Pope's message on fatherhood

There's a not whole lot I can add to the Pope's comments on fatherhood. Maybe I'll take a closer look at parts in future posts, but for now here are some links:

Summary
Full Text

The challenge has been laid for fathers. How will you respond?

Newton's law of parenting

It's a little known fact that Newton's third law of nature was first coined as the first law of parenting. Newton's contemporaries thought it would more appropriate to lump it with the other two laws of nature instead of having a separate category. Not being a parent himself, Newton eventually bowed to peer pressure.

Let's go back to science class and review what the first, um, the third law of nature is: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. To form the law of nature, it was edited from it's original law of parenting script that clarified "every negative action."

Without the law, an interaction with your child may look something like this. Your child throws the mother-of-all-tantrums because she was given the green cup and orange plate, when everyone knows that for lunch on Tuesday she is to have orange cup and the green plate. This is compounded by the fact you gave her the food she asked for, not the food she wanted, and then you had the nerve to look at her and call her Darling. Your reaction? Explaining that the orange cup is dirty in the dishwasher and you verified this was the meal she wanted on four separate occasions through gritted teeth—and that's the G-rated version of your reaction, hypothetically of course.

Since that would be a similar, not opposite, reaction to the initial negative action, you would have broken Newton's law. Inconceivable!

Following the law of parenting, your reaction to the nagging, talking back, incessant crying, complaining, ungratefulness, anxiety, anger, frustration and outright ornery behaviour needs to be opposite—compassion, understanding, patience, kindness, guidance, reassurance, comfort, security. In a word, love.

Fr. Robert Barron, in his book Catholicism, summarizes this concept exceptionally well when writing about the notion of turning the other cheek. Instead of a vengeful eye-for-an-eye attitude when someone—especially someone little who is in our care—wrongs us, Jesus teaches us we need to respond with kindness and love. Fr. Barron points out we don't become passive and let people walk all over us. We respond in a way that prompts true conversion of heart for others.

For our children, that means we don't engage in their devious mind games or power struggles. Parents respond in a way that prompts conversion. We ensure boundaries and expectations are well-defined, and we lovingly teach them positive behaviour trumps negative. 

Yes, I am fully aware of how challenging that is, but all virtue is challenging. And all virtue is reinforced when, by grace, practiced over time. One encounter at a time, your loving reaction will result in conversion—maybe for more than our children.

St. Joseph, protector of families and patron of fathers, pray for us.

Transparency

I was watching an episode of Blue Planet that featured life on the ocean floor. Talk about evidence that God has a vivid imagination—wow! The creatures that live in an environment almost totally void of light are unique to say the least. The fang fish has teeth too large to close its mouth. Angler fish (yes, the kind in Finding Nemo) use luminescent "lures" to hunt. A squid squirts a time-delayed ink that lights up after it has already gone to avoid being lunch. One fish has a mouth so big it can swallow prey its own size. And the size of the eyes on some—think of those greeting cards with the cute animals whose eyes are bulging off the card. Yeah, those eyes are small.

Some fish are transparent. Apparently it's hard for other fish to eat what they can't see. What an incredible defence mechanism! I'm sure we all think it be great to be transparent at times.

To God, we are. There's no hiding a single thing from Him—we're totally transparent. Our survival depends on it. It's our ticket to life. It seems counterintuitive because part of what God sees is our sin—the crud that would make us unpalatable if we were to be eaten. But the cool part is God doesn't want to devour us. His love for His beloved creation sees beyond all that, and he is able to see us in our full potential, as if we were to fully cooperate with his grace. He not only sees us as we are meant to be, he cleans us with the grace of forgiveness so we are more in sync with who He created us to be.

There are always potential hurdles—always self imposed—that can prevent us from being cleaned, distancing our actual selves from our potential Saintly selves. It's kinda like the transparent fish playing Marco Polo. It's counter-productive if you want to live. Lucky for us God is both patient and persistent, not an opportunistic predator. Keep in mind there is one of those out there in our spiritual lives, so choose your swimming partner wisely.

St. Francis de Sales

Today is St. Francis de Sales' feast day. As patron of writers and journalists, it seems appropriate I give him some attention today. Read more about him at http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=51

One of his works, Introduction to the Devout Life may be my lenten reading this year.

St. Francis de Sales, pray for us.

