A while back a dear reader (I can't find the comment just now, but feel free to remind me who it was!) asked something along the lines of “If I devote myself to my family, will I be failing to offer help and mercy to others outside the home?”
I too can remember the days when I literally did nothing but clean up poop.
It's hard to feel charitable and works-of-mercy-ish when you get the baby changed and in a snowsuit, get the toddler changed and in a (nother) snowsuit, and then come to find that the “toilet-trained” child has had an accident.
In a snowsuit.
It's those days when you wonder whether Mother Teresa had the right idea embracing the celibate life and going to the streets of Calcutta, where there cannot possibly be this much poop.
So if women raised their own children, suffering the isolation and a certain, how shall I put it, lack of affirmation, what would happen to the world of people who need ministering to?
Here are three thoughts, based on our readings of Casti Connubii as well as those of past years.
First, the virtue that everyone needs to live together in harmony is justice.
The structure of the family offers a model of, let's call it, justice applied. As I keep repeating, as John Paul II kept repeating, the world passes through the family. Because the family, even when imperfect, by its nature is a sanctuary of the weak (what is weaker than an infant?), it offers love to those whose only claim to be taken care of is just that they exist.
In itself, this is a lesson for humanity in justice.
But when the family fulfills its role as teacher and “first school of virtue,” then we see how justice is learned. And how else could it be learned? You must learn these things at your parents' knees or have a rough road ahead of you.
Justice is the virtue of giving everyone his due.
The family offers the most justice to the child, because it protects and nurtures it before sending it out into the world. A child needs stability almost more than anything else (which is why good societies always try not to take a child away, even from a bad family, but rather give the family the help it needs if possible). A baby human is so vulnerable that only by having two committed parents can it really survive and thrive.
It offers justice to the woman, because bearing a child is a risky business. The family offers the wife protection when she's at her most vulnerable and affirmation of her need to have time to bond with her baby. Only in a family can a woman properly nurture her children! Through life, the family recognizes her contribution and doesn't abandon her in her old age, when she is through with her productive years. Instead, it crowns her with honor for her sacrifice. This is why motherhood should never be separated from the family. What is more unjust than a woman whose ability to provide a child has been exploited?
The family offers justice to the man, who, without this bond, would not have a strong enough connection to his wife and his children. When a man gives his all for his family, working for them, protecting them, his contributions are honored and his loved ones stay close to him. It would be unjust to view a man as detachable from the good of the family.
So when men, women, and children live in families, they are experiencing justice and providing justice to others. This justice spreads, because as they gather in a community and the communities form the state, everyone has a stake in doing what is best for the least powerful among them and giving everyone his due, which is justice.
Second, mercy is daily lived out in the family.
You may not be taking in beggars from the streets, but when you are washing your children's feet, cleaning their little bottoms, and nursing them, you are doing acts of mercy. The mother of Jesus did all these things, so, really, we're good. Don't be like me and think that whatever workout you are doing is by definition not a workout! If you do it for the least of these, you did it for Me, Jesus said.
If you left the house to feed half-a-dozen children in an orphanage, would you feel more holy than when you feed your own children? That's a little misguided. If a woman leaves her house to teach catechism to strangers' children, is she more holy than when she sits on the sofa and reads a Bible story to her own? Think again.
Yet, third, this mercy very quickly begins to overflow into the world at large.
I remember, years ago, a friend who had just had a baby thanking me for a dinner I brought. She said that it was only her friends with many young children who had thought to do it. So even when your children are little, you are still looking out for others in a practical way precisely because of what you are experiencing.
It's true that in the first few years of a family's life, normally the activity is very much focused inward. Fortunately, families are all at different stages of development! So while your little family is learning to take care of itself, so to speak, others are growing outwards, taking in those in need, rescuing the poor, organizing relief. The day comes when life isn't all getting babies from one point in the day to the other, and your gaze turns to those in need.
