What Do Parents Wish For?

That is to say are they looking forward to the future or gazing fondly at the past?

8. Parents are more likely to long for an earlier time in their lives: Fact

One of the poll question that asks people whether if they could, would they rather go back in time or forward into the future. Parents are 12.5% more likely to choose going back in time. Non-parents are 30% more likely to say they’d rather go into the future. This could be interpreted a couple ways: Perhaps parents wish they could go back to their early 20s or high school. Or maybe they wish they could go back to an earlier era altogether, when family life seemed more idyllic.

My mother, God rest her soul, led a, to say the least, challenging life from her youngest days on. But late in life she confided to me that what she longed for the most was those days when her house was full of her children.



I was amazed since I remember those days as being stressed for her–to the point that I wondered how she kept her sanity. Fast forward to the present: what is my fondest memory? My little girls excitedly rushing to open the front door to greet me coming home from work: "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" You can't buy that with any amount of money.



So for my money, that is what parents are thinking about: the days when their children were driving them crazy while at the same time making precious memories:

Non-parents have “better” lives according to worldly measures:

…except for one thing: they aren’t as happy as people with kids.  File under “the last shall be first” and other gospel paradoxes.

Read the whole thing.

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing

It's certainly a lot more than "I feel like I'm in love". Dr. Kaczor gives us some insights:

Dr. Christopher Kaczor on big myths about love and marriage:

Dr. Christopher Kaczor, author of The Seven Big Myths about Marriage: What Science, Faith and Philosophy Teach Us about Love and Happiness, was recently interviewed by Kathryn Jean Lopez, author of National Review Online:

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ: Does anyone really believe “love is simple” — your first myth?

CHRISTOPHER KACZOR: Unfortunately, I believed this first myth until fairly recently! I suppose there are at least some other people who believe something like I did. I used to think that love was just a matter of good will. If I choose to do what helps another person, then I love that person. Once I learned more about the nature of love, I learned that love includes not only good will for the one you love but also appreciation for and seeking unity with the beloved. All forms of love (agape) involve all three aspects, and the forms of love are distinguished primarily in terms of the third characteristic, the diverse ways in which unity is sought. 

Read the entire interview on the National Review website.

(Via Insight Scoop|The Ignatius Press Blog.)

The Two Iron Laws of HIstory

according to Mark Shea are:

1. What could it hurt?

followed by,

2. How were we supposed to know?

And so I give you the contemporary mantra: "Gays are people just like us and should have the right to marry and raise children just like us."

But Nature is only mocked at someone's expense. So we're entering phase two of the Gay Marriage debate already. And the children are the ones to suffer.

Thought and Prejudice

In this instance I'm struck by the reflexive approval of most, if not all, things homosexual. When I started on a reasoned argument (rant) about why homosexual unions should not be elevated to equality with marriage, my daughters, bless them, were embarrassed and demanded we stop talking about the subject. It didn't help this was in a public place (a restaurant for Sunday Brunch).

Their aversion to disagreements with the homosexual agenda puzzles me. They have or are getting a University education. Shouldn't reasoned disagreement be the heart and soul of their intellectual life? Even if they strongly disagree with me, I'm wanting reasoned arguments and facts. They seem to recognize no value to these things independent of achieving the results they have chosen to endorse. Is this how far the intellectual rigour has fallen at Universities?

Ok, rant mode off. Here is an interesting article about how research itself is produced and disseminated in a doctrinaire fashion to promote the ideology of the day:

Who could possibly have predicted this?:

Research showing the risks of lesbian and gay parenting is ignored in the race to make a political case

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)

Self-Improvement

starts with having children, preferably including daughters:

Quotables 9.5.09:

[E]very man needs a daughter. All of my male friends who had children were changed for the better by having at least one daughter. It is not a wife who socializes a husband, it is a daughter.

— Anonymous commenter on Marginal Revolution

Read the whole thing.

(Via First Thoughts.)

Palinphobia

(Look it up.) As long as I'm not commenting on affairs American, here's Domenico's musings on the Palin thing:

Sarah Palin and the end of feminism: "

I realize now I think I haven’t written anything about Sarah Palin— at least here; I’ve been very vocal on the subject on Twitter and Plurk— but I will say that I think she’s the best thing to happen to this election season. It is evidence of the apathy about the whole GOP slate until this point that both Republicans and Democrats have reacted to her like she’s running for President, not Vice-President.

What’s so exciting about Sarah? Is it that she’s good-looking? I suppose that’s part of it. But I think the greater part is that she represents so much of the hopes and dreams of conservatives (and the fears of libverals). She has a normal American family: five kids, a rugged blue-collar husband, beautiful kids, a son in the Army, a life lived open to all life, even when it’s a greater burden than expected. In her politics, too, she is a candidate unlike many we’ve seen in recent years: pro-life, fiscally and socially conservative, opposed to corruption in government no matter the party involved. Even in the so-called Troopergate scandal, Palin is accused of using the power of her office to remove a law enforcement officer about whom she has personal knowledge of his alleged acts, despite the niceties of regulations. In other words, even if she’s broken the ethics rules—which is by no means certain at this point—it’s an action with which most Americans can sympathize.

Meanwhile, many folks are trying to understand the reaction to Sarah Palin, from both sides of the aisle. Genevieve Kineke, an expert on both authentic Christian feminism as well as its deformed secular counterpart, says that what enrages the Left is not her motherhood, but the fact she doesn’t reject fatherhood. The piece is entitled ‘The End of Feminism.’

