As I watched a young couple in the front pew at church today in constant motion attempting to contend with their four young children, I couldn’t help but smile at the innocence of the scene.  The parents certainly were not sharing my smile, and if I had asked them after mass how they were feeling, their feedback may not have been entirely positive. 

Caring for young children is not easy.  Babies and toddlers require constant attention and parenting can be very physically and emotionally draining. 

As children that age cannot articulate what they need and often don’t know themselves what they need, parenting can be very frustrating.  Young children do not travel well and generally are on very fixed napping schedules, so parents can feel isolated; some new parents have a sense that life on the ‘outside’ is passing them by.  New families often have limited budgets, and with diapers, formula, and rent/mortgage there is often little left for spontaneous vacations or even dinner out on a regular basis.

Mike and I have experienced all of those challenges when our children were young.  We often felt overwhelmed by the daily grind and unqualified to take on such an intimidating responsibility.  I chose to stay home with our children for some years, and there definitely were days that I would have submitted my resignation if that were a possibility.  Mike will remind me of days when he would return from work and I would meet him at the door, place a baby in his arms, and then drive off in the car without saying a word.  He knew that my day must have been rough and that I need some time (at least a few hours) ‘away’.

For a number of years, our focus was almost entirely on raising our children and there was little time for a thriving social life.  Mike and I leaned on each other to get through the difficult days; we understood the awesomeness of our vocation and we invested much of ourselves into our family. 

We were very tired, but we were very happy.

Now that our children are older, our memories of those years are entirely positive.  We remember little people in footie pajamas, carrying a special blanket, snuggling in to read “Ten Little Bears” and falling asleep in our arms.  We remember big-eyed babies smiling a fat-faced smile, ‘talking’ without using words, or sucking on our fingers between meals.  We remember first steps, band-aids on bloody knees, and walks in the woods.  We remember bubbles in the tub, tiny fingers grabbing Cheerios off the tray, and warm bottles. 

If you are fortunate enough to have one or more little people in your home, try to be as present as you can be to this season in your life.  There is nothing in your life that you will do that will be as significant or as meaningful as what you are doing today.  Do not wish it away.  Parenting will require everything you have to give, but know that you alone are uniquely crafted for this role.  Trust us when we tell you that life goes fast, and that you will be sending your baby off to college before you know it. 

Life after little ones is great, but life with little ones is truly awesome. 

When discussing the malaise that many of us are feeling, an associate of mine recently observed, “The world feels heavy all over”.  Many factors have contributed to this mental fog, including the Covid virus, the lockdowns, extreme political and ideological division in every aspect of our daily lives, the caustic and partisan media on both sides of the aisle, and our general feeling of disconnectedness.

Although many of us as adults are experiencing the discomfort that comes with this current reality, most of us have the necessary coping skills and the benefit of a lifetime of challenges to navigate our way through these troubling times.  Our young people may not have these life skills and may well be suffering far more than we realize.

So how do we assist our children to develop a lasting sense of joy, in spite of the negativity and hardships they may be facing from the outside world.  Before we answer that question, we need to discuss the difference between happiness and joy.  By definition, happiness is a response to happenstance, contentment, good luck, prosperity, or good fortune. Happiness is also a reaction to pleasure.  In other words, happiness is a response to worldly influences.

Joy, on the other hand, is a personal fullness or sense of completeness in one’s entire life; or, a deep peace which comes from the indwelling of God within a person, and lasts despite hardship.  Happiness comes and goes, but joy lasts and cannot be taken from us once we have it.

Unfortunately, we cannot share what we do not have.  Do we have a sense of joy in our lives (ie: personal fullness / sense of completeness / deep peace) that is not dependent on what the world throws at us?  Or are we consumed and overwhelmed by outside influences and the negativity of others?  Perhaps an important first step in developing a sense of joy is to turn our attention inward versus outward.  Not inward in the secular sense of selfishness or narcissism, but rather a self-analysis of what aspects of our lives may be working against that joy.  Are we overly focused on what others think, or what others have, or events in the world that are out of our control?  Do we count our blessings and realize that in the whole of human history, including 2020, we are the most fortunate human beings in regard to personal freedom and opportunity for self-fulfillment?  Do we see the good in others despite the fact that all of us will disappoint one another on a fairly regular basis?