But without the family, we'd have no way to offer very much to the poor. There would be very little productivity on the economic level, because people work for their families and are creative because they have leisure afforded by their families. There would be very few volunteers, because volunteers are the fruit of families — people whose support has been provided by someone else and have free time to offer to others. There wouldn't even be religious orders, because, apart from Divine intervention, the virtue necessary to make the sacrifice to live as a religious is normally learned in the family!
When a child has the misfortune of lacking a parent, his extended family or another generous family steps in to provide. When a mother is abandoned, her community — of families — helps her. Families fill in to offer what's needed in the brokenness around them. If there are children living next door whose single mom doesn't come home until late, well, it's the neighbor family who make sure they have a snack and get their homework done. Where there is no neighbor family, the children next door are lonely.
And it's worth taking a moment to think about what life was like when women primarily stayed home. Far from being selfish, self-seeking spoiled narcissists, women created a network of community support that made it so that children were free to run around and learn in safety and old people were cared for at home rather than left in loneliness in nursing homes. Who will have time to visit their elderly when everyone works?
I think that often we compare the richest people of today with the poorest of other eras, rather than thinking about how the poor fare today. In other words, when we think of single moms, we think of the ones we read about in glossy magazines, not the ones using food stamps at the checkout. We don't really dwell on what it's like to have sick children and no options. And when we forget that a family is uniquely qualified to deal with a bunch of children with the flu, we end up with expensive and inept schemes for the government to provide care — or, more usually, we just send sick kids to school. Is it any wonder that the flu spreads so readily? Everyone is compelled to go out when they are sick!
Today the poor in America — the ones you see on the street — are often victims of mental illness, a condition which is greatly exacerbated by a lack of family structure. And the actual poor just live alone or in shelters.
When I was in the hospital, I noticed that the biggest concern of the staff was that you were going home with no one to care for you. The folks in the hospital aren't necessarily poor, but so many have no one. I had my family to watch over me, thank God. But many people stay in the hospital far longer just because they can't go home. One roommate, a woman a little older than me, had lain alone on the floor for a day before help arrived, and who knows what she was going home to.
When mother is home, there is someone for all these people to go home to.
I bet you have lots of ways to add to this quick list of how families administer justice and mercy to the world. Obviously (as dear Pius XI said in another wonderful encyclical, On Christian Education, and I will try not to make you read it right now), the family is one indispensable unit of society. The other two are the state and the Church.
Now we're seeing that as the family gets redefined, the government steps in. But the family is actually an amazingly efficient delivery system for social good at the source, where the government is a clumsy, and at best, patchy, remedy at the other end. Committing to the family as God's plan is a good way to start healing our society!
These are just my quick thoughts to encourage you when it seems you aren't doing much.
Before you know it, your family will be the hub of good works in your community. Or, what would be even better, may it be just one of many hubs, all doing good in God's kingdom.
Kathy says
In all our discussions about the current lack of safety for children, among myself and husband or with other Mothers never, not once has anyone stumbled across that fact Leila. Things were safer for kids to run around in neighborhoods back in the day when most Mom's were home. What a revelation, it's like the White Elephant in the room. This is so, so good – thank you again Leila!
julie says
Yes Kathy,
I agree. My husband and I were just discussing the fact that our children will likely be much much older when they are allowed to walk the two blocks to the park alone. We chalked it up to societal changes, but couldn't pinpoint which societal changes exactly. We were both allowed a decent amount of childhood freedom, as our parents believed we would comport ourselves properly, or at least not embarrassingly. We are saddened we cannot provide the same for our children at the same ages.
Julie
Sunny-Gem says
I really like this blog post and I am single! What an encouragement though if I were to get married and have a family. I live in the UK but it's the same for our society as in the US. People are isolated with no support. It's so sad.
Amanda says
I have spent this day wondering where do I go to resign. Yes, it's been one of THOSE days!!! Ugh. Bless you for your encouraging words to this tired mama.
