Parenting for Eternity: A Guide to Raising Children in Holy Mother Church

by Conor Gallagher

A trillion years from now, your child will be either in Heaven or in Hell. And this is only the beginning of eternity.
 
In light of this eternal perspective, the time is now, Dear Parent, to raise your child to live entirely for Christ and His Church. The time is now to train your child in the Four Last Things, the spiritual life, the virtues of piety and humility, and the school of Calvary while shielding him from the errors of modernism, Protestantism, and much more. 
 
Unlike most parenting books which focus exclusively on the body and this fleeting world, this short work focuses upon your child’s eternal soul. In these pages, you will be challenged to see the eternal consequence of every single parental act—acts of commission and acts of omission.
 
The Lord has said unto you, it is better that you have a millstone hung around your neck and that you be cast into the depths of the sea than for you, Dear Parent, to lead your little one astray (Mk 9:41).
 

Genres: Parenting, Catholic, Religion, Faith

176 pages, Paperback

Published July 6, 2021

Reviews

[Amanda Lauer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you ask the average parent what they hope for their children, you'll typically get answers like, "I want them to be successful, I want them to get into their first-choice college, I want them to find the ideal spouse someday." That's all well and good, but our lives are just a blink of the eye compared to eternity. Your goal should be to get your children to Heaven. That being said, it's not quite as simple as people think. Conor Gallagher provides a guide to raising children in a way that should set them on the path to their heavenly home. He lays it on the line. There's a Heaven, there's a Hell and there's a Purgatory and just saying the salvation prayer isn't a direct ticket to Heaven. Revelations 21:27 tells us that “nothing unclean shall enter it (heaven)." Gallagher makes it clear that the Catholic Church teaches that the sacrament of reconciliation is necessary to clean your soul. If you die with venial or mortal sins on your soul, your destiny is Purgatory or Hell. Bottom line, if you really love your children, look at the big picture, and do what you can to assure they'll be with you in Heaven when this life is over. Highly recommend reading this.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

While there is truth in this book, the presentation is problematic. Intentionally modeled on texts of religious instruction from a previous era, it struck me as an example of the kind of approach to the faith that Pope Francis seems to have such a strong reaction to. It feels like a desire to elevate the past in a way that is out of sync with the present. Truth doesn't change, but tone can, and I don't think this book's approach is likely to captivate today's parents. It could simply be personal preference, but this book doesn't lead with-- or even really contain much-- beauty, and to me it doesn't seem like a useful tool for the new evangelization. 2 stars because I don't disagree with the truth or value of some of these exhortations. I just don't find the presentation to be a call to deeper love, intimacy, or unity with Christ.

[Robbie Deacon · Rating 4 out of 5]

In "Parenting for Eternity: A guide to Raising Children in Holy Mother Church," Conor Gallagher adopts the strident tone of counter-reformation spiritual authors (i.e. St Francis de Sales in Introduction to the Devout Life or St John of the Cross in Dark Night of the Soul) to exhort parents to raise their children with their eternal destiny in mind. Some of this is really compelling - for example, Gallagher challenges parents to put as much effort into maintaining the spiritual health of their children as they do their children's physical health. If you would give anything to keep your child from getting physically sick, how much more should you care about their spiritual health? Gallagher threads this type of rhetoric throughout the book and I consistently found it inspiring and helpful. The book has some other really helpful moments, like advice on praying as a family, how to teach children to pray, and an awesome examination of conscience to check if you are humble (I am not).

That said, Gallagher's tone gets a bit tiresome by the end of the book. It's a very particular trad-catholic rhetorical style - some people love it, I think it's just ok, and people who aren't Catholic probably won't find it helpful. Also, this book is staunchly infernalist, so those who don't like the idea of hell as eternal conscious torment probably won't enjoy it.

Gallagher also quotes a bunch of obviously apocryphal stories about saints as though they are obvious fact, and uses them to establish arguments. One example of this is a story about St. Benedict hearing the confession of a decapitated head that had been thrown into a well; he uses this as an argument for the power of confession. He could pulled out a ton of less weird evidence about confession that would have been far more strong. I often found myself agreeing with his theological conclusions but disagreeing with the weird stories he brought up to support them. I think the work would be stronger if it had less emphasis on apocryphal legends and more emphasis on scripture and/or magisterial teaching.

Overall, this is a helpful little work and I will likely revisit it whenever I need a reminder of the importance of raising my Children with eternity in mind!

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very good book. Lots of concrete things for parents to consider and ways to parent for eternity rather than for this world.

[Maycee Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. Honestly, very blunt and intense but also motivating and enlightening on our role as parents and leading our kids to the *only* thing that really matter: eternity with our Lord!

[Sreeja · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for all parents (especially catholic parents)! It's very concise and straightforward. He doesn't sugarcoat things - just laying out exactly what our utmost priority should be as parents which is to get our children to heaven. I will be definitely coming back to this again and again.