Gotta love three year olds

Thanks to my sister-in-law for sharing this fall-down-laughing blog post. I count 26 that relate directly to my three year old, and if I were to count ones that are kinda close, I'm sure it would be close to 40. We fall short because we don't have a cat or iPad.

Initial reaction

Shout out (do we still do shout outs or am I dating myself) to Fr. Darryl Millette who was the first to offer encouraging words about the blog. Fr. Darryl is part of The Sports Fathers podcast.

Don't forget to subscribe to this blog to ensure you don't miss a thing—and it helps keep me accountable.

Steady as she goes...

I work at a public university that, like many public institutions in today’s economy, is facing some budget challenges. This week there were a handful of lay-offs in my department because of a restructuring—likely one of many to come in the next year or so.

My first thought was relief it wasn’t me. Right behind that was compassion for those that did lose their jobs. Been there, done that, and it’s not fun. After time, it’s easy to see the fingerprints of God and how well he takes care of us, but that’s a thought for another day.

Being a provider for my family started consuming my thoughts. What if it was me that lost my job? Have I made decisions that will still allow me to provide the necessities of life for my family?

I’m not going to pretend to be a financial planner and give rules-of-thumb about savings and planning for the unexpected. That looks different for everyone. I am going to bring the role of provider to the forefront.

Being a provider is more than being the one who buys things for the family. We have material needs, and we shouldn’t ignore those. We have material wants, and we shouldn’t ignore those either. Nor should we give those wants too much attention. Do you know how many times in a day I hear, “I want a horse,” from my oldest daughter? Neither do I because it would be kinda like counting the times you blink in a day. I often respond, “I want a Ferrari too, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon.”

The role of provider is so much more than taking care of material needs. If God wanted nothing more from St. Joseph than to provide material needs for Jesus and Mary, I have serious doubts he would have chosen a carpenter.

Fathers need to provide stability: material, emotional, psychological and spiritual stability. Let’s quickly look at each.

Material. Bottom line for me, define the difference between needs and wants. Provide the needs. Teach the value of satisfying the occasional want. Start thinking of helping others satisfy their needs. In a nutshell, the virtue of temperance.

Emotional. There’s a reason men are generally less emotional than women—to offer emotional stability to the family. It doesn’t always work that way, but think of the emotional firecracker(s) in your house. Female perhaps? We have a volcano in our house. Yep, you guessed it. One of our daughters. Can you imagine what the flight to Egypt would have been like if St. Joseph was an emotional basket case? It wouldn’t have been the most subtle escape from Herod.

Psychological. I often say it’s our job as parents to warp our kids just enough to be worth a couple sessions of therapy. Normal is a relative term, so let’s not shoot for that. And how boring would the world be if we didn’t have eccentrics? Comfort, security, love and faith have to be provided and passed on for psychological stability. Don’t just give it to them, teach them to make good choices and take care of their own psychological stability.

Spiritual. The significance of St. Joseph’s role in the spiritual well-being of Jesus is what the incarnation is all about. I don’t think Jesus had some infused knowledge of prayer or worship of the Father. He was taught it. The Son emptied Himself of all the privileges He had through His divine nature to be one of the guys. That includes being a vulnerable kid that needed some direction. St. Joseph lived his faith and passed on spiritual stability to Jesus. Jesus developed the deepest possible relationship with His Father because he was taught it; he saw his parents embody the work and discipline relationships take every day. Just like our relationship with God—and all relationships for that matter—it takes work and discipline.

And…this post is getting longer than I want it to. Share your thoughts so we can continue the conversation.

St. Joseph, patron of fathers and families, pray for us.

Welcome!

The idea of a forum to share my thoughts —and invite you to share yours—has been on my mind for a while.

I'm taking the plunge.

Sometimes my thoughts will plunge deeper than others. Just like life, sometimes we need to explore the depths of things to come to a better understanding of the questions before us. Other times ponderings will barely skim the surface as they swiftly skip about, eventually losing momentum and sinking out of sight.

Not all thoughts will be original; I'm no Aquinas. But I'm willing to share my perspective on a variety of things husbands and fathers face in today's world.

I want this to be a community where many can share their thoughts too. It helps (my ego) if you agree with me, but that's not a requirement. If you do disagree, do so respectfully.

I plan on growing this community to include methods of communications other than this blog, so stay tuned on that.