Genevieve considers that the aim of radical feminism over the years has been to undermine fatherhood.

The motherhood of Mary is instructive for all mothers, in that she received the seed of God and that she restored our relationship with the Creator, thus placing motherhood within a constellation of family of relationships. The enemies of motherhood strategically attack it — not primarily because of its capacity for life but because of the truth it contains: motherhood is the bridge to fatherhood, and fatherhood is the icon of God Himself. The war on motherhood is of a transitive nature: fatherhood is the true enemy.

And so, when we are presented with the image of a woman who not only does not choose to take the life of a child the world considers flawed and a burden on society—despite their vaunted rhetoric of choice—but she also does not present the men in her life as obstacles. Instead she shows reliance upon her husband. Contrast that with feminist icon Hilary Clinton: Is there anyone who seriously doesn’t believe that Hilary has actual contempt for Bill? It’s a given in the national political narrative that their marriage is a convenient sham left in place for the sake of her career.

Pope Benedict XVI long ago diagnosed this particular disease, when as Cardinal Ratzinger, he said that the root cause of nearly every ill facing humanity is a crisis of fatherhood. After all, at its root, wasn’t that the crisis in the Garden of Eden? A crisis of trust in the father? A crisis of fatherhood that transmitted itself to Adam’s own children, Cain and Abel.

I guess this goes a bit far afield from the political discussion about Sarah Palin, but her candidacy does raise some interesting questions on larger issues.

Photo by er3465.

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(Via Bettnet.com - Musings of Domenico Bettinelli.)

Today We Celebrate

(1) "pornography and the objectification of women’s bodies"

(2) "divorce, abortion, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, and venereal disease"

(3) "forced abortions in China to involuntary sterilizations in Peru"

(4) and plastic surgery and silicon breasts

All of which, at least indirectly, was predicted by Pope Paul VI on this day forty years in his notorious encyclical Humanae Vitae. We continue to ignore this prophet at our own peril:

The Anniversary of Humanae Vitae: "You know the story. Forty years ago —on July 25, 1968 a tired, grumpy, and celibate old man in Rome issued an encyclical called Humanae Vitae, solemnly declaring that birth control is bad, and half the world responded with a shrug. The other half responded with a sneer.
It’s hard to imagine a worse moment for Pope Paul [...]"

(Via FIRST THINGS: On the Square.)

Toothpaste

Perhaps this isn't the subject you'd be looking for after a month-long break from blogging. But it has been a subject that has been on my mind since my visit with the family in June.

My oldest sister and I had several long talks, which we hadn't done since our childhood in the sixties. I reminisced about how Mom and Dad (Requiescant in Pacem) used to view solving conflicts.

This brought us to a childhood query I had made about brushing my teeth. I asked Mom if I should wet the toothbrush first and then apply the toothpaste or vice versa. She took one view, I don't remember which now. Since she didn't actually give me a reason why this was correct, I decided to ask Dad. He gave the opposite answer, again with no compelling reason for it.

This puzzled me no end, simpleton that I was. I tried to get one or both of them to give me reasons for their different answers. This only made each of them annoyed and all the more assertive about the correctness of their position.

And, I believe, this is because they were raised to see all conflicts as win/lose contests. This is also known as zero-sum games. The object of getting me to agree with them was to avoid a loss to the other parent. Reason was only a tool for rationalizing one's position. If it worked, great. If it didn't, ignore it. But winning was everything and the loser was a zero.

This is a seriously defective way to frame all conflict. I do admit some conflict is effectively a win/lose situation. But much of it isn't. We need to keep this is mind when our blood pressure and the decibels start rising.

And, by the way, ever since our childhood, we both wet the toothbrush before and after applying the toothpaste.

Handkerchiefs at the Ready

This is a for those who are in touch with their feelings:

AWESOME PRO-LIFE CLIP [Gina Cassidy]
3/18/2008


Hi everybody! I am the newby on the block . The newest associate therapist at PSI. I look forward to getting to know all of you!

This is a short video of a couple who found out that their first child had Trisomy 18 in their 3rd trimester. It is a beautiful pro-life witness. Instead of ever considering abortion they chose to celebrate each day of his short 3 monthes and embrace him as a precious gift of life.

What a contrast to those that choose to remain childless because society has modeled that life is about me, myself and I and led them on a misdirected path to love. I wonder if these people become angry because they can't deny that deep in their heart they know how selfish their choice is. It's these same people who are treating their dogs as babies: dressing them and pushing them in strollers.

Via Heart, Mind & Strength

I've Been Avoiding

commenting on American politics, though I follow the presidential campaigns avidly. It seems inappropriate for me, a Canadian, to opine on things south of the border. Let the Americans work things out for themselves and if they entertain us in the interval, all the better. But this references one of the loveliest spots on God's Green Earth: Nelsonville, Ohio. Three stoplights: count'em. My sister-in-law lives on a hill above this metropolis and works at the college in question. I was hoping for pictures to see if she's standing there somewhere. Oh well, an excuse for the wife to call and talk.

When Liberals Do Theology, It Isn't Pretty "Sen. Barack...: "When Liberals Do Theology, It Isn't Pretty

'Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told a crowd at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, Sunday that he believes the Sermon on the Mount justifies his support for legal recognition of same-sex unions. He also told the crowd that his position in favor of legalized abortion does not make him 'less Christian.''

Well, when the Son of God himself says it, it must be beyond question. I guess those troublesome questions are now settled. What a great deal of confusion that was!"

(Via Catholic and Enjoying It!.)