the best books on the argument for marriage the way that we understand it is What is Marriage?: A Man and Woman: A Defense by Ryan Anderson, Robert George, and Sherif Girgis. I’ll review the book in a later post, but in the work, the authors systematically lay out the foundation for the conjugal view of marriage. Namely, that marriage isn’t based on emotions, but rather on a mutual desire to express love in such a way that it flows out from the couple and into children. Along the course of the argument, the material touched on some auxiliary issues, including the intent required during sex. Wrongful intent in a sexual relationship, even wrongful intent held by a married person, can reduce sex to a lie or a tool.
Sex is an organic bodily union. The male and female reproductive systems carry out their own processes individually, but it’s only through the combination of the two systems, through sex, that either is able to complete the reproductive cycle. While sex unites and binds the two people into one bodily system, it does more than simply complete a process. Sex unites both the body and the mind. Bodily systems do not think or act independently, they must be directed by the mind and by the heart. So when a couple has sex, their minds and hearts direct their reproductive systems to work towards a common good, namely, the creation of new life and the strengthening of the marital union. The fact that every sexual act doesn’t achieve procreation is irrelevant. What is relevant is the intent of each spouse. The right intent is enough to achieve the good regardless of whether or not reproduction itself is achieved.
The intent of one spouse can denigrate or destroy the organic bodily union. In order to perfectly achieve the design of sex, both partners must be willing the good of the other, not simply attempting to achieve one’s own maximum pleasure. When one spouse withholds emotionally or mentally, the act is diminished. The bodily systems function in the same way, but the wrongful intent reduces the sublime nature of the organic bodily union to simply checking off a box or completing a process. Even more egregious is that wrongful intent reduces the opposite spouse to an object, a means to achieve a singularly pleasurable end. Wrongful intent divides the heart and diverts precious resources away from the marital good and to a selfish objective.
Procreation as an end is good, but again, it’s not required. There is a great deal of confusion about the Church’s teaching which has driven scores of Catholics into the arms of the contraceptive culture. Think of it this way. If sex’s only objective was the creation of new life, why would the female reproductive system only be able to achieve pregnancy a few days in a cycle? By looking to the natural order, unimpeded by contraceptives, we can discern that sex is about more than procreation. The natural order tells us that sex is also unitive.
Certainly removing the procreative aspect of sexuality is just as damaging as removing the unitive aspect. Sex and intent towards sex should respect both spouses, should be used responsibly in the creation of new life, and should always be prepared to lovingly and openly accept any children that may come about from the sexual act.
A responsible couple practicing the discipline of natural family planning is able to balance the unitive needs of the couple and the responsibility of parenting. Sex should be a regular occurrence in a healthy marriage because it binds spouses together in ways that nothing else can. At the same time, recognizing the grave responsibility of raising a child, natural family planning empowers a couple to make judicious and just decisions about when to attempt to achieve a pregnancy. By doing nothing more than observing and working with the wife’s reproductive system, a couple is able to appropriately, morally, and intentionally seek to create new life when their family is able to support new life, and abstain from sex when they are not. A key foundational principle of natural family planning is the understanding that, despite the scientifically valid data proving natural family planning to be effective, like contraceptives, it’s practice is susceptible to human error, meaning that pregnancy can still occur. The difference between contraceptives failing and natural family planning failing is in how the couple reacts. A contraceptive mindset leads to an intent that seeks to immediately destroy the life that was just created while a natural family planning mindset leads to an overwhelming joy and excitement about the child who in just a few months will be welcomed into the home.
The Church is the last remaining institution that celebrates and promotes true freedom. By helping us to understand the importance of the conjugal view of marriage and the right attitudes about sex, She encourages us to experience true freedom. We are not to be prisoners to our own minds and passions nor are we to be enslaved to the dire side effects of contraceptives. Instead, we are to experience the true beauty of the married life, and, if in accord with God’s Will, the joys of parenting.
