Good Parenting
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: The Scoreboard
- A Single Tree
- Worb, Switzerland in Fall
- The Volto Santo
- Tuscany, Italy
- The Prayer of Music
- Cologne Cathedral
- Pope Francis, Family, and Joy
- Exaltation of the Cross
- The Crumbs of Holiness
- Brienzer Rothorn
- Paris
- Prayer
- School, Dependence, and Paradox
- Pride
- Reflecting Light
- Loving Plan
- The Emmental
- Paris, Death, and Uncertainty
- Mt. Pilatus
- The Corner of Church and Gay
- Good Parenting
- To Change or Not To Change
- One Year Later
- Blausee, Switzerland
- Time is Love
- Bern, Switzerland
- Mürren, Switzerland
- Happy Thursday
- Die Hausmann (The Houseman)
- The Call of a Father
- Kandersteg, Switzerland
- Hope and Home
- Human, A Christmas Carol
- The Mountains and the Divine
- Christmas Market
- A Stare
- Penetrating Light
- Venice, Italy
- The Passion and the WC
- The Mountain
- Resurrection
- Market Day in Bern, Switzerland
- Happy Easter
- Good Friday
- Maundy Thursday
- Holy Week Reflection
- The Great Adventure
- A Man and His Crocs
- “Say You, Say Me”
- Kids, a Ball, and Nature
- Thun, Switzerland
- Invitation
- Sports and Passion
- Sunrise-Worb, Switzerland
- Seeing the Beautiful
- Our First Month
- Summer at Seven
- I Believe
- Radiant Presence
- Family
- U.S.A. vs. Germany
- Our Swiss Weekend
- The Paradox of the Road
- The Adventure Continues…
- Happy Father’s Day?
- Celebrating Earth Day
- Interlaken, Switzerland
- My Search for Communion
- The Universal Language of Sports
- An Experienced Faith
- Worb, Switzerland
- Lake Lugano, Switzerland
- To Bless the Space Between
- Language of Love
- The Bridge
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: The Parent Zone
- A Fire of Hope
- Eyes Without a Face
- Modern-Day School Day
- 43
- A Moment in Time
- A Hidden Truth
- Now More Than Ever, We Need the Wisdom of Sports
- A Plea for Truth
- “Shining Like The Sun”
- Gift of Silence
- The Greatest Illusion
- A Stomping Joy
- Listening to Time
- A Beautiful Closure
- Perfectly Average
- Baseball, Friendship, and Bathroom Prophecy
- Moments in Time: Worb, Switzerland
- Moments in Time: Helena, MT
- Mystery and Mirrors
- Present
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: Sports Wounds
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: Sports Balance
- 45 and the Mid-Life Brisk Walk
- A Scandalous Christmas
- Fire
- Moments in Time: London (The Tube)
- Some Random Thoughts at 44
- Hard To Be Human
- Two Choices
- Coming Out of Hibernation
- The Whispers of Nature
- Facebook, Beauty, and Good Friday
- Moments in Time: Dingle, Ireland
- Let’s Dance
- Moments in Time: Glen Coe, Scotland (Highlands)
- Age of Wisdom
- Happy New Year…Cheers to Cranberry Juice and Coffee
- Stockhorn
- The Story of Paris
- Solothurn, Switzerland
- Tissot Peak Walk, Glacier 3000
- Man vs. Nature
- The Swiss Alps from Another Time
- Not Just Another Day
- The Image
- Buildings
- Domodossola, Italy
- The Gray
- Feeling the Falls
- Love Is
- Opposites
- Sunrise Over Lake Maggiore, Italy
- Weather, Writing, and Truth
- A “Religious” Walk Home
- A Quick Day Trip to Luzern, Switzerland
- Year Two
- The Castle on the Hill
- Cold as Stone (3 Years Later)
- Change
- Yes, I Am In Your Business
- “Uniquely Me”
- The Human Balance
- Beyond Croatia’s Beauty
- Back to Reality
- A Friend to Man
- Merry Christmas
- Finding Freedom
- High School Sports Hall of Fame
- Bonnie Scotland
- Turning the Big 4-0
- Nice, France
- Wrestling with Time
- Rounding Second Base
- A New Hang Out
- Welcome to a Journey…
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: The Parent Zone
- A Single Tree
- Worb, Switzerland in Fall
- The Volto Santo
- Tuscany, Italy
- The Prayer of Music
- Cologne Cathedral
- Pope Francis, Family, and Joy
- Exaltation of the Cross
- The Crumbs of Holiness
- Brienzer Rothorn
- Paris
- Prayer
- School, Dependence, and Paradox
- Pride
- Reflecting Light
- Loving Plan
