Category: Parenting

A Day in the Life of a Crazy Fool: Part 2
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A Day in the Life of a Crazy Fool: Part 2

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Welcome back to a day in my life, which can be a bit crazy, being the mother of now 7 little children, all under the age of 12. In Part 1, I ended by mentioning Mid-Morning Prayer Time, which is where I’ll pick up today. 10am Mid-Morning Prayer At around 10am, when the children are […]

A Day in the Life of a Crazy Fool: Part 1
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A Day in the Life of a Crazy Fool: Part 1

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I might be a Crazy Fool. After all, I have 6 children under the age of 12, I’m a Catholic, I homeschool, and I’m pregnant. Goodness gracious!  To most in our culture, I am a crazy fool. Why would I do such things? The short answer?  Because my heart is full of love. The long […]

A Conscience-Stinger for Lent
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A Conscience-Stinger for Lent

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Anyone want a good conscience-stinger for Lent? Recently I just reread Thomas Dubay’s Happy Are You Poor. And my conscience was stung. I have too much stuff, and my children have too much stuff. And this stuff gets in the way of knowing Jesus. And it’s time to clean house and make space for Him. Now as […]

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things! 'Inclusiveness' Ruins Wholesome Event
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This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things! ‘Inclusiveness’ Ruins Wholesome Event

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When I was a kid attending Catholic school, if someone was caught with gum, or candy, a typical response from a teacher who was usually a Dominican nun, would be: “Do you have enough for everyone?” If we had been clever enough to prepare ahead of time, pulling out enough gum or candy for the […]

Heartfelt and Handmade: The Value of Story in Our Family’s Advent
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Heartfelt and Handmade: The Value of Story in Our Family’s Advent

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To live the meaning of “prepare.” The meaning of “wait.” A tradition as simple as the lighting of the stately lavender tapers, ring of purples and pink, each boy eagerly anticipating leading the nightly prayer. Or reciting the scripture verse. And do they ever read this verse with care, as their first Advent morning utterances […]

Teaching Children About the Angels
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Teaching Children About the Angels

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Fall is here and my mind turns to the angels.  As the leaves drop and remind us of our earthly transience, our thoughts settle on the spiritual world which is usually hidden from our senses, the world of Heaven, in which dwell the saints and angels.  And so, we celebrate the feasts of the Archangels […]

The Double-Edged Sword of Infertility
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The Double-Edged Sword of Infertility

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The pain of infertility or impaired fertility comes in more than one form. The first is the obvious suffering of the couple who wants so badly to have a child but, for whatever reason, is unable to. The second is the judgment of others in their Catholic community. I’ve experienced this first-hand, despite having three […]

A Good Friday Devotion
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A Good Friday Devotion

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When I was a kid my Mom used to embroider old sayings and decorate them with stitched designs and images. When they were finished she’d frame them and hang them on the walls, so that walking through our house was a little tour through the patrimony of wisdom from the ages, all arrayed in a […]

Couriers of Grace: My Daughter, the Sacraments, and a Surprising Walk of Faith
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Couriers of Grace: My Daughter, the Sacraments, and a Surprising Walk of Faith

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  There once was a very special girl. Sarah was her name: a name that means Princess. This princess happened to be born with Down syndrome. Little Sarah grew up telling those around her that she had a perfect life! “If someone made an unkind remark about her appearance, she would smile and wave at […]

Sugar, Sugar, You Got Me Wantin’ You
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Sugar, Sugar, You Got Me Wantin’ You

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Conscience is the voice of God speaking to a Christian. It is the “law written in their hearts” (Romans 2:15) by God; and each Christian has a duty to make sure that God’s message is not corrupted. In short, a Christian must form his or her conscience – it must be “well formed” – and […]

New Must-Read Book for Catholic Moms
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New Must-Read Book for Catholic Moms

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In nine years, I’ve never gone into my Catholic Mom’s Bible Study / Book Club and said, “We need to read this book today,” but I did that with the latest book by Kate Wicker. If you are always perfectly fulfilled in your role as a mother and you have a group of well-behaved children […]

The Joy of Vocation: A Look at the Grown-up Version of Fun
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The Joy of Vocation: A Look at the Grown-up Version of Fun