Turn Off the News
Since late last summer, I’ve had a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. It’s my first newspaper subscription, having before gotten the majority of news from websites. I must say, there have been a lot of unexpected difference in the print news as opposed to digital news. I’ve grown to hate 24 hour news networks.
Getting most news updates about once per day feels like the right amount of updates. While news is always breaking, not everything deserves my attention. While news stories are constantly evolving, a 24 hour break in between checking up on stories allows reporters to gather facts instead of reporting on speculation. Another highlighted benefit of reading print news is that instead of always being reactionary, reporting on stories as they happen, they’re proactive. Reporters are doing in-depth studies on issues, investigations into topics, and frankly, breaking stories through original content.
When I compare the news reported in newspapers and the news reported on 24 hour networks and websites, there’s really no comparison. Digital news is a disaster.
Too often, websites and networks, under pressure to feed content to the masses, will report on something, anything. They’ll embellish stories, report inaccuracies, and just do an all around poor job of news reporting. Since they don’t have enough hard news to report and don’t do many in-depth studies, they have to stuff fluff pieces into their news. They’ll report on celebrity gossip, they’ll overreport someone’s meltdown, or they’ll bring you live coverage of a ballon over a desert, a musicians funeral, or continually report on shark attacks, although there isn’t necessarily a higher incidence at that particular time.
Of course, there’s plenty of fear and speculation laced into every story. We’re filled with anxiety about epidemics that will never reach our shores en mass, we stress over who our next president will be when it won’t be decided for 18 months, and we worry over the impact of court cases that won’t be decided for years. 24 hour news is bad for your health.
The best way to get your news, in my opinion, is through a newspaper. There’s something about the experience of having your paper delivered or picking it up daily. There’s something about feeling the paper in your hand and reading a story that you know has been through several rounds of editing, not reporting based on someone’s tweet five minutes ago. We just don’t have any justifiable need for constant updates. A newspaper, with a set publication schedule, has time to gather facts and present actual news, not just conjecture.
If you find that 24 hour news is overwhelming you or is reporting things that just aren’t news, turn it off.
Two Years of Service
Today is an amazing day! Two years ago today, I pressed the big green button and Catholic Husband went live. Now two years into our 100 year mission, we’re on our 409th blog post, our 10th podcast, our 2nd book and our 1 millionth web design.
Whenever I hit milestones, I like to take a moment to reflect on the magnitude of the occasion. As I was this time last year, I’m still surprised that Catholic Husband is still going and growing in the way that it is. I never expected for so many of you to join in so quickly and so enthusiastically, but I think that speaks both to the importance of this idea of being an active husband and also to the scope of our community. Catholic Husband started because I couldn’t find a single place where the goods of marriage were shared, active husbands were encouraged, and engaged fathers were celebrated. Now we have that home.
As I look back on some of my very first posts, I can’t help but blush a little at how different my writing skills were at the very beginning. (If you want to read the first post, you can read it here!) I’m glad to see that both the quality of the writing and the quality of the ideas have progressed consistently. I’m also glad that typos and weak sentence structure didn’t turn you off!
Catholic Husband now encompasses 409 unique posts and articles focusing on the various aspects of our shared vocation, with 5 new posts appearing weekly. I think the magnitude of the body of work that has been, and is being, assembled speaks to both the complexity of the marriage vocation and it’s innate importance. Being a good spouse is hard and there are thousands of things that we could do better. It also demonstrates the innumerable opportunities we have to be the best husbands that we can be.
I’m grateful to have had the inspiration and encouragement of both Alison and you to keep me waking up at 5am to put words on this blank canvas. In the midst of the tremendous change that I’ve undergone in the past 24 months, this project has continued and it has grown. Now we have a place where we can share thoughts, ideas, and encouragement. Now we have a place that tells us that we can be amazing Catholic husbands. I sincerely thank you for being part of Catholic Husband. Here’s to the next 98 years!
