Children are a Burden

There was a blog post circulating around FB--last month, I think--about Society's idea that children are a burden. The blogger was a mother of a large family, & point by point, she refuted this idea that children are a burden, arguing instead that they are a blessing.

We hear this refrain so often--CHILDREN ARE A BLESSING! But unlike other "blessings," we work to control the *ahem* "flow" of divine generosity to some extent. Unlike other "blessings," we have support groups to talk about these wonderful bundles of joy. Unlike other "blessings," we hire help, send to school, or hide in the bathroom from these.

I think we've stretched the word 'blessing' a little.

So let me say it: children are a burden. They cost their parents time, money, sleep, sanity, and to some extent, health. They are not "blessings" in the traditional sense of the word--bits of manna to be gathered up like Mario points on a video game & then enjoyed without footnote.

There are footnotes. Like the first time you have to take care of a baby despite a Really Bad Cold. The first time you sit in the waiting room of the ER or in the NICU. The first time that Blessing stares you down with your own perfected GLARE & defies you.

I admit it: children are a burden. MY children are a burden. But WHY have we as a society become so averse to bearing burdens?

I had a philosophy class once that talked about the maturation of the soul. There was something about starting out seeing things from the perspective of the good of SELF. And ending up seeing things from the perspective of the good of SOCIETY. There was other stuff in between, & I wish I could tell you better, but I was toting a newborn to class, & some of it gets a little fuzzy.

My point, then--let's stop pretzeling parenting around into something that's all sunshine & kisses & tell the truth: it's hard work. It will make you sweat, cry, curse. It breaks you.

But that's not bad. Hard work & pain are not things to be Avoided At All Cost. When the end goal is *worth* it, we should have the strength of character to know how to make sacrifices, to back our ideals up with our blood.

Well-loved children WILL make the world a better place, WILL make their parents better people. These children ARE a blessing, but the blessing is not just the Child-In-the-Raw: it's the product of decades of family life, of the quiet love and sacrifice of parents, being reflected back to them through their children, of this love and sacrifice acting upon the souls of the individuals to create Human Beings, members of society, in which families reflect love and sacrifice to other families, communities to communities, nations to nations.

And that's okay. You might even call it a blessing.

The Great Physician

I've been thinking about the redemptive power of suffering, when experienced under the loving care of the Great Physician.

To our first parents, after their first physical, He declared them to be "very good." The certificate of good health was followed by a simple prescription: abstain from one fruit. A human doctor might tell us to abstain from saturated fats or cigarettes.

He has been writing prescriptions ever since. Adam was prescribed hard work, back-breaking labor. Abraham was prescribed fresh air--a new location. David's prescription was first a harp and a sheepfold, then a throne.

My prescription right now is an extended visit with my in-laws, a few weeks away from my husband, five kids to myself--to feed, change, bathe, discipline, and take to the grocery store!

But rarely do God's people take the pills He prescribes the way He prescribes them. Sometimes we take a topical cream and try to eat it. Sometimes we exchange the pain of chemotherapy for pain-killers He did not prescribe.

We try to fix things ourselves, run away from where He wants us. And the disease that the Good Doctor is trying to cure eats away at us a little more.

Now the baby is pulling the cat's tail, so I must go embrace some suffering, for it is through suffering that He  redeems us, makes us holy.

American Heroes

Rosa Parks became an American hero for refusing to give up her seat on a bus.

Thanks to the HHS mandate, we are about to have a whole new generation of American heroes. If you get your face on a postage stamp for not giving up your seat on a bus, imagine how future generations will honor those who refuse to help pay for the mass-slaughter of our babies?

Ancient Christian Documents

I'm reading through the early Christian writings right now and trying to simplify them for my kids--and busy moms like me. The experience is at first daunting, trying to put together a timeline, figure out who's who, finding copies of the ancient texts, being forced to choose between paying $200+ for printed copies or being tied to the computer to read.

I started reading some on the kindle, and that was a good jump start, but for simplifying, it's much easier to be able to copy-paste, so I've chosen to be tied to the computer for now.

So far, I've read The Didache, Clement's letter to the Corinthians, and Ignatius' letter to the Ephesians. The first was written by the apostles and is the oldest Christian document to be discluded from the Bible. Clement was a student of Peter, & Ignatius was a student of John. These were among the first men to follow Christ without personally knowing him.

I guess I expected to find hard-to-read documents, filled with ancient passion and hardly relevant today. I expected, I think, to become quickly bored with them and set aside the project like so many other things when life gets busy, and you realize that you not only need to feed the kids, but you'd actually rather be in the kitchen than hunched over documents that begin like this:

The Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which
sojourneth in Corinth, to them which are called and sanctified by the 
will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace from 
Almighty God through Jesus Christ be multiplied.



Or if not bored with it, then overwhelmed. It's not the kind of thing you can really read while a baby is climbing on you and littles are asking for MORE FOOD.

Instead, though, I have found incredible life and depth and transformation in the writings of these men who died for their faith, who died clinging to the faith so that they might deliver it to me.

When the apostles urge us in the Didache to refuse no one, to give whatever is asked...it's hard to get around the implications of that, the way one manages to wiggle around the same command in Scripture. At church recently, we were all told to *at least* sign up for the prayer chain. I did, but only because I'd just read the Didache.

