Besides having another wonderful baby, I’ve been grinding steadily away at my third novel. I’m currently finishing the last scene, which will wrap up not only the book but the series as well.

All my (very limited) writing time has been going to that project, and that is why I haven’t been posting here, though I’ve had some ideas I wanted to share. (And I still hope to share them, when I find the time!)

This year I also had the pleasure of seeing one of my essays appear in Hearth and Field Magazine.

My essay appeared only in the print edition, so you won’t be able to find it on the website, but if you haven’t encountered Hearth and Field Magazine, I recommend giving it a look. It’s a delightful combination of philosophical essays about literature, economics, and life, practical homesteading tips, recipes, and stories from people’s lives as they try to practice the art of living humanly. While the print magazine is arguably the best experience—nicely laid out, printed on high quality paper, with essays interspersed with beautiful photos and art—the website and email newsletter provide a good sampling of what they offer.

Besides simply wanting to see my words printed in Hearth and Field’s lovely pages, my other reason to submit my essay there instead of simply posting it here comes from Cal Newport, whose books and podcasts about digital distraction and living the “deep life” have been an inspiration to me for several years now.

One of the principles of his work is that the honing of a craft is fundamental both to finding satisfaction and enjoyment in life, and also to achieving economic success. As a writer himself, he often uses the craft of writing as an example of this, and give helpful suggestions for how to improve. One of his most frequently repeated pieces of advice for aspiring writers is to “write for an editor.” Actually submit your work to someone who might reject it. If they reject it, that’s feedback, of a sort. (I can’t say unanswered emails feel like useful feedback, but we take what we can get.)

Even if you aren’t outright rejected, it doesn’t mean that the editor will be full of praise for your work. Likely they’ll rip apart your most treasured phrases and tell you to write something else instead. They’ll tell you it’s too long or too short, or point out how it’s not unified enough, or doesn’t quite fit the tone of their publication. And while this might sound discouraging, it’s precisely through this kind of criticism that a writer can hone his skills and expand his reach.

I enjoyed the editorial process with Hearth and Field, and becoming accustomed to seeking criticism on my writing has made me more open to seeking and accepting feedback in other areas of my life. I’m still not excited when my five-year-old criticizes my homemaking skills, (Mom, supper tastes bad!) but being open to negative feedback in general has made my life immeasurably better.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas, and a wonderful new year.

When I was growing up, it was popular in my intensely religious Catholic community to believe that Halloween was a demonic festival that originated with druidic human sacrifices, and that going trick-or-treating was flirting with the devil. I exaggerate slightly for dramatic effect, but suffice it to say that Halloween was not popular in the milieu where I grew up.

To be fair, we kids were not deprived of candy because we didn’t go trick-or-treating. Or deprived of dressing up. About the only fun we lost out on was knocking on doors in the dark and being scared by other people’s creepy decorations.

Instead of dressing up as ghosts or witches or superheroes—or whatever normal kids dressed up as in the nineties—and wandering around in the dark, we waited for the following afternoon and dressed up as our favorite saint, or, in my case, whichever girl saint let me wear the most metal, ideally weapons. (Saint Joan of Arc was always a good choice because of the armor. But some of those Roman martyrs were fun too. As Saint Philomena, I got arrows, an anchor, and a sword.) Then we attended a giant party at which we had a costume contest, played party games, got fed lots of cookies and were given a bag of candy to bring home.

So like I said, we didn’t miss out on much—and we got a chance to learn about the saints, who are, it turns out, an awfully interesting bunch of people.

Fast forward twenty years or so, I was a parent myself, living in a community full of enthusiastic Halloween decorators, and every September my neighborhood walks would start to fill up with opportunities to tell my frightened toddlers things like: “No… that toothy monster with the blood all over his face isn’t going to hurt you. It’s just your neighbor being silly.” “Isn’t that creepy motion activated phantom that groans as you pass an interesting piece of electronic engineering?” “No, they don’t actually have people buried in their yard, honey.” “The severed limbs on the lawn? No, they aren’t real. And, no, I’m not really sure why they thought that was a good idea.”

So on the one hand, I began to truly detest Halloween as the ever-lengthening season during which my neighborhood lost whatever good taste it had once possessed, and on the other hand, in a world where I knew none of my neighbors, I found value in the idea of a holiday upon which it is socially acceptable to dress up in a costume and knock on stranger’s doors in hopes of getting candy.

I also discovered that the story of Halloween’s demonic origins was completely fictitious. Ironically, it turns out that the origin of trick-or-treating was, of all things…Catholic, and started out with kids going door to door asking if people wanted them to pray for the souls of their departed family members and friends. People would give the kids treats to thank them—and probably to incentivize return visits. The most well known of the traditional offerings was “soul cakes.” But at some point the human connection and the praying for the departed brethren got lost and all that remained was a rather soulless ritual of saying “trick or treat” and holding out a sack for the customary offering of whatever was cheapest in the Walmart Halloween candy aisle that morning, before dashing off to the next house to collect loot there as well.

My husband and I had been struggling to get to know our neighbors and had hoped that handing out candy to neighborhood children in the customary manner would help us meet people, but we found that there was no time for such pleasantries: candy collection is serious business with no time for idle chitchat. And so we pretty much quit celebrating Halloween…again, because it just wasn’t very much fun, and who actually needs more candy? I feel like every time I leave the house with my kids someone gives them candy: the library ladies, the Walmart greeters, the liquor store, the bank tellers, their teachers…)

Then, last year, one of my friends at Catholic Teen Books pitched the idea of a Halloween Anthology: a collection of stories about Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day, the three back-to-back feasts in the Catholic calendar. It wasn’t my favorite idea at first, but then I read the stories my friends wrote, and I enjoyed all of them. And I enjoyed writing one of my own.

I also got inspired. This year, I want to have a Halloween party where we have all the fun. We’ll dress up as saints—and learn about those fascinating people—play games, judge costumes, eat cookies, and then go knocking door-to-door in the dark, collecting candy, yes, but more importantly, asking our friends and neighbors if they want us to pray for their deceased friends and relations—which we will do, at the cemetery, before the end of the night.

I am happy to announce that the Catholic Teen Books Anthology that inspired this idea is available today on Kindle, soon in paperback as well. Affiliate link here: Shadows Visible and Invisible.

On my old blog, one of the most popular posts I ever wrote was “Questions to ask before you get married.” I just celebrated my seventh wedding anniversary, and I still think it’s the best decision I ever made. So I thought I’d look over this list and see how it’s held up.

Overall, I agree with everything I wrote then. I cringe a little at some of the ways I expressed myself, but I’ve written another novel since then and spent countless hours trying to improve my writing craft, so that’s to be expected. I was writing a blog specifically for women, so everything is written with the assumption that the reader is female. And the phrase “growth mindset” seems horribly overused now, but either past me was oblivious to such things, or it wasn’t so cliché five years ago.

In any case, here are the questions past me thought you should ask before getting married:

Ask Him:

Does he share your values?