Julia says
This was quite timely for me, as I've been feeling very pulled between my vocation “at home” and the diverting distractions dancing on the horizon (aka facebook and social media!). Much of it is necessarily related to my writing path, but it's difficult for to discern when it's something that's good for my “job” as a writer vs. my vocation as a wife and mother. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't, especially when my gaze is being turned outward to wanting to help others. I see how my home life is impacted when my gaze is turned outward, and I was truly blessed by this reminder that my domestic church needs me, and I need it!!!!
My spiritual director had also just recently given me the very same insight about motherhood giving us the opportunity to live out the corporal works of mercy. Such profound truth in that reflection. Thank you for reminding us that we can not hurry through the seasons of our life as women!
Dixie says
I have a hard time with this, too, Julia! I find the best thing for me has been to not go on the internet AT ALL when I am the only adult in the house. When my husband is home, I find time here and there, and at night, and I have a babysitter for a few hours a week so I can work on my writing (my outside-the-home job — like you, I have to have the internet for it). That has brought me much more peace than when there was always the potential that my attention could be divided.
DeirdreLMLD says
I literally burst out in a laugh at the line about Blessed Theresa and poop — haHA! It is so easy to think that the service that someone else is doing is more beautiful or more holy or more real than the service that you are doing, even when you're in the trenches! Good to remember that all service, done in the proper spirit, is “the trenches.”
Wendy in VA says
This is brilliant! I'm printing all of these out to help me discuss Casti Conubii with my children. The oldest is reading it now for MODG's Health course. You are the best, Auntie Leila!!
Bethany says
LOVE this. Thank you so much for writing this; as I sit here watching over my three young kids, I laughed and cried while reading it.
And your second point put me in mind of Charles Dickens's description of Esther Summerson, one of his exemplary characters in Bleak House: rather than being ambitious to get out and visit the poor, she reasons, “I thought it best to be as useful as I could, and to render what kind services I could, to those immediately about me; and to try to let that circle of duty gradually and naturally expand itself.”
_Leila says
Bethany, that's a great quote. I may have to steal it 🙂
Sunny-Gem says
I love Bleak House, one of my very favourite books. 🙂
Anna says
“Because the family, even when imperfect, by its nature is a sanctuary of the weak (what is weaker than an infant?), it offers love to those whose only claim to be taken care of is just that they exist.”
I am going to be pondering this for a while. Does a “modern family” create a sanctuary for the weak? Can it possibly, when the goal is (okay, might be) selfish indulgence of feelings?
_Leila says
Anna, every family has the blessing of God to overcome the selfishness that you speak of. In fact, it's what a family does, just by living. If people are open to it, they will grow.
Mary says
Leila I SO needed to read this today. With all the changes in my daily life recently I was going nuts trying to figure out how to go “out in the world” when I was being called once more back “into serving in my home”. Caregiving is where God needs me to be right now and that is A-OK. there will be a time for serving at large. For now I will serve at home.
Thanks so much for the wonderful blessings of this discussion. So very timely in my life and so appreciated. As always you inspire and inform.
Blessings and grace my friend…hugs from my house to yours!
Terri B. says
First, I LOVE photos of Roxy and that she appears to be never far from Bridget.
This encyclical is beautiful. I confess though, that having come into the Church only recently after many years of wandering aimlessly, my heart breaks a little when I consider that these beautiful documents and profound insights have been ignored or obscured by so many. Oh how different life might have been if only someone had told me the Truth. Thanks again, Leila, for sharing the Truth with all of us.
lauren says
Best blog post ever. Wait, I think I said that before on your post for the 40th anniv of Roe v Wade. Your posts are so meaningful to me and help give me encouragement b/c sometimes I get so down thinking of the state of our world. Meanwhile my daily duties provide me with ways to have an impact and to also be holy. I have been trying lately to offer up things rather than grumble about it….especially poop and snow suits. Are you a fly on my wall?