As that sense of joy begins to build, some of our anxiety, frustrations, and anger will begin to dissipate.  Joy will not make the challenges of our lives go away; however, joy will provide us with a new sense of perspective that will allow us to view those hardships through a more positive and grounded lens.  Eventually we will be able to share that joy with others as it will become a part of who we are.  We can be more present to those around us instead of being self-consumed and pre-occupied.  As joy becomes a habit, we will naturally navigate away from those influences (people, social media, ‘news’) that steals or disrupts our joy.

This joy should direct every aspect of our lives, from how we greet each other in the morning to how we deal with difficulties or personal conflicts within our homes.  If our kids come to us stressed or obsessing on a negative aspect of their lives, we can provide them perspective on the issue and assure them that they are good.  We can celebrate the little things in life and focus on the joy of being together.  We can complement our children daily and limit the negative comments.  We can shut down our screens and laugh more as a family.

Focusing on today will become our priority and we will worry less about the future.

We will then model that joy to our children.  We will be able to guide our children in accepting / rejecting various inputs in their life to create their own sense of inner peace and contentment.  They will see our joy and that joy will be contagious.

This Christmas season, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 13: 15)

Since the schools began shutting down in March and shifting to an on-line format, there has been much discussion and debate regarding how to effectively teach students remotely.

School administrators and teachers had several large hurdles to overcome, including the abruptness of the change, technology challenges, and a huge disparity of support / learning environments within the student homes.  As a result of those factors, and in spite of the best efforts of teachers and parents alike, most would agree that student learning was significantly hampered for the last three months of the school year when compared to in-classroom learning.  Most educators would agree that in-person teaching and learning is the most effective as it utilizes the dynamics of personal relationships and human emotion to develop a student’s true potential.  Let us hope and pray that our leaders allow us to return to this style of education when school begins again in the fall.

If we acknowledge that our students did not gain as much ‘book learning’ this quarter as they should have, we also need to acknowledge that they learned many ‘real world’ lessons that will serve them well.

The first and most important lesson that our students learned is that life is about relationships and being present to one another.  No matter how far technology advances or how simple and easy a Zoom meeting becomes, nothing substitutes for a hand on the shoulder from a teacher, or a pat on the back from a coach, or a poke in the ribs from a friend, or a grandma’s hugs.  People are the most important.  We are at our best when our lives are spent with others and for others.

Students may have also learned that school isn’t so bad after all.  During our remote tutoring sessions here at Life Tools Tutoring, many of our students are sharing with us that they miss their traditional school day; they miss their friends, they miss the structure of the day, they miss the sense of purpose that the school day provides, and they miss the creative teaching techniques that in-person teaching allows.  Academics can become very one-dimensional when all of the learning is done on-line, and a bored student sometimes loses interest.

Life can be hard sometimes, and we are not always in control of what happens next.  For most adults, this message has been learned through many hardships, challenges, and disappointments.  We understand that we are not always in control and that sometimes bad things happen to good people and there is no explaining it.

With parents’ assistance, our young people can learn that even though challenges and difficulties in life will arise, they need to put on courage and continue to move forward.

They may not be able to control every aspect of their lives, but they can control how they react to those events and the attitude they bring to those around them.

And remind your student that they are blessed to live in the United States of America with all of the freedom and responsibilities that come with that privilege.  Let them know that most people throughout all of human history, including most of the current population of the planet had/have no freedom except those bestowed on them by tyrants or oppressive governments.  Our ability to move about as we wish and to make our own choices without the fear of imprisonment or death is very unique in the context of human history.  Sometimes freedom can be best taught when some of those freedoms are taken from us for a time.

Although most young people are high-energy and are usually looking for their next adventure, perhaps our kids now realize that we do not have to be chasing from one activity to another 24 / 7 in order to live a happy, fulfilled life.  Quiet time is ok.  Dinner with the family on a regular basis creates bonds that will last a lifetime.  The simple things in life are often the best, and they can be missed if we are moving too fast.

As the safer-at-home order winds down, talk to your kids about their experience.  Perhaps they learned much more than we realized.