Book Review

I just finished reading a book- or, rather, booklet- called "Handbook for Parents: Common-Sense rules for Catholic Mothers and Fathers." (by the way, G, quotations go outside punctuation, even if it's a title. Yeah, I think it's weird, too. The punctuation isn't a part of the title. I digress.)

It's not quite what I thought it would be. One might initially think it's some dreary set of rules imposed upon us. Not at all.

It reminds parents that first of all, we're not alone. This means God is there with us, every step of the way. The sacrament of marriage give us a plenitude of graces to accomplish our God-given duty to raise children. We need to use those graces.

There are some basic guidelines for parenting, coming from the basis that all the decisions we make regarding our children is out of our love for them ("No, you may not have that, because I love you.") Our love for our children and God cause us to do what we have to to instill the most important thing: obedience. And an important distinction for me is that obedience is not virtuous unless it is submitting your own will to that of the one put in authority over you. Example: sure, your daughter joyfully goes to bed when you tell her. That's obedience. But it's virtuous when she doesn't want to go to bed, but goes just because you told her to.

Well, I was just getting warmed up on this, but B is sounding the alarm for me. A 5 month old hardly has the capacity for obedience. But I can build her trust in me that I will always do what is best for her by meeting her needs now.

Ciao.