This is the first and most important question. Does he agree on what the priorities are? This is a good question to ask your boyfriend fairly early on in your relationship.

Does he share your religion? If religion is important to you, then you are going to want a spouse whose religion is the same as yours. Otherwise it’s likely you will end up with constant misunderstandings and confusion.

Does he ask you to do things you’re uncomfortable doing? Things that you don’t approve of? If he does, this is a bad sign, and you should almost definitely not pursue the relationship further.

Other questions you might want to ask would involve his attitude toward having and raising children, the relationship between husband and wife and their roles in marriage, how he thinks about money. These are issues that are important to most people. If there is anything else that you consider a core value, do be sure to discuss that too. If eating sushi every Wednesday night at precisely 7:13 pm is something you consider vitally important, you should probably make sure he’s okay with that.

Does he have a goal?

Sometimes people are planning on getting married, but don’t look beyond that point in their lives. Then, once they’re married, they have nothing to strive for. And having no goal to work for is bad for people. Before you marry a man, find out if he has a goal beyond getting married to you. And make sure that goal is something you can invest in too. Being able to work together for a goal as a married couple will strengthen your relationship so much.

Why does he want to get married?

This can be a revealing question. Make sure that his reason for getting married is not because he wants a slave to do all his housework for him. He should want a companion on life’s journey, not an ornament or a minion.

Ask friends:

Is he a psycho?

Sometimes a person with a psychological or personality disorder seems perfectly normal. I suggest investigating the person you are thinking about marrying. (Of course, if you’ve known him all your life, you should know already, but it never hurts to make sure)

Now of course, this is not a question you would ask your boyfriend. Instead, do an amateur background check by asking his friends, siblings, and roommates, if he has any. As long as you keep it simple, and don’t spy on him, steal his phone and call all his contacts or read all his emails or something crazy like that, this is a sane and normal precaution, and he shouldn’t take it the wrong way.

Does he have good manners?

We assume that since he’s trying to impress you, your boyfriend treats you well. If he doesn’t, dump him now! But will he keep treating you well, once you’ve married him and he’s not trying to win you over anymore? There’s only one way to find out.

When you are dating, be sure to arrange to spend time with your boyfriend and some other people. If he treats you well, and everyone else badly, you can be fairly sure that he will treat you badly too, once he’s not trying to win you over anymore. If, on the other hand, he treats other people well, and other people like him and think he has good manners, you can safely assume that he has habitually good manners, and that he will likely treat you with courtesy and consideration after you are married too.

Ask Yourself:

Do you admire him?

They say that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If this is a weighted average, it is heavily weighted in favor of your spouse. You will probably end up thinking and acting a lot like your husband after you are married. That’s just the way people work. So, are you okay with that? Would you be better if you were more like him? And will you be able to set him up as an example for your kids? Will they be better for knowing him?

How does he deal with you when you’re upset?

A good indication of how your boyfriend thinks of you is how he treats you at your worst. When you are crying or angry or otherwise upset, you probably aren’t your most attractive. If he is impatient and uncaring with you when you are upset, this could definitely weaken a future relationship. Especially if you are going to have kids. If my experience is anything to go by, then you will probably cry more during your first pregnancy than you did in the five years leading up to it. You will want a man who can stay calm and reassuring during your emotional meltdowns—because if you’re realistic with yourself, you know you’re going to have them sometimes.

Is he resilient? How will he handle an emergency?

Related to how he handles your emotional upsets is how he handles stress and emergencies. This is very difficult to know unless you are in an emergency with your boyfriend—which we all hope won’t happen. Though the idea has crossed my mind that dating would be a more productive exercise if people who were thinking about getting married chose unpleasant activities to do together, rather than pleasant ones. You’d find out so much more about your companion that way.

Now if your boyfriend is a police officer, EMT, army medic, or fireman, you can probably be pretty sure he handles emergencies well and would be a good guy to have around in a pinch. But if not, you might have to base your answer to this question on other things. If your boyfriend handles your emotional upsets well, then that’s a good sign. If he’s willing to go into situations that are outside of his comfort zone without freaking out, that’s a very good sign. And if he can admit his mistakes, that means he’s probably willing to take a chance in a risky situation, too. Which leads us to our next question.

Does he admit mistakes?

When I was dating the man I married, I remember being happy to note that first, we argued, but in a civilized way, and that I won some arguments, and he won some arguments. And that’s the way it should be. You don’t want a pushover who agrees with everything you say, but you also don’t want a man who stubbornly insists that he is right even when he’s wrong.

A person who is intellectually honest will be willing to recognize truth wherever it is found, whether in your ideas, or in his own. This will allow you and your spouse to have meaningful, constructive arguments, rather than bitter, pointless ones.

The next question is related, and is in some ways the most important of all.

Does he have a growth mindset?

Now, your boyfriend is definitely not perfect, and neither are you. And that is completely okay. If you are holding out for a perfect man, you aren’t ever going to get married. And the same goes for holding out for perfect women.

But the question you want to ask yourself is not, “Is he perfect?” but “Is he trying?” You want a man who is trying to improve, because if he is really trying to improve, then you won’t grow tired of him as you find out all his faults. Instead, you will find new things to admire every day of your lives together.

So much for what past me had to say. Present me would like to add one more question:

Does your intended partner want the best for you? Does he show you what is already good about yourself while encouraging you to step outside your comfort zone to reach for worthy goals and greater virtue? And do you do the same for him?

I didn’t understand how important this was until seeing my husband do it for me these last seven years. Aristotle says that to love someone is to “will the good” for them. And he is right.

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Eight years later, I finally published the book—and it didn’t include that disgruntled young man. He led me to a story, and the story ended up better without him. 

But I still wanted to write his story. Not the angsty teenager part—that fell away rather quickly when I began writing—but the story of a young man who leaves his home, his family, and his Faith, and encounters that Faith again in the place he least expects it. That was a story I wanted to write. 

And I still wanted it to be a space opera, because space opera is fun and it lets you explore all kinds of ideas without worrying about whether they’re scientifically or historically accurate, but only if they’re psychologically accurate, if they match our understanding of human nature. 

That left me with religious space opera: an unusual genre, but one that I love. Because space opera lets you think about all the things that could change, and all the things that won’t as well. Good is still good and evil is still evil no matter what star we are orbiting. 

And so, after nearly four years of writing, rewriting, and rewriting some more, I am excited to finally announce the release of my second book, Worth Dying For. 

With a doubt-ridden protagonist and Communists, Objectivists, pirates, and bureaucrats all equally convinced that they are right, there’s a lot more to this book than a band of plucky Catholics resisting the evil empire. 

Book Description

Mark, a talented young mechanic, lives on a garbage world where richer planets dump their trash, and he hates everything about it. 

One day a stranger offers him a job that will get him off his planet and pay more than Mark ever dreamed of making. 

There’s a catch, of course: he’ll be working for an interplanetary corporation that implants its own tech into the brains of its employees. It’s a deal with the devil—the actual devil, according to his parents. But maybe it’s worth it anyway—Mark needs the money to help his sister. 

