Which way, family life? Or, escape from chaos
I had the Chief take this photo of me this morning after I watered and fed the chickens and was on my way to do the same for the cat.
Toffee is an outdoor cat (she has a cozy bed in the garage, don’t worry) and also appreciated non-solid water this morning, pretty much the coldest morning we’ve ever had, ever.
Not shown in that (rather demented) photo: flannel nightgown, Deirdre’s sweatpants, handknit (not by me) sweater, handknit (by me) socks, wrist warmers… real fleece inserts in my real fleece boots… I was warm!
In my book I have some chapters about what to do as the older children get older but the younger children still need you. We are in a time when many (relatively speaking — still very few, sadly) are open to having more children, but the collective memory is quite gone.
Real chaos and suffering can be the result, as families groping for methods to live by are left in the lurch, overcome by sheer circumstance.
Conventional parenting today, formed by generations of contraception, consists of an expectation of a stunning level of involvement in lives of the (few) children one has. Especially as they get older, these children have their every move scrutinized and managed.
The combination of prosperity and lack of distraction from siblings ensures that the young people will be their parents’ primary focus. Not to mention that the parents are older, having delayed childrearing; their retirement consists of tracking their children’s lives with intensity.
For the parents of many children, this model is unsustainable. Adding to the pressure is the lack of generational support, not to mention probably straitened finances. For parents of large families to imitate those with few children is a recipe for real disaster.
And it’s not actually good for older children anyway, who need to feel the pull to make their own homes, even if that pull involves suffering through experiences the parents cannot know, let alone manage. They need the roots of a formation in solid family life, and they need the wings of making their own mistakes.
The organizing principle for the parents is a simple one: duty. Difficult questions can be resolved — not without stress or feeling pulled in all directions, for sure! — simply by asking oneself where one’s duty lies. Close readers here will notice that I do not define the woman’s role as “stay at home mom,” because children are not actually the primary definers of the married woman’s vocation. Her marriage and her husband are — just as the husband’s marriage and wife are defining for him. Even his work, which defines him as a man, is for the sake of his wife and home.
A married daughter having her baby surely needs her mother’s presence and support if possible; the family at home needs her more. They can sustain her absence for a while, but she cannot abandon them for long! The household is not really a machine that carries on without her. The littles feel quite bereft when mother is gone. Don’t be fooled by the young child’s inability to express what is going on inside. After a time, her husband too will pine and wilt under the sense of formlessness of the home without her.
Dinner together is of the utmost importance for family life, for the younger children just as much as it was for the older ones when they were little, and absolutely decisive for the marriage, which will fall apart if not observed on a regular basis (when possible — the Holy Spirit will have to provide in the case of deployments or necessary crazy shift work and so on). What to do when the older ones leave and the middle ones have jobs and outside obligations? I discuss that here (and in my book!).
In other words, mother really does keep the home, and it’s real work. The stress is not least of all on her heart. That is where prayer really comes in: the ongoing conversation with God about where to put our energy — where He wants us to put it.
If in the incredibly busy middle years (that second decade) of the family’s development, the parents neglect the center of their life together — prayer, dinner, Sundays as a day of rest — they will find destruction looming. In large families this destruction is far more obvious than in small ones, because there are more people involved! But even in small ones all this holds true, so it’s no remedy to intentionally limit family size as a hedge against misery.
The lockdowns of the past few years have made the pressures even worse. In general, everyone is more depressed and more confused about where true order lies and how to participate in it. Flitting away, even to “do good” somewhere else, even to follow some dream of fulfillment, even to take refuge at the big box store for an hour or two, as meaningless as that might seem, might feel appropriate and necessary at the time, but it’s disorderly, out of harmony with duty, it will do harm.
There is no magic identity that can protect us in itself, without our inner cooperation — not even our faith. Simply being “a Catholic” or “a Christian” or “having a large family” won’t bestow a sort of trump card to get us out of misery.
There is no shortcut to happiness, and happiness may elude us here, for our real home is elsewhere. We have to become good and continue to grow in virtue, even as we fail and remain miserable sinners. We need God’s grace, but He can’t work if we are thwarting His established order. We really harm others’ faith and hope when we act as if one thing, such as having a large family (if God grants us one!) is itself a ticket to heaven.
What is the remedy? To commit even more to the real elements that keep us in the bonds of love, even though they may seem almost trivial. Can having dinner together really make that much of a difference? Yes! Will it solve everything? No. Human nature is what it is, and we are all bent on making a hash of things here in this world. But we have to keep trying by sorting things out according to our duties, and not give in to the idea that it doesn’t matter. I go into all this in depth in my book, The Summa Domestica! And The Little Oratory is even more important. (I’m not trying to hawk my wares, except in that I think I explained it all better, and in more detail, in the books!)
Home is where the heart is. We will never have to stop working and sacrificing for it.
bits & piecesRemember when I told you about how to teach writing, and how my son Joseph (who is now a journalist and editor!) started a family newspaper? This article by Dixie Dillon Lane has my back: In Schooling as in Life, More Than Enough is Too Much
Your young chemist might appreciate this article: Shaking Ordinary Ice (Very Hard) Transformed It Into Something Never Seen Before
An amazing and beautiful Italian chapel, built by Italian prisoners of war, in Scotland on the island of Orkney.
An underground city, discovered in Turkey when someone was working on his basement
Continuing my obsession with Shetland knitting! This episode has a wonderful interview with Shetland sisters, master knitters. (You can skip ahead to view it.)
The campaign to ban gas stoves is real and hasn’t gone away. If you don’t have a subscription to the WSJ, you can read the article here.
The tyranny of guidelines in medicine — something to ponder
from the archivesA beatitude
How to teach writing. (All the other writing posts are linked at the bottom of that one, or get my book — Volume 2 has it all laid out in chapters, and there’s an index!) As you think about next year’s curriculum, you might want to peruse my archives on such matters.
liturgical living
In the old calendar, tomorrow begins Septuagesima: The Time that the Land Forgot. I think it’s worth beginning to incorporate the observance of these three weeks before Lent in our own homes even if we are not necessarily going to the Traditional Latin Mass, even though I’m on record as not wanting to think about Lent until the last minute, because in breaking news from the human race, I don’t like fasting!
help us recover from our cyber attack — remind your friends about us and —follow us everywhere!
My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available now from Sophia Press! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!
My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!
My new podcast can be found on the Restoration of Christian Culture website (and you can find it where you listen to such things) — be sure to check out the other offerings there!
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