- The Emmental
- Paris, Death, and Uncertainty
- Mt. Pilatus
- The Corner of Church and Gay
- Good Parenting
- To Change or Not To Change
- One Year Later
- Blausee, Switzerland
- Time is Love
- Bern, Switzerland
- Mürren, Switzerland
- Happy Thursday
- Die Hausmann (The Houseman)
- The Call of a Father
- Kandersteg, Switzerland
- Hope and Home
- Human, A Christmas Carol
- The Mountains and the Divine
- Christmas Market
- A Stare
- Penetrating Light
- Venice, Italy
- The Passion and the WC
- The Mountain
- Resurrection
- Market Day in Bern, Switzerland
- Happy Easter
- Good Friday
- Maundy Thursday
- Holy Week Reflection
- The Great Adventure
- A Man and His Crocs
- “Say You, Say Me”
- Kids, a Ball, and Nature
- Thun, Switzerland
- Invitation
- Sports and Passion
- Sunrise-Worb, Switzerland
- Seeing the Beautiful
- Our First Month
- Summer at Seven
- I Believe
- Radiant Presence
- Family
- U.S.A. vs. Germany
- Our Swiss Weekend
- The Paradox of the Road
- The Adventure Continues…
- Happy Father’s Day?
- Celebrating Earth Day
- Interlaken, Switzerland
- My Search for Communion
- The Universal Language of Sports
- An Experienced Faith
- Worb, Switzerland
- Lake Lugano, Switzerland
- To Bless the Space Between
- Language of Love
- The Bridge
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: Sports Wounds
- A Plea for Truth
- Modern-Day School Day
- 43
- A Moment in Time
- A Hidden Truth
- Now More Than Ever, We Need the Wisdom of Sports
- A Fire of Hope
- Gift of Silence
- Moments in Time: Worb, Switzerland
- The Greatest Illusion
- A Stomping Joy
- Listening to Time
- A Beautiful Closure
- Perfectly Average
- Baseball, Friendship, and Bathroom Prophecy
- Age of Wisdom
- Eyes Without a Face
- “Shining Like The Sun”
- Happy New Year…Cheers to Cranberry Juice and Coffee
- Some Random Thoughts at 44
- Confessions of a Sports Parent: Sports Balance
- 45 and the Mid-Life Brisk Walk
- A Scandalous Christmas
- Fire
- Moments in Time: London (The Tube)
- Present
- Two Choices
- Moments in Time: Helena, MT
- Coming Out of Hibernation
- The Whispers of Nature
- Facebook, Beauty, and Good Friday
- Moments in Time: Dingle, Ireland
- Let’s Dance
- Moments in Time: Glen Coe, Scotland (Highlands)
- Hard To Be Human
- Mystery and Mirrors
- The Castle on the Hill
- Stockhorn
- The Story of Paris
- Solothurn, Switzerland
- Tissot Peak Walk, Glacier 3000
- Man vs. Nature
- The Swiss Alps from Another Time
- Not Just Another Day
- The Image
- Buildings
- Domodossola, Italy
- The Gray
- Feeling the Falls
- Love Is
- Opposites
- Sunrise Over Lake Maggiore, Italy
- Weather, Writing, and Truth
- A “Religious” Walk Home
- A Quick Day Trip to Luzern, Switzerland
- Year Two
- Change
- Cold as Stone (3 Years Later)
- Yes, I Am In Your Business
- “Uniquely Me”
- The Human Balance
- Beyond Croatia’s Beauty
- Back to Reality
- A Friend to Man
- Merry Christmas
- Finding Freedom
- High School Sports Hall of Fame
- Bonnie Scotland
- Turning the Big 4-0
- Nice, France
- Wrestling with Time
- Rounding Second Base
- A New Hang Out
- Welcome to a Journey…
To act or not to act. To speak or not to speak. To intervene or not to intervene. It seems that these are the thoughts that consume the mind of a parent every day.
It is said that parenting is the toughest job in the world, and I would think that most parents who are engaged in the lives of their children would agree. For although we get plenty of advice from others and we instinctively draw our own parenting styles from those who have raised us, at the end of the day, when we are face to face with our own children, there simply isn’t a blueprint.
It is during these times of indecision that we realize that we are left with only our thoughts. We are left with our feelings. We are left with the experiences that have made us who we are up until this point in our lives. Lives filled with both good times and times that still yearn for the healing touch of mercy and grace.