I get emails now about people with cancer, people needing hope, peace, people dying, losing loved ones. It's painful sometimes to pray for these needs, but it's true: it's the least I can do, and I've been glad to do it. 

A week or two ago, a line was added to the daily email I get: Please pray for all the needs of the people who are praying. That's me. As an unintended consequence of praying for others, over 900 people are praying daily for me. If you know how the last year or so has gone for my family, you'll understand when I say how incredibly grateful I am for each one of those prayers.

I'm going to post highlights from each of the documents I'm reading, and I'd love for you to read with me!

Athena's Son

Athena's Son by Jeryl Schoenbeck is a brand new book by a brand new author that exemplifies one of the reasons I love the Kindle: this book is self-published by a 6th grade history teacher who knows his material and loves his students enough to produce a remarkable work of historical fiction. Thanks to the democratic revolution that ereaders have brought to the publishing industry, Mr. Schoenbeck was able to offer this book to all of us, without the obstacles that stood between readers and writers in the past.

When I assigned Athena's Son as part of our ancient history studies, it was based on nothing but the preview on Amazon. When I was able to borrow it for free through Amazon Prime, that was an added bonus. But my 11-year-old son loved it so much, he spent his own money to buy a copy "so I can come back to it again and again." Then he asked if he could write a paper.

Without any plot details, I'm sold on a book that makes my writing-phobic son volunteer a paper! When that was followed up with a personal reply from the author, offering a signed copy of the book to my son, I decided to move Athena's Son from the middle of my to-be-read pile to the top.

It's been a busy two weeks, so I'm only halfway through, but I can already tell you: this book should be required reading for everyone studying ancient history.

You know how we study the Egyptians, take a test, and then study the Greeks? Each civilization, from the Phoenicians to the Romans occupies its own space on the academic calendar, rarely crossing these artificial lines that we've constructed. As an adult, I remember being startled to discover that Cleopatra was a Greek queen, not an Egyptian and later that the Greeks had been fascinated with the Egyptians in much the same way that the Romans were fascinated with the Greeks.

I know trading happened. But I'd never thought about encounters between these civilizations, their customs, their gods. Athena's Son vividly illustrates just that, bringing the cultures and civilizations of the ancient world together and centering them around the childhood of Archimedes, whose intelligence earns him the title, "Athena's Son."

My aspiring engineer/inventor reveled in the story of a boy who would have been a fascinating friend, and I am likewise enjoying the very palatable and provocative history lesson.

Maybe if enough of us buy a copy of Athena's Son, Mr. Schoenbeck will give us the happy privilege of reading his next book!

Rocky Mountain Catholic Home Educators Conference

If you're in Colorado next weekend and happen to be looking for a homeschool conference to attend, I'll be speaking at the Rocky Mountain Catholic Home Educators Conference at 11:15 on Saturday, July 7.

The topic will be Problem-Based Learning. I'd love to meet you there!

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,

that among these are

LIFE,

liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness.

Let me put it another way...

The people who bought our freedom with their blood believed that we are all born with the right to live, the right to be free, and the right to use those two birthrights together to make a good life for ourselves.

They believed that governments are formed for the express purpose of securing those rights.

'Healthcare' isn't on the list.

But let's say the government started taxing healthcare. Your copay goes from $30 per visit to $2000 per visit. Let's say that tax isn't arbitrary--it actually goes toward maintaining the integrity of the system that keeps you healthy.

Does it matter? At 2k per visit, a sinus infection running through an average size household would be devastating.

That's exactly the problem low-income families face. A doctor's visit without insurance costs nearly a week's pay. Since the medicine they need often costs as little as $4, it's easy to overlook the problem of actually getting that medicine.

Due to government regulations, they cannot get it without a prescription. More regulations require that the prescription be gotten from a medical professional. Further regulations require a minimum level of (expensive) education for medical professionals. In short, it is government regulations--BIG government--that keeps healthcare further out of reach of the poor.

I'm not debating the benefit of these regulations--to those who can still see a doctor when they need to do so. Heaven help us if antibiotics become ineffective due to overuse. But for those who cannot afford the trip to the doctor--multiple trips if the doctor is too conservative--these are the dark ages of medicine. Healthcare was better available to the poor in every generation but our own.

Is the solution bigger government, in which healthcare is provided to all, or smaller government, in which the government backs out of healthcare and its regulation altogether?

Either. Although the public health is theoretically better served in the former scenario than the latter, so that the overuse of antibiotics can be stemmed. On the other hand, if you really believe that using doctors as a barrier to medicine is preventing the misuse of prescription drugs, you might consider finding a new doctor--there are plenty who will write the prescription you determine yourself that you need.

Just let us not continue to legislate poor health care for the poor.

The Declaration goes on:

That to secure these rights,

governments are instituted among men,

deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends,

it is the RIGHT of the people

to alter

or to abolish it,

and to institute new government. . .

That's a revolution conducted by the wealthy, the educated, the aristocracy.

But a revolution conducted by the starving masses is not unprecedented. There was a time when those whose freedoms and lives had been squandered for too long rose up in protest: "Give us bread!" they cried. 


The aristocracy who turns a blind eye, who says, "Let them eat cake," is the harbinger of a bloodier revolution, the future occupant of dark prison cells and guillotines.