Dear kids,
There are so many lessons I have left to teach you. Sometimes the thought of your future----and the things I want to teach you yet----can be overwhelming. With Frank waking up from a cold tonight, and Jim wandering the hallway with a nightmare, I woke up in the middle of the night. Somehow my worrying mother-mind travelled to who you would all marry in the future. What kind of people will you choose to open yourselves up to many years from now?
It is so silly to even consider such things now. Lucy, at age 5, you are laying on the floor of our bedroom in your ballet tights, leotard, and tutu. You had your first lesson just tonight. I had to promise you that you can put your tap shoes on right away in the morning just to convince you to go to bed.
Tommy, you are so young yet that you wrote your very first book report last week. How proud your Dad and I were to see you working so hard....taking such care in doing a good job at your school.
At any rate, I figured it was as good a time as any to tell you, as a group, that I do want you to carefully consider the kind of person you marry. I hope that when you meet someone, and fall in love, you remember that person should treat you with great respect and dignity every day. After all, you are our children and you are God's children. We all deserve to be treated with great dignity on this planet.
When I was growing up, I watched my sister date a few young men. I didn't have much dating experience as a teenager, but I suppose I learned a few things from her experiences....and from seeing how my parents tried to teach her about dating. I remember at one point that my Dad had a short list going of things that really matter a lot in finding a spouse. Some of them were pretty darn practical. I wish I remembered them all.
Here are a few:
1. Does he/she know the meaning of the word "work"?
2. Does he/she have any kids you don't know about?
3. Does he/she have any addictions?
4. Is he or she from a good, wholesome family?
Gosh, I might have to check back in with your Aunt Sarah and Uncle Chris to remember the rest of the list. I think my Dad's general hope was tha we would realize that when you marry someone, you marry all the baggage he or she carries from his or her whole life. You marry the emotions from an addiction she conquered at 16. Or you marry the family who raised him. You marry the boy who just can't hold down a job...or instead, you marry the boy who does whatever he can to find a job and work hard to keep it. Sometimes when you are a teenager or young adult falling in love, it is difficult to ignore your impulse and realize that the inner ethics of a person matter more than how he or she looks on the outside.
Of course, my Mom would have chimed in with a more spiritual component of whether or not the prospective spouse was Catholic. We weren't taught to only marry Catholics, but I think the overarching message was clear: marrying someone who values God and has faith in God should be a priority.
It's late tonight, so I just don't have time to expand upon these many ideas, ideas it took my parents a great many years to teach me. But I wanted to grab onto this idea, and tell you kids: Choose wisely. God has a plan for you and your future spouse, if that is your path. You deserve to be loved greatly, and in turn, you should love your spouse greatly, putting him or her before yourself again and again in life. As he or she will do for you.
All my love.
Your,
Mama
There are so many lessons I have left to teach you. Sometimes the thought of your future----and the things I want to teach you yet----can be overwhelming. With Frank waking up from a cold tonight, and Jim wandering the hallway with a nightmare, I woke up in the middle of the night. Somehow my worrying mother-mind travelled to who you would all marry in the future. What kind of people will you choose to open yourselves up to many years from now?
It is so silly to even consider such things now. Lucy, at age 5, you are laying on the floor of our bedroom in your ballet tights, leotard, and tutu. You had your first lesson just tonight. I had to promise you that you can put your tap shoes on right away in the morning just to convince you to go to bed.
Tommy, you are so young yet that you wrote your very first book report last week. How proud your Dad and I were to see you working so hard....taking such care in doing a good job at your school.
At any rate, I figured it was as good a time as any to tell you, as a group, that I do want you to carefully consider the kind of person you marry. I hope that when you meet someone, and fall in love, you remember that person should treat you with great respect and dignity every day. After all, you are our children and you are God's children. We all deserve to be treated with great dignity on this planet.
When I was growing up, I watched my sister date a few young men. I didn't have much dating experience as a teenager, but I suppose I learned a few things from her experiences....and from seeing how my parents tried to teach her about dating. I remember at one point that my Dad had a short list going of things that really matter a lot in finding a spouse. Some of them were pretty darn practical. I wish I remembered them all.
Here are a few:
1. Does he/she know the meaning of the word "work"?
2. Does he/she have any kids you don't know about?
3. Does he/she have any addictions?
4. Is he or she from a good, wholesome family?
Gosh, I might have to check back in with your Aunt Sarah and Uncle Chris to remember the rest of the list. I think my Dad's general hope was tha we would realize that when you marry someone, you marry all the baggage he or she carries from his or her whole life. You marry the emotions from an addiction she conquered at 16. Or you marry the family who raised him. You marry the boy who just can't hold down a job...or instead, you marry the boy who does whatever he can to find a job and work hard to keep it. Sometimes when you are a teenager or young adult falling in love, it is difficult to ignore your impulse and realize that the inner ethics of a person matter more than how he or she looks on the outside.
Of course, my Mom would have chimed in with a more spiritual component of whether or not the prospective spouse was Catholic. We weren't taught to only marry Catholics, but I think the overarching message was clear: marrying someone who values God and has faith in God should be a priority.
It's late tonight, so I just don't have time to expand upon these many ideas, ideas it took my parents a great many years to teach me. But I wanted to grab onto this idea, and tell you kids: Choose wisely. God has a plan for you and your future spouse, if that is your path. You deserve to be loved greatly, and in turn, you should love your spouse greatly, putting him or her before yourself again and again in life. As he or she will do for you.
All my love.
Your,
Mama
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