Yet most of all, these times bring to the surface things within us that we may have never seen before. I have found that the role of being a parent is never stagnated in nature; physically, emotionally, or spiritually, because in many ways parenting is the mirror that provides a constant reflection into the state of one’s heart.
For me personally, the indecision of whether I should speak or be silent, punish or let things go, or step in to help my children or allow them to figure it out themselves sparks an idol within me that has always been there but has only come to the surface since becoming a parent. It is the idol of “goodness”. Or maybe simply put, my desire to be “good” in the eyes of others. And it wasn’t until I became a parent that I have come to see just how much this misplaced desire had stifled my life.
I think we all want to be “good”. But what exactly does that mean? What does that entail? Especially when it comes to being a parent. What does a “good” parent do?
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before him, and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
–Mk 10:17-18
Although this idol always became visible when my children acted out, it was within the day to day experiences that it finally showed its face for me to see. The day to day experiences of watching my boys grow into new phases of life. Phases of naturally testing boundaries. And phases where they struggle in a healthy way between depending on us as parents yet desiring to discover who they are for themselves. And it was through this natural tension of my children needing me yet at the same time growing within their independence that the control I thought I had over them got exposed. And it is was then that I could see just how much I needed them to fulfill me. Especially my desire of being a “good” parent. This was the hard truth that helped me get refocused off of me and onto them.
I remember when my son Jack first began going to nursery school. I remember the fear that was in him every morning not wanting me to leave his sight when I dropped him off. So much so, he spent his first day hiding underneath a table. But what I remember most wasn’t so much his fear, but the fear that resided in me during those weeks and months. I remember not being able to sleep the night before he would have school, knowing that he would cry and not want to let go of my leg the next morning. These days always left questioning how I could do this to my son and allow him to go through this. Yet nestled within this great fear for him, was my fear of not being a “good” parent.
Last week I watched this same Jack ski down the Alps on a Friday and play in a soccer tournament on Saturday where he was the only English speaking child in the tournament. What a moment for him. And yet when I watched him, I couldn’t help but think about those days dropping him off at school in tears, both his and mine. And it was within this moment that I realized that he never needed me to be “good”, he needs me to be present.
Present to him and to whatever needs he might have on that given day. Even the days when he doesn’t need me. Knowing that I will be there when he comes home from being on his own is all that he truly desires.
Parenting is hard. Parenting is exhausting. Parenting is frightening. We all are doing our best with who we are today. And yet, parenting can also help us see a larger truth about ourselves, our kids, and our relationship with God because it can expose our hearts in ways that few other roles can do. And for that, I am grateful. For it has been through this role of fatherhood that I have experienced the grace of seeing things within me that need to be exposed…exposed so that they may be converted.
Converted from the selfish misplaced desires of being “good” to the life-giving freedom of trying to love my sons, Jack and Andrew, as God has loved me. (Jn 13:34)
In families, there are difficulties. In families, we argue; in families, sometimes the plates fly; in families, the children give us headaches. And I’m not even going to mention the mother-in-law. But in families, there is always, always, the cross. Always. Because the love of God, of the Son of God, also opened for us this path. But, in families as well, after the cross, there is the resurrection. Because the Son of God opened for us this path. Because of this, the family is — forgive the term I’ll use — it is a factory of hope, of hope of life and of resurrection. God was the one who opened this path… In families, there are difficulties, but these difficulties are overcome with love. Hate doesn’t overcome any difficulty. Division of hearts doesn’t overcome any difficulty. Only love is capable of overcoming difficulties. Love is a festival. Love is joy. Love is to keep moving forward.”
–Pope Francis
8 Comments
PJ Welsh
You have tapped into a “truth” here… only once this is realized does true parenting actually happen. Your boys are blessed.
Brett Illig
Amen to that…Thanks PJ.
Deborah Bohr Violette
This is so true Brett! It’s definitely a realization that I think many ( most) parents can relate too. You have certainly been on and continue to be on a wonderful journey! Best wishes ti you and your family.
Brett Illig
Thank you Mrs. Violette for your note… Thank you for the well wishes, I hope that you and the whole Violette Crew are well.
James Welsh
Very true. I think being present leaves a lasting and longing impression on our kids even if they won’t or can’t admit to it till later in life.
Brett Illig
Thanks Jim…I am also coming to see that as well.
Tony Ciaverelli
The Pope Francis quote touched me greatly today…thanks for always keepin it real!
Brett Illig
Thanks Tony…Happy Easter to you and your lovely family. Love you brother…