Read to Your Children
A routine is perhaps the greatest tool in the toolbox of parenting. Kids do wonderfully with routines. Not only do they provide consistency, but they give cues to kids about how they should behave. Routines also help parents manage the dozens of tasks that come with caring for and raising children. A routine helps a parent make major decisions once and simply manage them daily.
Children need lots of things: food, clean diapers, baths, play time, naps, and regular sleep. They also need help exploring the world and expanding their minds. As new travelers on the journey of life, they don’t know what they haven’t experienced. We know the importance of exposing kids to as many things as possible in their first few years of life because we understand how it impacts future learning. One of the best, and most important things we can do for our kids is read to them, and then promote the habit of reading independently when age appropriate.
I’ve written before about falling back in love with reading. Each day I read the newspaper and a book. I’m a slow reader, so my total reading time is longer than the average person, but I’ve noticed how my vocabulary has grown and my creative capacity has expanded through the discipline of reading.
Reading to your kids each day, however, is one more thing on your list. Amongst the dozens of other daily activities, now you have to add story time. It takes time, it takes planning, and it takes effort.
Reading is more than just one more thing, it’s one great thing. Children develop their vocabulary at a young age and the best way to help them build a strong one is through reading.
Spending time with your kids does leave less time for you to do the things that are on your to-do list or the things that you want to do, but it’s important to remind yourself that your kids are growing daily. That means that your little baby won’t be little forever, so today’s a great day to spend time with them. Reading together is both a great gift and a great opportunity to spend time together. You give your child the gift of your time and you gain the wonderful experience of them sitting on your lap being cute. Make reading time something that you both look forward to by finding a time that makes sense. For example, a great time might be right before they take a nap or go to bed for the evening.
As your children grow, it becomes more important for you to model good reading habits. Read books yourself and designate a family reading time. Continue to read with your kids even when they can read themselves by having them read to you. Reading is both a lifelong skill and a hobby that’s the gateway to new worlds.
Treasure your kids and cherish your time together. Build healthy routines that promote good habits, continuity, and consistency. Give your kids every advantage in life by reading to them early and instilling in them a lifelong habit of reading.
The Rise of Divorce
I’ve recently started working on a family genealogy project. In the past, I hadn’t much cared about my family’s history beyond my grandparents, but lately I’ve become fascinated with our family’s story. I’m basing all of my research around Benedict as the starting person and I’m excited about the journey that this is taking me on. While many of the discoveries have been very exciting, I’ve noticed something else that’s rather tragic. In keeping with what I suspect is par for the course today, in the last 115 years, it’s nearly impossible to find any branch of my family within two generations that hasn’t been touched by divorce.
It’s obvious that divorce today is far more prevalent than it has been at any another time in history. As we struggle to understand or even remember why we have marriage as a societal institution in the first place, it has become more and more socially acceptable for couples to end their marriage for even seemingly petty reasons. This rise points to the need for more education before engaged couples tie the knot.
In the United States, no-fault divorce laws are a complete train wreck. From the very beginning of this legal concept, we’ve progressively eroded away societal pressure for couples to stay together, even when things are difficult. In most cases, fights and disagreements can be worked through, although it may require outside professional assistance and a substantial amount of time. No-fault divorce laws create in our minds the notion that when things are difficult, it’ll be easy to just quit. This notion reflects an innate immaturity that’s wholly incompatible with the reality of marriage. There are valid reasons to divorce a spouse when the Sacrament of Matrimony was invalid in the first place, such as spousal abuse, addiction, or other impediment. However, no one will argue that all divorces in this country are based on these serious situations.
If we want to have a healthy marriage culture, and in turn a healthy family culture, we need to get back to basics. We need to learn how to communicate again. I have no objection to the innumerable ways we can communicate today and I use many of them to interact with Alison every day. However, when you’re in a fight, you need to use words and not a text. Spouses have to speak to one another. We’ve forgotten how to use our words properly and constructively. We need to learn the art of communication and use it to prevent fights from starting in the first place.
