Family Pact

Even with all my good intentions, the first day back to school after winter break didn't go so well for my nine-year-old son. I can't put my finger on it, nor can he, but he came home with droopy eyes and a heavy heart.

He said something on the trip home from school that really resonated with me. At first I thought he meant it in a positive way, as an affirmation of his sense of identity.  But a quick glance at his slumped shoulders and hanging head showed me that, in reality, he was feeling beaten down.

"I'm not easily categorized," he said.

He's a smart, sensitive kid, seemingly older than he is, very social, very extroverted. I realized he was thinking about how he fits in, how he finds his place at school (and sometimes in our very own family). I love this about him - he is a kid who helps me see myself in new and more compassionate ways. I wish everyone had a kid like this. Do you see it if you do?

I had to write a short bio recently and it took me ages. I couldn't for the life of me think about how to describe myself.  Am I first a mother? A wife? A writer? An entrepreneur? A daughter? It gave me a crisis of confidence that I couldn't come up with something to say about myself. Exactly who am I in a few sentences? My son caught me staring at the computer and walked over, smooched me and went back to his book. Crisis averted.  It didn't matter what the words said.  Maybe I didn't know what to call myself, but I definitely know who I am.

During our chat yesterday, I related a story to my son about a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a childhood friend. Our kids are in school together now and we've gotten back in touch. After a few beers at a fundraiser, we got to reminiscing about high school. We knew each other from grade school, but as we got into high school we didn't spend much time together.

I love the friends that I made in high school, but I remember it as a hard time in my life, probably the lowest point for my self-esteem. I never felt cool. I thought that I was missing out on some joke.  I told this friend that, from a distance, he was someone who looked like he hit his stride in high school.  He had lots of new friends; he was a good athlete, etc. His wife overheard our conversation and laughed at me.

"High school was really a terrible time for him."

"Really?" I said. "I would have thought you were very Rah Rah about high school."

He felt lonely and often isolated. He felt like he didn't fit in. He went on to tell me that I was a specific example of someone whom he thought thrived in high school.  I was one of those people he envied. He even said the dreaded word: popular.

"Me?"

In sharing this story with him, I wanted my son to understand that how you feel and how you appear don’t always align. He shrugged his shoulders at me.

"I know, Mom, I know."

My kids are starting to try and identify themselves outside of the family unit and I can't do it for them.  They have to find the way themselves.  From our own experiences, we know it won't always be easy.  In fact, sometimes (but hopefully not most of the time) it will be miserable.

This morning, in case I was going to waver, I got a more firm indication that this is true. I couldn't remember the word my son had used to describe how he felt yesterday, and so I asked him again.  He reminded me and then asked why I was asking. I told him that he had gotten me thinking.

"I don't want you to fix it for me, Mom."

Ouch. Am I that obvious? But, he's right. He's totally right.

Family is like a pact. We take a vow very similar to marriage when we have kids.  And just like a marriage vow, you don't know how important it all is until you're in the midst of it. It's not a command or a decree. It's an agreement to be present through thick and thin.

I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life. I take you to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

We didn't promise to fix their problems; we didn't promise to fight their battles; we didn't promise to protect them from everything bad or hurtful in the world. We promised to be true. We promised to love them. We promised to respect them and support them. We promised to stand by them in good times and in bad.

I'm going to have these vows printed and framed. My husband and I said them at our wedding more than 12 years ago, and we've lived them pretty well ever since. Today is the first day that I see these vows are so much bigger than a single promise, so much more complicated than just between two adults. We made this same promise to our kids on the day they were born. We just didn't have to say it out loud.