[Jen]

I’m not sure how to rate this one because while I think the point of the book – getting parents to realize the immense responsibility of parenting our kids towards heaven – is obviously really important… I think it could have been done better. Some parts were really inspiring, but there were even more parts where I was completely turned off by the tone. I can just imagine many of my friends really struggling with feelings of failure while reading this. That being said, if you think you can get past the discouraging tone, it’s probably worth the read. Take the good parts and leave the rest. It’s a pretty quick and easy read.

[Ben Eastman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent. Highly recommend for all parents, whether you have an infant like I do or grown children. It really helps put the decisions we make as parents into perspective for the souls of our little ones.

Trigger warning, he does reference the death of children in a Memento Mori fashion, so if you're squeamish about that, maybe skip the first chapter.

[Grace Suchyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is worth a read and a re-read. I will be recommending to our Teams of Our Lady group and to our pastor to possibly have as a church giveaway. Very meaty and applicable for Catholic parents, even those who are already strong in the Faith.

[Julie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parenting for Eternity - A Guide to Raising Children in Holy Mother Church by Conor Gallagher

This book was recommended to me twice by two different people recently and then one of them gifted me a copy. Being a smaller 150 page book I didn’t feel too intimidated, and picked it up right away. The first page surprisingly included a review from one of my favorite people, and so I was eager to hear what advice Mr. Gallagher had waiting for me between the pages.

I’ll start by saying this is definitely a CATHOLIC parenting book. If you aren’t Catholic, you will either likely not enjoy the book, or may consider becoming Catholic. As for me, I am a Catholic parent who is trying to raise my children in Holy Mother Church and so I wish that 13 years ago I would have received this along with the standard issue of “what to expect when your expecting.”

People often joke that they wish they were given a handbook on how to raise your children. Well, this is it. On page 3, the author says “have you gone to great lengths to construct your entire life around your child’s health, education, social life, and sports so they can be well-rounded, productive, abd successful citizens? A resounding yes comes to mind. But have you given even 10 percent of such effort to their spiritual formation?”

And so the book continues with practical advice that should be obvious, but usually isn’t. As a parent, the greatest gift you can give your child is not what you provide for them during your life, but what you provide them long after you’re gone.

There is a reason Pride is the most dangerous of sins. For it’s goal is simply to lessen the fear of judgment. But, judgment will one day happen. Heaven and Hell are real, and your son or daughter (like yourself) will be given exactly what they have chosen - eternal union with Jesus Christ or eternal separation from Him.

The book talks about piety, about living a devotional life. Does your daily life include mealtime prayers, the angelus, and the rosary? Do you open the Bible, read sacred scripture with your children and fill them with the good news? Or are they left empty with the fake news of the world? There is practical advice for living a liturgical life and treating the sacraments worthily. Do you lead by example? Of course you do! The question is rather if your example is good or bad.

About midway through the book there is a whole chapter on Humility, which I found especially helpful as it’s an area I have struggled with and am constantly looking for help with. Gallagher states “...humility is the root of all virtue and pride is the root of all sin.”

The book later discusses the Church Militant, the Church Suffering, and the Church Triumphant. (Reading these pages made my heart happy in recalling how my daughters always pray for those who have died before us.) Continuing on there is discussion of the choirs of angels and the necessity of the cross. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is quoted to further explain that this work of protecting your child’s soul is all “very serious business.”

I feel this is a book I’ll reference many times as I continue to parent my children, and a book I will pass along to them when they become mothers, and probably a book I’ll include with baby shower gifts for Catholic moms to be in the future too. The overall theme is that we should not parent for this world, but for the world to come.

I was beyond impressed when the final pages of the book shared that the author is a father of 14 children, the CEO of TAN Books, and an Executuve Director of the Benedict Leadership Institute at Belmont Abbey College. I was touched that he dedicated the book to his miscarried children.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book for my catholic parent bookclub based on the publisher and topic without reading it first. I had nightmares two nights in a row while I was reading it! Lots of good information, but the tone is more condemning than encouraging. It is really fire and brimstone!

Not knowing where other catholic parents are in their spiritual journey, it would be really hard to recommend this book to others. It is definitely not for anyone that suffers from scruples. Devout catholic parents who can withstand the harsh tone may find many good ideas in the book.

One common complaint at our bookclub was that this small-ish book mentions a LOT of virtues, ideas and habits parents NEED to teach their children but it doesn't give a lot of advice or support on HOW to teach these things. Instead it seemed focused on bashing us over the head with the importance of teaching these ideas and the dire consequences of failure.

The book doesn't advocate anything wrong but it talks vaguely about the need to teach your children things like humility and to suffer well. I was surprised that there weren't sufficient guardrails also mentioned to keep parents from taking things too far. In unloving hands, those (good) ideas could be used in devastatingly abusive ways.

