Posted by Cathy Taggart The family as an issue seems to have been “hijacked” by the political and religious right, who use it to promote their beliefs about personal/sexual morality. However, for those of us who are concerned about social justice and peace, I’m convinced that we won’t get very far unless we take a closer look at the family. No matter how wealthy, powerful or privileged someone may become, everyone – absoluely everyone – starts off life as a member of a powerless, vulnerable minority group. Everyone starts off as a tiny child! Young children learn most through their own experience, so however they are treated by the adults around them, especially by their parents, that’s what they’ll internalise as being the “normal” way for the strong and powerful to treat those who are small and weak. Another thing which parents, teachers, priests and other adults seem to have forgotten about over the centuries: Jesus didn’t say that children had to be trained up to be disciples, he said that children were the inheritors of the kingdom, in fact, the role models of discipleship! Of course, children do have a lot to learn, but I have found from my own experience as a mother that children are in fact naturally oriented towards goodness, love, creativity – towards God, you might say. Parenting “experts” always seem preoccupied with how to control children’s behaviour, but I think really what is needed is to provide the right sort of environment, the right sort of nurturing, so that children’s good qualities can develop naturally. Well, this all sounds very idealistic, and is very hard to do in the real world! But if we really want to build a better world, what more effective way to do it than to foster the goodness that’s already in young humans? This would mean, I believe, that we (as a society and as the Church) would need to have a serious re-think about our attitude to families. People seem to think that it is a noble and admirable thing that parents are often called on to be self-sacrificing and even heroic, but I think it is more important that parents do a good job than that they should be examples of heroic self-sacrifice! In other words, we need to ensure that parents have adequate resources, that they are able to meet their own needs, so that they will have the physical and mental energy, the patience, wisdom and creativity to do the job well. You could say that, more than anything else, good parenting is allowing the Holy Spirit to be at work in our children, just as the Spirit filled those first Christians at Pentecost.
on May 9, 2005, 3:56 pm
Next Sunday is, of course, the great feast of Pentecost, but did you know that the date which it falls on this year – May 15th. – is also the International Day of Families?
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