Kim F. says
Thank you!!! I really needed this reminder. Up until a year ago, I had four children (and the youngest was 4) and I thought “my time is coming.” You know, my time to go out into the big world and help all those people out there! Then, surprise (well, sort of surprise, because with NFP there really aren't too many surprises) baby number 5 came along. And my first thought was, now I'll be stuck at home even longer. How awful of me. But isn't this what we were taught? That our value lies out there somewhere. But now I have a baby who exudes pure joy! I cannot go anywhere without people stopping me just to look at her. I truly believe that she is bringing joy to unhappy people in the world with her bright eyes and infectious smile. I'm beginning to truly understand (especially after reading your writings, Leila) that what I am doing here, at home, is the most worthwhile endeavor of all. Thanks again!
Carrie says
This was a real encouragement to me. Thank you so much.
Sarah says
Wasn't it Mother Theresa who said to “Stay where you are, find your own Calcutta”? This series has been so rewarding for me, as with my oldest turning 3 and youngest 1 I am getting all the questions about when I am going back to work, or when will I be doing more study. It is very hard sometimes to pipe up that, a) you are not necessarily done having kids yet, and b) you are not planning to go back to work or do further study. It seems to be generally accepted at that if you have a good education behind you why would you want to stay home with your kids?
Thank you for your continued words of encouragement.
Laura says
I've thought that very thing about Mother Theresa…When we mothers are feeling down, and that all our sacrifice is for naught…but the very same acts of service done by Mother Theresa were somehow completely righteous…and I think the reason is that she went into her service with her eyes wide open to the dirt, the poverty, the need…Whereas we, in our middle-class, overweight, comfort, have no idea what real need or suffering looks [or feels] like, and in a society that touts “self-fulfillment” and “self-actualization”, acts of sacrifice of any kind seem pointless and in the way…When in reality, those same sacrifices are truly what will eventually impact the world at large, by impressing upon and molding the little children who will someday be adults–the boys will be men and heads of new families and the girls will be wives and mothers, impacting the next generation of culture…but it's not “instant gratification”–it takes awhile…
Laura says
Just a question for you Leila and anyone else, have you ever had to come nose to nose with a child who disdains your sacrifice? And point out the sacrifice for them to see? My babies are still small (8and under), but I have wondered if there will come a point at which they begin to see the world outside and how so many children don't a)wear patched jeans b)have expensive brand names that we don't c)have more and bigger toys that have more bells and whistles than ours and so on…and if there will come a point at which they would say, “WHy did you stay home, when you could have been out there earning more money, so we could have had these things?” Children are innately self-centered and have to be taught to think of others…I was just wondering if you ever faced this attitude and what you may have done about it(besides shrivelled into a pool of tears 🙂 at least I would!)
Kathy says
I used to wonder this myself Laura – no, my kids treasure what we have. The more time my older ones spend 'out in the world' the more they value the treasure they have at home, hand me downs and all. I promise, not a single one of them would trade for name brand clothes and elaborate vacations. They think all that is nice, but when we have deep discussions they truly feel bad for kids who don't have what they have not the other way around.
_Leila says
Laura, I hope my children understand why we chose the life we did. We did it all for them, as little as that sacrifice sometimes seems. If they don't understand now (and I think they do), they will someday.
We always talked about why we made certain choices and why, as a result, certain things were out of reach for us. I think that open communication helps, although it's always true that we can do more.
Betsy M says
Laura, I am very ashamed to admit that I (second youngest of 8 kids) thew a few similar questions at my Mom when I was about 12 yrs old. I honestly thought that she would like it so much more if she went back to work as an RN. I still remember her asking me if I didn't like eating homemade bread and pies, or if I didn't want her home when I was done with school, or if I didn't like gardening together? I felt about two inches tall after that conversation.
I guess my point is that if your child does this – it DOES NOT mean that they do not love and respect you. They are just being rather self centered (as children tend to be) and will grow out of it. I am now expecting my 5th child. I stay home (although I have my degree) and love it. My Mom is my hero . Your kids will feel the same about you some day.
Mary B says
Thank you, this was beautiful.