[Anna Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve been trying to put a finger on why this book didn’t resonate with me. While I agree with the major points made (parents should recognize the incredible importance and responsibility that we are raising souls for heaven, not just people for earth) I think the approach of the book is a bit too stick-over-carrot to me. It used many extreme examples of the worst case scenario to scare parents into placing the highest importance on their faith. While I absolutely agree that faith is the most important thing of all, and am an orthodox Catholic myself, I felt that focusing on the negative so much (avoiding hell for example) shifts the focus from where it should be: helping your children develop a deep love for God and knowing his deep love for us. The book states many truths, and the style of parenting may work for some, I think the Sts Louis & Zelie Martin approach of gentleness and love may be where I’ll spend more of my efforts.

[شاهنشاه‎ · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is OK. It does a relatively good job helping your refocus on what actually matters. But the author uses a completely unnecessary style of diction (hamfisted attempt to write in the style of certain spiritual writers of centuries past) and, in certain cases, ridiculous over-simplification.

To the last point: In one passage in the book the author speaks of what to do if you child says that he has no friends - he then recommends telling the child that the saints are his friends. Like bro, he wasn't coming to you with a spiritual or religious issue, but a practical social issue that it is your responsibility (as a parent) to effectively address.

Some of the stuff is good - especially the passage focusing on humility as the foundation of other virtues. But much of the book was not good and what was good was poorly packaged.

[Alicia McCallum · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just could not get past the condescending, guilting, fear-based and alarmist tone. I think listening to the audiobook that is read by the author made this even worse because he used that tone of voice on top of the content already being of that nature. I am sure his intention was to motivate but it just isn’t an approach that I find convicting or motivating. Maybe this says more about me than the book! It did give me some good things to think about, but I felt so frustrated the whole time I listened to it. I just don’t know how effective this parenting approach is. Also, I want to hear someone who is very theologically sound explain his examples of pride to me (I’m wondering if he is correct. It doesn’t sound correct to me…). GAH!

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Parenting For Eternity" is a great book written in the direct instructional style of some older Catholic books I've read; full of exhortations to the reader to 'consider' 'repent' and 'amend' ones faults. This book is an excellent examination of conscience for the Catholic parent and particularly timely for me as my 4th of 8 is about to graduate. My work is not done!

I borrowed this as an ebook from the library after listening to the episode where Conor and his wife discuss parenting on "The Conor Gallagher Show", but it is definitely one I should add to my shelf for reference.

[Stephany Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt this was a tough book to read because the concept of parenting beyond this earth is hard. We don’t think about it as often as we should- and it should be ALL we think about. I don’t disagree with other reviews that the tone of the author isn’t super warm, but I think he is trying to convey the severity of the consequences of failing to parent our children into heaven. It’s a scary thought, and this book gives good advice on how to get these little souls of ours to heaven.

[Colleen Avalos · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there’s nothing I particularly disliked about this book I just didn’t personally find it to be as helpful/useful as I expected. Maybe it was just overhyped to me. Maybe it reads better in non-audiobook form. There’s some decent reminders and advice here and there but nothing that really struck me as new and enlightening.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

A passionate read following traditional catholic teaching for raising a family. There were many good points, ideas I agreed with as well as some I disagreed with. This book would be ideal for a traditional catholic family with both spouses on the same page as far as religion. There is value in reading this as a married couple and value in learning about the Catholic faith.

[Joe Kaliher · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the better books on raising kids for eternity. The book has lots of practical advice.

However, it was a tough read and a bit of a gut punch at times. It will challenge you, humble you, and call you to a very high standard.

[Kelly Schiffiano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gallagher gives excellent tangible suggestions for how to make Catholicism ever present in the life of your children. A must read for all Christian parents!

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loads of practical advice, very helpful

[Kassie R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I round this up to 3.5 stars. There is lots of practical advice in here, which I appreciated, but sometimes I wasn’t a fan of the authors tone.

[Janae · Rating 5 out of 5]

a much needed gut check. 10/10 recommend for all Catholic parents

[Jamie Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you choose one parenting book to read, let this one be it. Hands down the best parenting book I have ever read.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, tough little book that will challenge your way of life and parenting goals.

[Natacha]

Maravilloso manual para padres que deseen darle una vida de fe profunda desde pequeños. Uno también aprende demasiado.

[Peter Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A frank and sober reminder of the grave duty placed upon parents to model and raise their children in the Faith.

[. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Parents, this is the guide for you! Nifty small read offering inspiration to be the best parents -- parents who guide their children to the ultimate goal in life - to know, love, and serve Christ.

[Alexandra Drop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good reminder of why we are doing this. And lots of practical tips.

[Melissa Shelder · Rating 3 out of 5]

Content was great, but hard to listen to it. It’s just a bit dry/monotone.