The Great Divorce: 7 Ways to Compassionately Support a Family

Guest post by Elizabeth Eilers Sullivan. Sometimes the view from the horizon is cloudy, murky at best. This essay deals with how to reflect the best kind of light into the darkness. -BTH

I was at lunch the other week with two girlfriends I deeply admire and love, and our kids. I was feeling blissed out at my good fortune to be with them during the day while our olders were still in school. We were catching up on life between bites of macaroni and cheese, hummus, and wiping spilled water glasses that kept falling like blessings abundant and freely. When the topic turned toward a couple in our community divorcing. A disparaging remark was made about the one, and something inside of me came to a rapid boil. It was a moment where the record screeches on the turntable and things slow way down (this analogy dates me, but I lack another). For me, I froze and then spoke with conviction I did not know I harbored (frankly my strong reaction surprised me):

"First off no one knows what goes on in a marriage and that ‘crazy’ person is married to one of my sibling's childhood friends, so I would appreciate you not calling them crazy no matter the rumors. And, to speak toward the rumors, I want them stopped. It helps no one. I do not want to know their drama. The mere act of divorce is drama and trauma wrapped up in one, especially when there are kids involved. And for the kids, speaking of a kid who comes from divorced parents in this community, I know what was said about my parents when they chose to divorce after five kids and twenty-five years of marriage. It hurt. It hurt me. It hurt them. I watched it hurt them. I watched their couple friends chose sides and fracture a split situation further. I watched my parents turn inward away from us because they not only had to deal with their private pain but the public pain that came with this major event. And, the rumors, the gossip, the false concern helped no one. So I want it all stopped. And, my parents divorce was 'amicable;' an oxymoron at best." 

Broken down what appears to be a rant, but I hope was heard with deep love for myself, for her, for all of us to rise above what can be the a messy and painful horizon goes like this.

Seven steps to help a family going through a divorce:

1. Assume you know nothing of their marriage, even if you think you do, you are not living under their roof.

2. Do not pass judgment. Divorce is sad, tragic and a longitudinal life long event, it shifts the way a child lives out their life with parents and parents live out their lives with their kids at every milestone. 

3. Divorce is not a short cut, especially when kids are involved. It is a different way of handling daily problems big and small with your partner, you either do it under one roof or two.

4. Discernment is not done in a state of desolation. Sometimes even with the pain, divorce is the answer, sometimes it seems like it is the answer and it is not. Only a couple who carefully and faithfully discern whether divorce is their answer will know. It is advisable not to discern in a state of desolation—(St. Ignatius describes desolation where you are excessively anxious and cut off from others, being invited away from love for themselves, God, and others).

5. Do not gossip, swap stories, or spread rumors. They only hurt the couple trying to sort it out and their kids. This hurt prevents reconciliation on any level: remaining married or otherwise. 

6. Do not choose sides. Remain neutral. Remain friends with each spouse, and go out of your way to love up their children and them—a tall order, but worthy of the challenge. 

7. Lastly, keep your mouth shut, your heart open, and pray for guidance. Enough said.

Rise above the horizon. 

On Marriage (an open letter to my children)

I'm writing this to you today because by the time you care about reading these words, you'll know how this upcoming vote will have turned out. You'll have the perspective that the passing of time offers. I don't know if you'll agree with us. I don't know how the world will look from where you are sitting at that point, but it is important for me to tell you that we've never taken the subject of marriage and family lightly, that we have reflected deeply on what is happening around us.

In a few weeks, the state of Minnesota will hold an election. As part of the election, the government is asking voters to define marriage in our constitution as a union between one man and one woman. We are not the first state to have this kind of vote - and the states before us have all passed these kinds of voter referendums.

Your dad and I have what lots of people think of as a traditional life. We married young, we are practicing Catholics, we've welcomed kids enthusiastically into our lives (you're welcome). Dad works and Mom stays home (for the most part). We pay our bills, pay our taxes, vote in every election, volunteer at school, at church and in our community. We are a forever marriage. I have no doubt about that.

Sexuality is something that people often have a hard time talking about - partly because it is private and partly because it is sacred. But as your parents, it is something that we believe is important to talk about, to think about and to understand.

Dad and I believe that God made each of us in God's own image, which is something that seems impossible to fully grasp. It is too big a concept to understand. Since creation, people have been trying to find ways to simplify it into words or concepts that the masses can understand, but I'm confident we cannot get it right. We are not meant to know all things, to see all things, to fully understand all things. That is the crux of faith. We must trust God without being sure of all the answers.