We also need to educate young people. While we need to talk to our kids about possible vocations to the priestly and religious life, we also need to recognize that the vast majority of our kids are called to the married life. Marriage is a vocation that’s just as important, just as holy, and just as much a calling from God as a vocation to the religious and priestly life. We have to talk to our kids about the beauty of marriage, the struggles of marriage, and the importance of marriage.
The prevalence of divorce only gives rise to more divorce. By understanding what marriage is, by getting back to basics, and by forming in the minds of young people the correct vision of marriage, we can reduce the divorce rate and enjoy the societal benefits of strong families.
When is it Enough?
The lives of the saints are a great mystery to us. How is it that ordinary men and women, both lay and religious, can slip the surly bonds of sin and fall in love with Jesus so deeply that they give up their selfish nature, pick up their cross, and follow Him?
Sure, we hear all the time that we should pick up our cross, but regard it as little more than a turn of phrase. “It’s the ideal, sure, but I’ll never do that. No one does.” “It’s a high standard that I just can’t reach because I’m too lost, hurt, and broken.” “I’ll worry about getting into Heaven when I’m older.” “I’m aiming for purgatory, it’s much more realistic for my situation in life.”
These are the lines we feed ourselves. Small rationalizations for our greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. We accuse God of being disingenuous. He promised to give us all of the grace and mercy that we need to make it through this life and stay faithful to Him, but we refuse. We prefer our sin to the love of God.
The thing is, there’s no saint without a sinner. There’s no Heaven without trial. There’s no life without suffering, temptation, and the hurts of our humanity. There’s no saint who doesn’t know the guilt and shame of serious sin. There’s no saint who hasn’t silently struggled with their greatest character flaw. There’s no saint who doesn’t know what it feels like to lose out to temptation or to willingly give in to it.
The difference between a saint and you? They knew when to say, “Enough!”
We all share in a silent struggle. We have that one sin, that habitual sin that we just can’t seem to shake. It’s embarrassing, it’s shameful, and it’s painful to admit. The only time we talk about it openly is in the Confessional where we’re guaranteed complete privacy and anonymity. We want to break free, but we’re unwilling to expose ourselves to anyone. Thus we silently struggle, all on our own.
We’ve tried to break the habit 10 times or 100 times. Yet, we always find ourselves back at the beginning. Maybe it’s out of habit. Maybe it’s out of choice.
“Enough!”
Life, though difficult, was never designed to have you enslaved to sin, a prisoner in your own body. We are to be tested, certainly, but never so much that we’re overcome. It’s our choice to be overcome, our choice to give in, and thus our punishment to endure. We feel powerless in the moment, but feelings and emotions can be wrong. We have the power to stand up and stop. We have the power to end this silent struggle. We have the Sacrament of Confession and a limitless God full of love, mercy, and compassion. We have His mother and ours, the mediatrix of grace.
So what’s stopping you? What’s stopping you from declaring today that enough is enough. You’ve sinned, you’ve reconciled, you’ve sinned again. Why not break it once and for all? It will be hard, oh yes. Temptation will flare up because temptation hates resistance. Certainly another sin will take it’s place as your primary weakness. You’ve tried and failed before. But why should the past stop you from being a better person starting right now?
Today isn’t about yesterday. Today is about today! Change is hard, but you love a challenge. Temptation will give you a run for your money, but you love a good fight. Another sin will take up residence at the top of your list, but it’s lesser to your current one. And besides, you’re going to knock it out next. You’ve tried and failed before, but so did St. Peter. And St. Paul. And St. Thomas More. And St. Theresa of Avalia. And St. Josemaria Escriva. And St. Juan Diego. And St. Thomas Aquinas. And St. Augustine. And St. Pio. And St. John Paul II.
You make the difference. Be courageous. Choose the difficult. Choose freedom.