The Home Circus

Author: Padre Alejandro Cortés González-Báez  

 

 

The rhythm of our modern life makes us feel we live in a three-ring circus. Raising a family these days is not an easy task, but sometimes we ourselves are the cause of chaos in the family as well as the disruption of the social order.
Experience shows that the upbringing of children has become improvisational. We admit that there is a vast difference between a business model and a home but to attempt to teach children without having clear-cut long-, medium- or short-tem goals and not having a way of measuring our success in teaching our children has led us to this present chaos.
Every single day a growing number of teachers complain about the lack of respect from their students, as well as about other behavioral problems and foul language. Could this be a reflection on the alarming increase in divorces and broken families?
There is a big misunderstanding on the part of parents who think that they are providing a proper upbringing by telling their children not to scream and yell, to straighten their rooms, to get in the car, to not fight with their siblings, to finish their homework, and many other admonitions. But often that is only a simple exercise in taming or subduing behavior, such as what lion tamers do with their lions in a circus.
Teaching and preparing a child is more than that. A genuine formation and training of human beings requires the learning of thinking skills, the ability to recognize values in one’s decisions. At the same time we must strengthen their will so that they are able to face all of life’s obstacles.
In my opinion children should be brought up to be good spouses and good parents, with emphasis on all the virtues these family positions require.
We should teach them how to love, but love in this context means a constant availability to the needs of others, not a simple passion, but a permanent, daily exercise in making life pleasant to others, starting with our parents, our siblings and others who may share our household, otherwise matrimony would not be understood as a vocation of service.
The science of teaching should be studied as such, as a science, so that future parents can learn that it is not merely sufficient to provide material needs for our children.
In addition we have to remember the value of good example. Authority needs the coherence of our good example to convince our children that values are worth the effort.
We can hope for a better humanity only if we start preparing men and women from the very beginning, as they start with their first steps.
There is no greater vocation than to prepare our children for the worthy title of human being.
rnal love their wives promised them. And not kill it. That acceptance is well worth it.