I have watched all four of you take your first breath of air. It is miraculous - simply miraculous. I think of you all as presents we waited for breathlessly. We didn't pick out characteristics, gender, temperament. We just received you into our lives and felt immense gratitude. I know that you are all different - so different - from each other, even though you've all been raised by the same parents, housed in the same home, schooled in the same places. But - I have never doubted that you are unique reflections of an omnifaceted God.

We believe part of that reflection of God is your unique and precious sexuality. Most people are heterosexual, but some are homosexual, and it is our belief that they are both reflections of - and gifts from - God.

This belief goes against what our current Catholic Church teaches. For a long time, we've been listening to our church leadership speak about the dangers of embracing equality in our understandings of sexuality. The church currently believes that homosexuality is a sin and should never be acted upon or encouraged.

This is all very tricky for your dad and me. We believe sexuality is precious, nothing to be exploited or used lightly. We believe in monogamy. We believe that sex is meant to be shared as a connection between two people who love and respect each other. Sex is certainly not the most important part of marriage, but it absolutely is a big part. It is a part that has to be nurtured like anything else. It's hard for people to be honest about sex - it make us uncomfortable to talk about it. But the truth is that God created sex just like everything else. As long as we're treating ourselves and our bodies respectfully, we shouldn't feel shameful about it.

And so that has led us to struggle with the church. But let me be very clear: we struggle, but we do not lose faith. The church is a reflection of our humanity. It is a growing, living and changing entity. It is not a building or a city in Rome. It is a collection of tiny reflections of God. But we are not God. We make mistakes, and our understandings change with time. Our interpretations also change as our knowledge base expands.

Many people would lead you to believe that the world is spinning into a dark and dangerous time, but Dad and I believe the opposite. Our world actually values life and love in a much more significant way than it did 500 years ago. We are starting to see that we are partners in this world with cultures very different than our own. God gave us this one planet - this one life. We are starting to see it for what it is - a diverse and beautiful collection of people rooted together by our very creation, by our first breath of air. Absolutely there is sin and darkness in the world, and as we said at your baptisms, your charge in this world is to see through the darkness, to find the light, in fact to be the light.

When I was a child, the church was going through the final process of allowing for girls to become altar servers. It had been forbidden for many years, but as the church's understanding of women's roles evolved, eventually girls were allowed to serve mass with a priest. Still today, the language of the church allows for a priest or a bishop to refuse to have female altar servers, but they are not forbidden to do it anymore. This may seem like a small change, but it shows that the church is open to evolution.

I believe that discussing the value of marriage is incredibly important, and we agree that many people do not treat marriage with the selfless determination and perseverance that it deserves. Marriage is not easy.  It requires us to compromise, to elevate and to hold ourselves to higher, better standards. It is nothing to enter into without a willingness to work harder and be better than you are today. It is not something to enter into without finding the right person to marry and without being the right person to marry.

Yet much of this current political and religious discussion of marriage isn't about those things. It's about fear that same-sex marriage could be taught in schools, that it could become illegal to not give benefits to same sex couples, that businesses and schools might be fined for embracing same-sex parents. The ads all talk about these terrible consequences. As a parent, I am supposed to be afraid that you, my kids, might think being gay isn't the end of the world. Well, I've prayed long and hard, and I am not afraid.

In the end, behind the ads and the signs and the letters, it's about a belief that some people are born more sinful, more flawed and less in the image of God than others. It is about the belief that some people are made lesser. No matter how I approach the arguments, I can't get past that truth.

Each day I pray. I open myself up to what God might need to show me, to what I need to do and change about the choices I am making. And every day the call has become stronger and louder that we need to stand up for what we know in our hearts. We are called to be God's gentle reach and voice in this world, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it is hard.

Whatever your orientation, dad and I expect you to treat your sexuality with the reverence and respect it deserves. We believe in long term commitment. We believe in marriage. And we hope that when you are old enough to commit - and if you choose to get married - that all people, regardless of sexual orientation, will be able to join you. We posted a sign, we've taken a stand, we will vote No.