I have been stewing over this for awhile since my kids are growing up and we are out there helping others a lot more now…but I feel pulled back and forth. My home and family still needs me in a very intense way, but there is also a pressure now that my kids are a little more self sufficient. But as soon as I'm “out there” helping too much, my home life and family suffers. And it's all for good things!
So I go back to the drawing board to see how to balance, and I nearly always come back to ” be home, take care of things here first”, just like you've said. I wonder if the internet isn't some of the problem. I am constantly pulled in opposite directions when I spend too much time reading about all the great things others are doing. So I am reading less 🙂 I am also noticing that slowly I am reproducing myself because my children love to go out and help others. They are being the hands and feet of the gospel in a beautiful way! So exciting 🙂
There is a wonderful book on what you are saying here that I wanted to let you know about. “For the Family's Sake” by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay. What you've said here reminds me a lot of that book! I love it!
Emily says
What a wonderful post! Worth re-reading many times. Thank you, Auntie!
leanne says
Can you tell me where to find the basket in the first picture? I have been looking and dont know where to get one.
Mrs C says
Quote: A child needs stability almost more than anything else (which is why good societies always try not to take a child away, even from a bad family, but rather give the family the help it needs if possible). A baby human is so vulnerable that only by having two committed parents can it really survive and thrive.
Dear Aunt Leila,
I almost always agree with you. In fact, I almost agree with the entire content of this post.
You do realize, don't you, that a small contingent of your readers happen to be Catholic adoptive mothers?
And that some of our children are from genuinely 'bad' families? The kind of families that you so strongly feel that 'good societies' should keep intact with government/societal assistance.
In countries such as England and Australia, adoption of infants is almost non-existent. These good(?) societies do everything they can to keep children in 'bad' families. Unfortunately, in countries such as England and Australia children die at the hands of their 'bad' parents (or mom's boyfriend) because governments will not interfere with the family structure to protect them. It also happens here.
I'm not sure we should be keeping bad families together in a way that ignores the welfare and best interests of the children involved.
If you'd like to learn more about the type of 'bad' families that some of our (adorable and beautiful) children come from (literally in my case) – have a read of Last Chance in Texas by John Hubner. This might change your mind about keeping children in bad families with bad parents.
_Leila says
Mrs. C — of course.
A good society tries to help biological parents keep their children — tries to help them overcome their problems so that they can raise their own children, even if things aren't perfect — because children are hard-wired to want their own biological parents!
Sometimes it's not possible and then the children must be placed elsewhere — and God willing, with good loving parents who will raise them as their very own.
The loving parents who take these children — and I know some of them personally — are the families who bring healing to a world filled with sad cases.
Margaret Kelly says
Aunt Leila, there's so much wisdom here, and I agree fundamentally that marriage is the primary and best “social service agency,” that society is strengthened by strong families. But I do take issue with your characterization of people who are poor:
“The poor in America — the ones you see on the street — are often victims of mental illness, a condition which is greatly exacerbated by a lack of family structure. And the actual poor just live alone or in shelters.”
While I agree that mental illness and lack of family support are strong contributing factors to poverty, we can't neglect the fact that there are many, many, working poor families in this country whose deprivation is due to not mental illness or lack of virtue but to an unjust economic order in which a person who works full-time at an honest job is not guaranteed to earn enough to support himself, much less a family.
In New York, where I live, the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. According to the Economic Policy Institute (see here: http://www.epi.org/publication/bp357-federal-mini… 88.3 percent of workers who would be affected by raising the minimum wage are 20 years or older, and undoubtedly many of them are parents. No matter how virtuous a family is, no matter how committed its members may be to frugality and sacrifice, I cannot see how it would be possible for a parent to adequately support a family while working at that wage, or at one close to it.
Yes, we need to work to keep the integrity of our homes and the integrity of a social order that preserves and honors the special purpose of the family, but mustn't we also work for a state of economic affairs that makes home-making possible for all of us?