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Shortly after I got married, a good priest gave me some sage advice: look at all your daily frustrations as a source of holiness. Later that day, my husband did something that irritated me, so I said to him through clenched teeth: “You are making me so holy right now.” Of course, this made us […]

Parental Rights on the Line: VidAngel Being Sued by Disney
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Parental Rights on the Line: VidAngel Being Sued by Disney

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VidAngel is the market-leading entertainment platform empowering users to filter language, nudity, violence, and other content from movies and TV shows. It continues to earn a surge of grassroots support as the company prepares for its preliminary injunction hearing in late October. Disney—along with Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, and Lucasfilm—has taken legal action to […]

Book Review: <em>Mary's Way</em>
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Book Review: Mary’s Way

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Mary’s Way: The Power of Entrusting Your Child to God by Judy Landrieu Klein is the latest offering in the CatholicMom.com book collection. In the Introduction, Klein states that “it is among a mother’s most important labors to pray diligently for her children.” She also offers two life lessons that she has learned from motherhood: […]

Gender Ideology Leads to Child Abuse: Pediatricians
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Gender Ideology Leads to Child Abuse: Pediatricians

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“Facts – not ideology – determine reality,” the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) said in a warning to legislators and educators about the dangers of surgical and medical sex change operations to children. “Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child […]

Same Sex Parenting Increases Depression in Children
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Same Sex Parenting Increases Depression in Children

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Our relationship with our biological parents influences our happiness long after we’ve flown the nest. So says a new study showing how those raised by same-sex parents experience significantly more depression, obesity, and other problems in young adulthood than their peers. In the first study to examine children raised by same-sex parents into early adulthood, […]

The Narrow Way
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The Narrow Way

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The most terrifying aspect of living out Catholic sexuality is that it requires us to unflinchingly kill an entire world of potentials. In this world of dreamers, it can be very difficult to commit oneself to a given way of life simply because it entails giving up all other ways of life. It can be […]

The Momentum of Mercy
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The Momentum of Mercy

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When I was child, I thought of mercy as something that was granted only to a person who really needed it, such as a big sinner, or when I did something really bad. I never thought about how mercy can be a part of everyday life. If we are open to the expansive nature of […]

In an Industry that Makes People, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
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In an Industry that Makes People, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

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Sperm donation, egg donation and surrogacy: Third party reproduction seems to be a “done deal” in Western society. Even ardently pro-life people do not seem to see the problems. Hey, these techniques are making babies, not killing them. So what could possibly go wrong? A lot of things can go very wrong. Let me describe […]

Pope Francis Praises Personal Freedom in Family Life
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Pope Francis Praises Personal Freedom in Family Life

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The four keys to a lasting marriage are faithful, free, fruitful, and total love, as we explain in our newly released book on Catholic marriage. Pope Francis stresses these same four themes in his recent exhortation Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love). Our last article looked at what the pope had to say about the first key, […]

Sweet Spanish-Language Book Teaches Children Why We Pray
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Sweet Spanish-Language Book Teaches Children Why We Pray

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It was my pleasure to introduce my kids to Kimberly Cook’s delightful little book Mami, Mami, Cuando Rezas — the Spanish-language translation of her book Mommy, Mommy, When You Pray. It provided me with the perfect opportunity to make headway on my New Year’s resolution to teach our kids more Spanish! Mami, Mami, Cuando Rezas […]

All Love Bears Fruit
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All Love Bears Fruit

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Fruitfulness is one of the essential gifts of marriage. We’re all familiar with God’s words to Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Gn 1:28). God’s directive to the mother and father of all humanity refers to physical fruitfulness. But Jesus in the Gospels speaks about […]

Patient Progress
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Patient Progress

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My son called from graduate school, somewhat discouraged. As part of his degree program, he works with ninth graders, spending his days trying to convince jaded 13 and 14 year olds to care about literature. He’s new to the field and discovering that the major struggle in teaching is not making a lesson plan, but […]

How to Have a Happy Marriage (Even When You're Busy with Kids)
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How to Have a Happy Marriage (Even When You’re Busy with Kids)

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Marital satisfaction tends to take a dip once that first baby comes home from the hospital (or out of the bathtub, birthing center, etc.). This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. Let’s face it. Kids, particularly newborns, are difficult. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying, or a grandparent. But you can maintain a happy marriage […]