One thing leads to another, and soon Mark and his new friend Evan will have to decide what—if anything—is worth dying for.

Worth Dying For is available on Amazon here.

I recently had the pleasure of attending an amateur concert presented by a group of school boys. Among the songs they sung was “Fields of Glory,” most famously sung by the Irish group, The High Kings. The song is about team sports, and the chorus reads: 

On the fields, the fields of glory

On the fields where boys become men

On the fields, the fields of glory

May the best team win, win in the end

It’s a rousing song, but even as the boys sang their hearts out, I couldn’t help being skeptical. Do boys really become men on the football field? What about organized sports could possibly make boys into men? Certainly, they get exercise and build muscle, but there’s a lot more to manhood than having big shoulders. Isn’t true manhood achieved by taking initiative and engaging with reality? 

Where does initiative come into it, when parents drive boys to practices where professional coaches tell them exactly what to do and how to do it, and other adults decide when and where and with whom they will play, and what exactly they will wear while doing it? And what could be further from the unpredictability of reality than the manicured sports fields, the transparent and strictly enforced rules, and the whole managed experience of school sports? 

In 1897 a Jesuit named Francis Finn published a book called That Football Game, in which among other things, he evangelizes for football, saying that it “may be a help both to study and to devotion.” The Tom Playfair series also spends a lot of time with the characters on the baseball diamond. While he doubtless included a lot of these details to hold the interest of the baseball and football playing boys that he taught, it is clear from all his books that he considers sports not only a wholesome recreation, but also a character-building activity that leads boys to manliness, and in his books—I have read nearly all of them—it seems quite believable. 

But until recently, I never understood just how different the sports he eulogizes are from the activities that bear that name today. 

In Claude Lightfoot, the twelve-year-old title character plays on a baseball team with other students at his school, but there is almost no adult involvement whatsoever. The fourteen-year-old team captain appears to be in sole charge of the team, deciding not only the team roster, how they will practice, but also who they will play against. He organizes a match against another group of similar-aged boys from the other side of Milwaukee, a match that is attended by a crowd of other boys, but not a parent in sight. 

In That Football Game, the boys are a bit older, perhaps sixteen, and they do receive some coaching from their teacher—on the first day. After that, 

“To-morrow, boys,” announced Mr. Keenan… “I shall put you directly under charge of your captain, Claude Lightfoot. He and I shall have a talk together now, and arrange upon what is best to be done. Those who wish to play on our eleven must obey him in what regards football on and off the field.” 

And for the rest of the book, the boys manage their own training. 

Father Finn’s twelve to seventeen-year-old boy characters also occasionally organize amateur boxing matches, run paper routes, travel by train, and go hunting, boating, swimming and fishing in lakes, all without direct adult supervision. His girl characters walk to school and around their cities alone or with other kids. Occasionally both boys and girls encounter various dangers, but this is never presented as being the fault of their parents’ negligence in not constantly surveilling the children. In fact, parents who hover over their children are generally presented as stunting their growth.

If school sports today involved making decisions, managing other people, and pushing for excellence for the sake of the team, then yes, the football field would be covered with glory, and boys would become men there. Besides having a lot more fun.

Today we see danger everywhere: in every stranger, in every cough, in the other kids at school…. Is there anything we don’t worry about? Too often it seems safest to keep the kids of all ages indoors at home, and placate them with screens—with all the parental controls turned on, to be sure. 

We can’t go back to a world in which twelve-year-olds walk across Milwaukee or take rifles out hunting alone and in which parents hardly expect to see their children between sunrise and sunset. If nothing else, our current legal structure won’t allow it. 

But can we at least try to move in that direction a little? 

Certainly, the world is dangerous. If we let our kids play outside, hang out with the neighbor kids, walk to school, there is a small chance something horrible will happen to them. Every single time I let my children play outside the fenced yard, walk to school without an adult, or cross the street to play with the neighbors, I feel this fear. 

But weighed against the absolute certainty that my children will be stunted in their physical, psychological, social, and spiritual health if I do not allow them any independence, the chance seems worth taking. Every single time.

(photo by pixabay)

In my late teens I read every book about prison camps I could get my hands on. I think my interest at the time was about half morbid fascination with the horrors humans inflict upon one another, and half idealistic admiration for the nobility and heroism that some people have shown in the face of such treatment.

And so when I picked up One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, I found it unsatisfying, and so boring that I never got past the first few pages. I wanted heroes fighting and defeating tyrants, and Ivan Denisovich disappointed me. So I put the book down and read something more sensational and romantic.

Now that I’m a thirty-something mom with four small children, I no longer want to read about Soviet prison camps. I still believe in heroes, but I’m more interested in how to live well in my own circumstances than under conditions that I sincerely and hope pray will never afflict me. Children have a way of bringing perspective. Imagining yourself heroically resisting the NKVD is one thing; imagining your child suffering the same fate is something else entirely. 

It was easy to imagine I would have the courage to resist such evil when I was young and single. Having experienced both the self-erasing pain of childbirth and the love for my family, I no longer want to even think about such things. 

So when I recently picked up Ivan Denisovich again, on the recommendation of my husband, I looked at it with very different eyes. And found it beautiful. 

For anyone not familiar with Solzhenitsyn’s work, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is exactly that: a play-by-play account of a single day in the life of a prisoner in one of Siberia’s worst labor camps. Shukhov is hungry and cold, beaten down by oppressive regimentation, and even the prospect of possible future release brings little hope. As a portrait of life in the Gulag, Ivan Denisovich is detailed and accurate. Alexandr Solzhenitsyn lived through the labor camps, and knew what he was writing about. The neverending hunger, the constant battle against the cold with insufficient clothing—in one scene the guards inspect the prisoners to make sure they aren’t wearing any extra “non regulation” clothes, making them strip off their shirts in the biting cold.

But all of this is background. Ivan Denisovich is not sensational. It does not dwell on the gory details. Nor is Shukhov’s story romantic. Shukhov doesn’t mount a revolt against the unjust system. He doesn’t even plan an escape. But what he does is somehow more inspiring. 

Despite the dehumanizing system, Shukhov maintains a certain dignity. He empathizes even with the guards. He is loyal to his friends—and while he takes every opportunity to get a little extra food or warmth, there are things he disdains to do. He will not beg. Instead he finds ways to be useful to other prisoners, like mending their coats. 

Most importantly, he takes pride in his work. He’s a carpenter, but he also knows how to lay brick, and when his team is assigned to build a wall—even though it’s so cold the mortar freezes in the hods—he insists that it be done well. He goes to great lengths to make sure he gets to use his special mortar trowel, the one that feels right in his hand. He carefully sets up his plumb line and does extra work to make sure that the wall he builds will be a good one—though he will not be rewarded for it. He becomes so wrapped up in it that, not wanting to waste the last bit of mortar, he actually risks getting into serious trouble and angering all the other prisoners by staying late to finish. 

On the face of it, what Shukhov does is stupid. Why risk trouble to finish the work he’s being slave-driven to? Shouldn’t he conserve his limited energy and do the bare minimum, since he won’t get any reward for it? 

If I’d gotten to this scene the first time I picked up the book, I think that is exactly what I would have thought. But then I had no idea what a luxury it can be to just work. To just do a project from start to finish, without interference. I had no idea what a pleasure it can be to have good tools, and do work you can be proud of. 

Shukhov doesn’t fully understand it himself, but he has to build that wall and build it well if he is to stay alive. If he loses his craft, his pride in his work, he will lose himself.

There are a lot of ways to read the scene: 

Shukhov is in a flow state as he lays brick, and flow states are inherently pleasurable, even if the work being done is hard. 

Shukhov is good at laying brick, and so for those few hours, he has a sort of importance. The self-important supervisor can’t lay brick as well as he can. The other guys have to run him bricks and mortar to keep him going. They are under his orders as long as he is wielding that trowel. 

But what struck me most forcibly about the scene is that he keeps going when the cut-off whistle blows. He insists on using up the last mortar rather than wasting it. It pains him to see good materials and good work go to waste. He risks trouble to just finish the job off to his own satisfaction. 

This aspect of the scene struck me because the night before I read it, I had stayed up late to fold laundry. Not because I thought I had to, but because I wanted to. I should have been in bed catching up on lost sleep, but instead I was folding laundry, and luxuriating in the fact that no one was going to stop me. It’s not that I love doing laundry. It’s that I love doing what I’m doing. I love being able to finish a project, and with four kids I almost never get the opportunity to do it. I start loading the dishwasher, and I have to quit half-way through to feed the baby so the stuff gets dried on the dishes and the washer can’t get it all off. I start sweeping the floor, but have to stop to change a diaper and get someone food and sort out a fight and by then the toddler has pushed a dump truck through my pile of dust seventeen times and it’s scattered all over the floor again…and then it’s time to make supper. 

My life sometimes feels like an unending succession of unfinished tasks and wasted work. I get something half-way sorted only to have someone dump it out as soon as my back is turned. I clean the wall only to have a child draw on them with markers again. 

Sometimes I hear other ladies talk about what they do when they have a babysitter: shopping, scrolling social media, going out for coffee. When I get a babysitter, I work. I write. I sew. Sometimes I even clean. And I look forward to it all week. Those few hours a week where I can just do what I’m doing until it’s done. Where I can do something I’m good at, something I can be proud of, something that lasts. 

I do not live in the gulag. I have plenty to eat, a house that is warm in winter and cool in summer, and the freedom to be with my husband and children whom I love. 

But I, like Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, have something in myself that wants to build. Something that would shrivel and die without an outlet, leaving me diminished.

Shukhov in the gulag would lose his humanity if he had no work he could take pride in.

And so will we. 

Back in 2018, shortly after the birth of my first child, I decided to start a blog called EnjoyingWomanhood. I wanted to share ideas with other people, and I hoped that I would eventually make some money. Over the last six years, I have enjoyed writing, thinking, and sharing ideas. I have also given birth to three more children, decided not to start a clothing line, and discovered that blogging is not terribly lucrative, at least not the way I was doing it. And I wrote two science fiction novels, discovering in the process that writing fiction is much more fulfilling for me than blogging.

But I still have the occasional idea that itches to be shared, and I want to be able to tell people about my books, and occasionally share a short story with readers. And so I will be combining my author website with my life ideas blog, so that I only have to maintain one online presence. I am the same person whether I’m writing young adult space opera, or thoughts about being a mom in the twenty-first century. I hope my existing readers in both contexts will continue to enjoy my writing, and that the move to Substack will make it easier for everyone.

I look forward to sharing more ideas and stories in this new location.

For as long as I can remember thinking about the dynamics of a marriage that I would want for myself, I've known that I wanted to marry someone who had a goal besides getting married. I wanted to join a man on a mission and partner with him in achieving it. Somehow just having a family never seemed like enough of a goal. 

Now according to Catholic thought, the purpose of the family is the procreation and education of children, and the mutual love and support of the spouses. Families are where new people come from. 

So it might seem a little odd to argue that a family needs a goal beyond itself, a mission beyond the spouses having a functional marriage and raising functional children. 

But that's exactly what I want to argue. Families need a mission. 

Where Mission Might Come From

Now in some cases—perhaps the vast majority of cases throughout history—the overarching goal of most families was simply survival. Every member of the subsistence farmer family or hunter-gatherer family has to work hard just to ensure their survival through the next winter. The sense of mission is built into the life. The mission: survive the next winter without losing any family members. 

A step beyond survival, status can also serve as a mission. Ensuring the survival and renown of the family name. The mission: maintain the family's power and prestige by whatever means necessary…. Because if you don't, you'll end up on the bottom of the pile and likely not survive.

I am by no means suggesting either of these scenarios as an ideal. I am not criticizing prosperity, nor nostalgically pining for some "simpler time." I simply want to point out that a sense of communal family mission is present in these scenarios, and that this sense is valuable for healthy human life and development. 

I have no desire to argue against either prosperity or comfort. There are obvious advantages to both, and the sense of struggle and striving which we need, can—and should—be supplied in other, nobler ways. 

So what if you have plenty of stuff? What if you live in 21st century America where having enough is relatively easy, and having a surplus common? What sense of mission drives the modern American family? What do they strive for? 

Why Family Mission Is Important

Even if you have plenty of material goods, you still need something to strive for. Humans are built to strive, to fight, to struggle. And so I believe it is impossible—or nearly impossible—to raise children to be truly virtuous adults, unless you set your family a goal beyond just “raising good kids.” 

If you as parents set your goal as a family to "raise children" then what will your children have to do besides "be raised?" Virtue is acquired by repeated acts. And "being raised" is not an action. It is something done to you, not something you do. A child cannot become virtuous by "being raised," any more than a student can become wise or educated merely by "being taught."

Children—and all of us—actually have to do something, if they are to become fully actualized humans. Hence the need for a family mission. A goal set for the whole family, that requires action on the part of every member of the family. So how will a family mission help you raise happy, well adjusted, responsible…. AKA virtuous humans? 

The Mission Will Demand Sacrifice

Everyone who wants to raise children to be virtuous people seems to recognize that giving kids everything they want all the time doesn't lead them to acquire virtue. Setting aside your own desires for the sake of something bigger and higher is fundamental for becoming a responsible, noble, virtuous adult. Not getting your way all the time is an important part of growing up. 

But as a parent, it's hard sometimes to know how to best present opportunities for this lesson. I can actually afford to buy my kids candy, balloons, or whatever. There is no pressing physical necessity for my small children to push their limits physically or mentally. Our economy is structured such that four year olds don't actually have to do economically productive work in order to stay alive. (And I am certainly glad I don’t have to send my daughter into a coal mine!) So how do I determine when I'm just being a control freak and a killjoy, and when I'm really "doing it for their own good?" 

A family mission helps with this. If there's an overarching goal that all family activities are in some way directed toward, then this gives an explanation for why the answer is sometimes no, or why work needs to be done. A family running a true family business, for example, would revolve around that work. "Mom needs you to help make dinner right now instead of watching cartoons, because she needs to wait on a customer." "We can't buy that expensive toy today because we're saving for a new piece of equipment." 

This is so much more satisfying—both for the parent, and the child—than "You can't do that because I think it's good for you to not always have what you want."  

The Family Mission Imparts Value

Children desperately want to be helpful. They want to do real work, even before they are capable of it. Even toddlers are insulted by being told, "you can help mommy by coloring quietly." Your three-year-old knows that coloring doesn't actually help mommy and that he's just being brushed off. (Even though you could actually get your work done faster if they would just go color!) 

Is the situation different for a ten year old who's told that his job is to do his school work? All that does is tell the child simultaneously that he's the center of the world and that he's a work in progress, who has no value until he's finished. If the family's only mission is to have perfectly raised children, then the children will feel like failures as long as they are not perfect—which they never will be. 

But if the family has a mission that the parents can point to and tell their children, "We are trying to achieve this goal. Can you help us?" then the child has a sense of purpose and meaning. They can feel that they and their contributions have real value: that they are doing something that only they can do. Kids might still grouse about chores, but it's easier to get kids to do chores if they can see a definite purpose for the work than if they suspect they're being given busy work.

I can see this even with my own four year old. She wants to know that she's doing something useful, and that her work will help people. "Pick up your books" is far less effective than, "Aren't you worried someone will trip and fall if those books are on the floor?" 

The Family Mission Gives Perspective

Children learn by example, and one vitally important thing that children need to learn is that there are things more important than their own desires. Having a goal beyond the family itself and its immediate desires allows the parents to powerfully model living toward something and the virtues associated with that kind of goal-oriented life.

If they have a goal they can point to, and say, "We are trying to do this. In order to achieve this goal, we are going to do these things and make these choices," they can model intentional living. 

They can also model dedication and self-forgetfulness. Parents can certainly be—and are—dedicated and self-forgetful in the service of their children, and raising good people is a worthy life-work, but children can see this example of dedication and self-forgetfulness more clearly if it's directed towards something other than themselves. Efforts directed towards oneself are more difficult to see clearly. It is as though they are foreshortened and distorted by being viewed so closely. 

And while children do learn by example, they learn even more powerfully by doing. 

If children are the parents’ goal, then what is the children's goal? Themselves? Constantly perfecting their own selves? Putting on their own clothes, doing their own school work, cleaning up their own messes? (All of this is wonderful and necessary, of course, but when will they learn to move beyond themselves? Some people might say that they must learn to care for themselves before they can move beyond, and there is some truth in that. But in my experience, they will learn far faster if they can see the needs of others and begin to see themselves as having power to help others.)

When will they learn to direct their goals and actions to something outside of themselves, if they are not invited to join their parents or community in doing so while they're still children? 

Having a large family can go a long way toward this. If Mom can't keep up with the work and the older kids have to pitch in for their younger siblings, this will automatically help the kids learn how to contribute to something bigger than themselves. But what about the younger kids in this family? The stereotype of youngest kids is that they are selfish and spoiled. And it will probably be the reality if their family cannot enroll them in the service of a worthy cause. 

Family Mission Helps Parents

As a side note, I think having a sane family mission can help parents survive parenting as well. Instead of endlessly trying to perfect the child-experience—enrolling children in all the activities, and obsessing over their development or lack thereof, the parents can see their children as co-workers in an enterprise and can more easily direct their efforts for their children's well-being and happiness. Children with real, purposeful work will be happier and less bored, and more likely to actually want virtue. They will be able to see how virtue makes them more effective. Teachable moments will occur naturally, and not have to be artificially constructed. And parents will realize that there are other things they need to do besides just parenting, and be relieved of guilt for not constantly entertaining (stimulating?) their children…which, in a virtuous cycle, will make the children more independent and easier to parent. 

Choosing a Family Mission

Finding the mission of your family can be hard. As hard as discovering your own vocation as an individual. But opening oneself to the Will of God and seeing where it takes you is worth the effort. Look for ways your family can make your community better as a whole. Perhaps there is a pressing need that a new business would fill, and your family has the ability for it. Perhaps loneliness is an issue in your community, and simply practicing Christian hospitality will bring people closer to God and each other. 

There are as many vocations for a family as a whole as there are for individuals. If we start thinking about family life this way, it will make us happier and better, as children, as parents, and as communities.

“I want a sandwich!” “I want more juice!” “Juice!” “Give me that!” 

Children never seem to ask properly for the things they want. I was making a sandwich for my daughter’s lunch today when she came into the kitchen and demanded it. And suddenly I didn’t want to give it to her anymore. Like most people, I don’t like being ordered to do things. I don’t like being yelled at. I appreciate being treated with consideration.

I also want my daughter to understand that she cannot tyrannize over everyone, demanding that others kowtow to her will. I want her to be polite.  

But somehow, my kids never seem to ask properly the first time. Never. They always have to do it wrong first and be reminded. Surely, we adults think, it’s not so hard to say, “please may I have a sandwich.” or “Please can you get me a drink of juice.” And yet somehow the kids never try that first, before whining, yelling and demanding. It’s always an afterthought; something they have to be reminded to do. 

We adults think that we always ask politely first, and that it’s not so hard. That kids could do it if they just tried. As I imagine most parents do, I frequently apostrophise my children on this topic. “Why can’t you just ask nicely to start with?” 

DO we ask nicely? 

It occurred to me today, though that maybe we adults don’t always ask nicely the first time. Certainly there are muscle-memory habits of saying please and thank you for things.  We generally do ask “please pass me the salt” at the table, because we have learned from long experience that it is the easiest way to get the salt. 

But in the things that really matter and that are not so socially scripted, I think we are far less courteous about how we ask for things than we think we are.

Courtesy is Hard

My children don’t say please the first time, because politeness—even the most basic forms of politeness like saying please and thank you—requires thinking first of another person’s wants, feelings, and desires, rather than our own. 

Children are so immediate in their perception of the world that they find this nearly impossible. My daughter sees a sandwich and she wants it. So she says so. She comes across as rude and unpleasant simply because she’s self-absorbed, as all children her age are. And as most adults are. She doesn’t think first about how her way of expressing herself will make me feel. 

But who of us really do? I try not to berate my kids in demeaning ways at least, but I often yell at them in a demanding tone to get what I could probably get more effectively by asking nicely. And in my relations with other adults, I am often so focused on what I want or need that I don’t notice that I’m hurting others and simultaneously sabotaging my own chances of getting what I want. 

Sometimes hurting other people’s feelings is unavoidable, but we should always at least try to figure out where they’re coming from before trying to change their behavior. 

To be clear, I will still make my children ask nicely for the things they want. I will still try to help them develop true courtesy, and in the meantime at least learn the social scripts that mimic it.

But hopefully I’ll be a little more patient with them in the meantime, and I hope their innocent rudeness will remind me to work a little harder on my own practice of courtesy. 

In the book of Exodus, the Israelites are brought by God out of the land of Egypt where they were enslaved, and taken into the desert. God has worked miracle after miracle for them by this point, ten plagues, walking through the Red Sea, but once they find themselves in the desert, the Israelites complain that they have no food. Somewhat understandable. After all, they have no food. But then God literally makes it rain food. Food appears every morning except on the Sabbath, and all they have to do is go pick it up. 

But then they complain about that! When I was a kid and read this story, I thought, “Those dumb Isrealites! God has given them absolutely everything, and now they’re going to whine that they don’t like the way it tastes! What a bunch of ungrateful brats!” 

And there’s something to that. We complain about our blessings too. We forget just how amazing the things we have are and whine that they are not exactly to our liking. And there was likely some of that in the Isrealites complaint. 

What really bothered them about the manna

But I think there was more to it than that.

The manna came down every night (except the sabbath) with the dew, and melted away with the dew. They could only gather enough for each day; there was no saving up, no planning for the future. 

That, I think, is the real reason they complained. They had to trust God for their food, every single day. They couldn't rely on their own efforts. They couldn't plan ahead, store up, or anything. They just had to radically trust that God would keep sending the mysterious food. 

We humans like to feel in control. We like to think our lives are in our own hands—and we do certainly have agency. But ultimately we are thoughts in the mind of God, utterly dependent for our very existence on His continuing to think us. We are as dependent on God as ideas you've never expressed are to you. If you cease thinking that thought, its existence ends. 

We hate to be reminded of our radical dependence. We hate to be reminded that we aren't in control, that we aren't permanent, that we can't know all the answers. And that's exactly what the manna was doing. It was God saying to His people, every single morning, "Remember, I am God, and you are not. You cannot live unless I provide your food."

I think that's why they complained. Because none of us want to be reminded of our ultimate dependency. 

The things I complain about

I certainly don't like being reminded that I'm dependent and temporary. I realized lately that the things that upset me the most are precisely the things that remind me of my dependency and the impermanence of material things. 

I am furious when my kids break things or waste things. And I'm somewhat justified in that; they shouldn't be doing that. But my anger is out of proportion to the cause, and I think it boils down to the same thing: I want the order that I have set in my world to remain. I want to feel that I am in control of at least my little corner of the world. 

Besides waste and damage, the other thing that I find most frustrating in my life as a parent is the constant changing of plans. I organize a fabulous plan for my day…but then the toddler throws up. I envision a workflow for making dinner, but then the toddler wants to "help." (Yes. I visualize a workflow for making dinner. You don't?)

I imagine a schedule…and then my child can't find her shoes…again. 

Little things, all of them. But frustrating. The degree to which I find these little things frustrating, is, I think, a sign that there is more to it than the thing itself. 

Perhaps my anger and frustration with my children comes from the same source as the Israelites' complaints about the manna. I just don't enjoy being constantly reminded that I am not God. 

Both the manna and our children are direct gifts from God, and they serve the same, not always welcome purpose: to remind us that we are dependent on God for our "daily bread." 

No one likes suffering. Suffering is evil. 

Modern Americans are determined to eliminate pain. We keep patenting stronger painkillers, designing softer and stretchier clothes, and inventing new ways for mattresses to perfectly conform to our temperature demands. 

But at the same time, many of us deliberately inflict pain on ourselves. On the healthier end of the spectrum, people work out and brag about their sore muscles, or proudly complain about their strict diets. Military boot camps are made deliberately miserable, partly to encourage physical and mental toughness, but also to give the soldiers a sense of unity and pride, since they succeeded where others did not. More unhealthily, some people form addictions to tattoos and body piercings, and finally there are the sad and desperate people who cut or otherwise abuse themselves. 

But why? Pain is always seen as something to be avoided. No one likes pain. And yet people deliberately seek it out. 

Reasons people seek pain

This is by no means a phenomenon which is limited to 21st century Americans. Most cultures have some ritual practice which involves discomfort if not actual pain. Many of these practices are religious in origin, such as fasting for Christians--and the Lenten fast used to be much stricter than it is now--or dangling yourself off hooks on procession floats for Hindus

Others are more social. In many tribal cultures boys need to prove themselves men by suffering some sort of ordeal--sometimes a prolonged, horrifying one. Girls too are often expected to undergo painful rituals to prepare them for adulthood. These ceremonies simply indicate that the initiate is now part of the tribal group, with all its rights and privileges. 

But pain remains something that humans try to avoid, and rightly so. Pain is a signal our body sends that something is wrong. Pain, except considered as information, is a physical evil. And so pain cannot be sought for its own sake. This would be contrary to human nature, which is ineradicably directed towards goodness. Why then do people in every place and every time seem to seek it out? 

While some more or less imbalanced people seek physical pain as a counter-irritant to mental pain, or in a misguided attempt to assuage feelings of guilt, the majority of people who deliberately undergo physical pain are looking for something else.

Everything worthwhile has a price

Nature teaches us that all good things come at a price. The beautiful flower must shrivel and die to produce the seed-bearing fruit, and the seed in its turn must die to produce a new plant. Trees must die to provide shelter and heat for humans, and animals must die so that other animals can live. No child is born into the world without pain. 

Everything worth having comes at a price, and for humans, the highest price is the price of pain. 

So painful tribal initiation rites, though some of the more horrifying are probably satanic perversions, have their purpose. Undergoing an excruciating initiation rite does not indicate a desire for pain as such. Rather it expresses the initiate's desire to accomplish something great, something deeply worthwhile. If achieving full adult membership in a tribe comes only at tremendous cost, it must be worth a tremendous amount. What we value most we pay the most for, and vice versa. 

Religious rites that cause pain or discomfort are similarly logical. The purpose of religion is to honor God. And how can we as humans show that we value God above ourselves but by paying some price? Sacrifice of some valued object is a common element in pagan religious rituals, as is undergoing physical pain, mutilation, and even human sacrifice. The idea is that the favors asked of the gods are worth something, and the worshipper is willing to pay that price. The greater the favor, the higher the price. 

The Christian view

Christianity transforms this idea into something nobler. In Christianity, religion is not a servile grovelling for favors, but a simple recognition that God is God and we are creatures.  Fasting has always been a part of the Christian tradition. By fasting and other penances encouraged or allowed by the Church, the Christian shows himself and God that he values God and God's laws more than he values himself and his own comfort. Religious vows--like the vow of celibacy that Catholic priests and religious take, or the vow of poverty that some religious take--take this idea even further.  The religious is saying that God is more important than even his primal human instincts to own property and reproduce. 

Even outside the realm of religious sacrifice, Christians also believe that pain and suffering can have real value in helping people grow in virtue. But Christianity also forbids mutilation, and encourages people to seek good health and happiness, and to alleviate the pain of others.

So Christianity and human nature seem to agree that pain is both valuable and to be avoided. And while this might seem like a contradiction, it is resolvable, because it's not really about the pain. Many of us face frustration, loneliness, depression, and anxiety. But these sufferings, while they can be so painful as to overwhelm the spirit, do not build up the person in any way. You cannot strive against a feeling of pointlessness in your life, or achieve moral victory over depression. No spiritual writer recommends feeling anxiety as a way to God. 

It is not about the pain. Pain and discomfort in and of themselves are evil. Being more uncomfortable is not the recipe for virtuous living. 

Meaningful effort

What is necessary for both human flourishing and Christian perfection is not suffering as such, but meaningful effort. 

We humans need to strive. We need to overcome obstacles on the way to meaningful goals. What are games if not artificial obstacles we create so that we can overcome them? But there has to be a goal, a meaning to make the struggle worthwhile. 

The endurance required by tribal rituals is given meaning by the social context. However brutal these rituals might be, they are undergone because they give the participant a sense that he has accomplished something worthwhile. And when he joins the brotherhood of his tribe as a full adult, having passed the test, he is closer to his fellow tribesmen than he would be without that test. 

Suffering the pains of childbirth for the sake of a new life is meaningful. It is hard—I’ve done it three times, twice with no pain meds—but the results are worth it. 

Suffering the pains that hard physical labor brings in order to grow food for your family's survival; that too is meaningful. But most of us have never had to do it, and that—I think—is a good thing. It is good that most humans do not have to work every waking hour to provide a bare survival diet… but with our prosperity and comfort comes the cost of having to find a new struggle. 

Finding meaning in ordinary life

Christianity offers meaning. The sufferings Christians undergo, whether chosen as penance, or simply accepted as God's will, are given meaning by our Faith, and bring us closer to God. The connection between these actions (or sufferings) and their supernatural meaning is hard to see, however. 

To suffer discouragement and depression for the salvation of souls… where is the connection? Suffering loneliness for the good of your country? How does that work? 

We suffer, not the same way other Christians in other times and places have suffered, but we do suffer. No Roman emperors stand by with racks, whips and ravening lions to test our Faith. The specter of starvation rarely lifts in head—the last major famine in the West was over 100 years ago. Even the fast of Lent prescribed by the Church has been mitigated. 

Our sufferings come from health problems, financial worries, family drama, worry over our children’s future. And even if we manage to escape from those, mental anguish, loneliness, frustration, the pain of misunderstanding lie in wait. We might surround ourselves with more and more physical comforts and distractions to drown it out, but we cannot escape the suffering in our own minds. 

But this suffering is unconnected to anything. It is not the result of striving—as the pains of childbirth or physical labor are. It is the opposite. It is the result of having nothing to aim for, no goal on the other side of our obstacles. 

To be happy healthy humans, that is to say, virtuous humans, we need to strive for a difficult goal. It is the nature of humans to shrivel without a goal to live for. 

But what goal? And how shall we strive? What mission can we undertake? 

Yes, we strive for salvation. Yes, we strive to follow the commandments. We raise our families. We do our jobs. We do routine maintenance, the million sisyphean tasks of housekeeping and parenting. These things must be done. And we can "offer them up" along with our physical and mental pain. Spiritual writers like St Therese of Lisieux assure us that these tasks and pains and struggles can bring us closer to God, if taken in the right way. Far be it from me to contradict St Therese. 

What if we need more?

I wonder sometimes, however, if we expect too much from our mental muscles. It is hard to see the connection between routine tasks done every day (even with a morning offering) and the glorious service of God.  It is hard to see how renewing car registration paperwork or suburban loneliness relate to the passion and death of the God-man and the work of salvation. Maybe you, reader, are capable of this mental workout. I personally find it all but impossible. 

Much of the life of a religious involves the same daily grind as the life of a layperson. Monks and nuns have to take showers, scrub dishes, cook meals, and tidy things up, just like laypeople. But their lives are dedicated directly to the service of God, and everything about their rule is designed to remind them of this fact. They wear a uniform and live together with others who have made the same consecration. They have scheduled prayers and activities. 

The religious rule is, of course, not applicable to married people like myself. It would be inappropriate for me to wear a religious habit. The very existence of babies—those maddening and delightful creatures—renders order and schedule and fixed prayer (or sleep) routines impracticable. As for life in community—well, I do believe in single family dwellings and the autonomy of the married couple, within reason. 

Is it possible though that we spend more effort than necessary in doing the mental gymnastics of trying to see connection between our Faith and the daily grind, when perhaps what we should be looking for is a way to make more connection between them? 

I haven’t yet come up with a solution to this question. Are active and dynamic religious third orders for married people the answer?  Or community living and radical charity as practiced in Catholic Worker houses? Stronger parish associations? 

We don’t need more suffering in our lives. What we need are more reasons to suffer. We need friends who will suffer and pray with us and for us; who will hold us accountable and encourage us. We need concrete goals to work for, a way of bringing our Faith to life in physical reality.

I don’t know what this looks like. If you have any ideas, please share them with me. 

I recently heard it said that white lies were the lubricant of society—that everyone lies constantly and that social life would be intolerable if we didn’t. If you go to a dinner party and the conversation was mediocre and the food bland, you say, “It was delicious and I had a wonderful time.” A lie…. But doesn’t society work better when everyone tells that sort of lie? When we smooth out the rough edges of reality for our neighbors, and let them see only what they want to see? 

This is merciful. This is right. Or at the very least, it’s how you have to do things to be liked. Or so we tell ourselves. But this is itself a lie, a deeply destructive one. 

“White lies” rob the hearer

Perhaps white lies take the sting out of failure, but they also take the shine from achievement. 

Let’s suppose I host a dinner party—as all who are able should—and it is an utter failure, but people tell me, “I had such a great time. Your cooking is fabulous.” In their mind, they are sparing me embarrassment, making me feel better, and in general being good, responsible friends. But I am not an idiot. I know if I did a decent job cooking or not. I know if I planned badly and invited an incompatible group of people. Their praise will fall flat.

Worse, if my failures are praised as wonderful, what about when I think I have succeeded? Will I receive the same feedback? Will I be told, “I had such a great time. Your cooking is fabulous?” If I am told I succeeded when I didn’t, how will I know when I have really done something good? There will always be that lingering doubt. “Maybe they’re just saying that to make me feel better?” 

Imagine for a moment how glorious it would be to know that no one would ever tell you a lie about yourself to make you feel better. That any praise you received was the person’s absolutely sincere and convinced opinion.

“White lies” are not the only way to be polite. 

This is not to say that we should say whatever nasty thoughts come to the top of our minds all the time. Telling all of the truth all of the time is hardly the right answer. It would be horribly impolite and possibly even cruel to tell the hostess of a dinner party, “I was bored out of my mind and the roast was dry.” But it’s not as though there are only two options: either be rude or lie. 

Suppose the meal was really terrible. Suppose you were bored out of your mind. Was nothing about the experience good? Maybe as you leave you can tell the hostess, “Thank you so much for inviting us. That was such a lovely bouquet you had on your table.” Or “That pie was good.” If you honestly cannot think of a single truthful compliment—and I think it would have to have been a remarkably bad evening for that—then simply say, “Thank you so much for inviting us.” 

It is not rude. And you have not degraded the truth by saying it. 

“White lies” rob the teller

To go back to our failed dinner party—not that anyone wants to go back to one of those—imagine that you do always fall back on the white lie so that you don’t have to say the unpleasant things in your mind. Then there’s no motivation for you to change the things you notice. It’s not socially unacceptable to have negative thoughts… just to express them. Even if you never express your unpleasant thoughts, they still poison you. You will come home from that lousy dinner party after telling the hostess what a wonderful time you had and how much you enjoyed the food, and your thoughts will be something like this: “Wow. What a waste of an evening. What horrible food. I really can’t stand that one guy who was there telling lame jokes. I should just stay home next time someone invites me out. It would save a lot of trouble. I’m so disappointed in humanity.” 

But now suppose for a moment that you had made a pact with yourself never to say anything you did not honestly think. You would have to search your mind for something positive about the evening. Perhaps there was nice wine, or maybe the hostess set the table in an elegant way. Perhaps you were just grateful to get out of the house and the dinner party was an excuse.

Whatever the case, you are now looking for the positive. Courteous truthfulness is like keeping a gratitude journal. It forces you to look beyond the negative and see the other story you could be telling yourself. 

Let’s start being courteously truthful instead of telling polite lies. It makes everyone’s life better, starting with yours. 

It's been a long time since I posted here. I never wanted to be that blogger, but... life happens. In this case, life handed me some pregnancy depression and then a wonderful charming baby.

I'm finally back, and I'd like to share some of what I learned about dealing with temporary depression. I say "temporary depression" because if depression is your everyday reality and you don't even know what you are like without it anymore, you should probably get professional help of some sort. If you're suicidal, you definitely need some expert help. There are non-drug options out there. I personally had a good experience with a homeopath several years ago. Whatever the case, if your depression is permanent or very severe, these tips probably won't be enough. These are just suggestions for how to get through the occasional rough patch.

Talk to someone about it

This can be incredibly helpful. If you feel hopeless or discouraged, bottling up your negative thoughts inside can make it worse, because you don't have the energy to challenge them. Sometimes you need to get those hopeless and discouraged thoughts out in front of someone else so that they can tell you how wrong they are. Of course, if you confide in the wrong person this can be the opposite of helpful. You need a person who wants your good, first of all. Next, it helps if the person has some understanding of depression. "Just snap out of it," is rarely useful advice. Neither is, "You're not praying enough," or "Offer it up." Prayer is good, yes. Prayer can be helpful. And depression is certainly a cross that can be offered to God. But if you're really down and asking for help, it's likely you can't even remember how to pray. You might feel like you hate God, as well as everything else. You might be able to offer up your misery anyway, but you still need help. So try to find an understanding friend who cares about you and is not currently depressed themselves.

Ideally this person will sympathize and then help you strategize.

When you tell someone about your feelings of depression, it's helpful if you don't start with, "My life is awful! I hate everyone. Everyone is awful. No one loves me." This might be how you feel at the moment, but probably not actually true, and it's very hard for your friends to hear.

You will get better results if you can objectify your feelings. Your feelings are a real thing that you have to deal with. Just because they aren't themselves an accurate reflection of reality doesn't mean that they aren't real. It is objectively true that you are feeling that way, and that you need help managing that experience. So if you can, try saying something like, "I am feeling depressed. It feels like hopelessness and misery. I know there are good things in my life, but I can't feel that way right now. I know the world is actually colorful, but it feels gray right now. Do you have any idea what I could do that would make me feel better, or manage my feelings better?"

Get out of your head and do pleasant things

When you're depressed, the last thing you can usually do is get out of your head. So why is it on this list? Because it's still what you need to do, even though it's impossible. So maybe this heading should be something like, "do pleasant things that are easy to start and force you to get out of your head." But that didn't sound very catchy.

My personal go-to strategy for this one is to text a friend and say something like, "Hey are you busy today? I'm having a bit of a rough spot and I was wondering if you had time to hang out/chat on the phone/go shopping with me." I might not be able to motivate myself to get off the sofa and do something useful, but I can at least motivate myself to text someone, and they might be able to get me off the sofa. I might not be able to break out of my negative thought pattern, but at least I can call someone and say hi, and they might be able to make me talk and think about something other than how much I hate everything and what a loser I am.

When none of your friends are answering the phone you can try listening to a podcast, reading a book, or doing an easy-to-start hobby activity to help you get past the worst of it. I spent an afternoon laying on the floor listening to multiple episodes of the Art of Manliness podcast (which I do recommend) while my kids played nearby. It was all I could do that day, and the podcast helped me get out of my cycle of negative thoughts.

I also bought a nice grown-up coloring book and used it toward the end of this pregnancy. It really did help. My kids colored their coloring books and I colored mine. I felt a bit silly, but it got me through the day, and was the closest thing to quality time with my kids that I could manage.

One other thing to try, is if you have a to-do list, pick the easiest thing on it (pro tip: always make sure there's something easy on that list) and do it. Then check it off. Making progress on a project is a great way to increase dopamine and serotonin levels, which will make you feel better.

Leave the past in the past

I talked to a counselor to help me with my depression and discovered through the process that part of what I was struggling with was not just my current emotional challenges, but baggage from my past. I had previously felt depressed and helpless, and the feeling of depression made me feel helpless again, even though I was in a different situation where I had more control over pretty much every aspect of my life and so many more options for helping myself. Just realizing that I was dealing with past challenges as well as present ones when I really only had to deal with present ones was very helpful. So take a step outside your thoughts, if you can, and see if you're subconsciously assuming things that aren't true.

Cut yourself some slack

Another thing my counselor told me was to admit that I was actually facing real difficulties and stop telling myself, "I should be able to do more, do better, be better…"

I was pregnant and had two young children to take care of. This is actually a challenging situation. Just because other people might do something harder doesn't mean that what you're doing isn't hard. Who says you should be able to manage that without some extra help? Who says you shouldn't lay on the floor and cry sometimes? Laying on the floor and crying isn't a sin, and sometimes it's all you can do. Don't make it harder on yourself by telling yourself you're a loser for doing it. All that will do is make you more depressed, more anxious, and more likely to end up laying on the floor crying.

Sometimes it's helpful to remind yourself what you did do. I fed my children and kept them safe today. So what if I also spent a couple hours crying? I accomplished something worthwhile today.

Would I rather not have spent two hours crying? Definitely. But it's more helpful and more healthy to focus on what you did succeed in doing that to beat yourself up about something you might very well have no control over.

Ask for help

You don't have to be bedridden, having a baby currently, or dying in order to ask for help. Obviously, you should do for yourself what you can, and be ready to help your friends when you can, but sometimes you do need help with physical tasks. Ask for help before you're so desperate and miserable you can't do anything.

And if your friends offer to help, do take them up on it if you want help. Don't be concerned that it's weak or selfish. It's not weak to take proper care of yourself, and no one can do life alone. If you have kids, you will need help all the more. Parenting isn't supposed to be a solo activity. It's not supposed to just be the parents. Sometimes you need to get other people to help you. