Family

When we are isolated with our family, problems that are sometimes easy to ignore become more acute, and the need to receive and offer forgiveness to those around us becomes increasingly evident.

I used to think I was a patient person. Then I became a dad.

In a world of rising toxic masculinity, here are some basic foundations we can provide to ensure our sons grow up to be men who make us proud.

Is it possible, as single parents, to instil in our children a love for God and for the church?

"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice" (Peggy O'Mara).

I never cease to marvel at those who help, in an organized manner, troubled children, abandoned elderly or victims of violence. However, the general need for such heroic saviours reveals the failure of the social group that is apt to address these situations: the family.

I just got back from the funeral of a fifty-four-year-old mother who left behind a grieving teenager. His father told how the boy wanted to ask his mother for forgiveness, on her deathbed, for all the stubbornness typical of a seventeen-year-old. He was already forgiven.

The perspectives we acquire as children about ourselves as individuals, about the world, and even about God, become beliefs that filter and guide the choices we make as adults. Some of these beliefs are helpful. Others are not. In fact, many of the obstacles we encounter in adult life are caused by these filters.

Inexplicable joy, sleepless nights, fulfilled dreams, well-founded or irrational fears, wide smiles, bitter tears, unexpected rewards, and sacrifices—they all intertwine in the life of a responsible parent in such a way that it is not easy to grasp how difficult and beautiful they can be, all at the same time.

When confronted with the pandemic, we are anything but equals.

Many families who feared that the new coronavirus would affect their health ended up dreading its effect on something seemingly even more difficult to protect: the well-being of their relationship.

For at least one party, sibling estrangement can be more painful than loss through death, writes Fern Schumer Chapman, who was excluded from her brother's life for four decades.

Nine years ago, as my then-fiancé and I were deep in the throes of folding paper flowers, painting glass bottles, and designing and making our own wedding stationery, the question popped up fairly regularly: Why don’t we just elope?

In the book, "Sisyphus: Or the Limits of Education," first published in German in 1925 by Siegfried Bemfeld, it is stated that education is limited by the personalities of the adults who take care of the children or students, the personalities of the educated, and the social environment in which the educational act takes place.

Many families struggle with broken relationships and domestic violence. Because of this, some people are tempted to wonder whether marriage is still a worthwhile option. But the important aspects of family life still remain valid after thousands of years and these, if practised, can help our families to flourish, even in the twenty-first century.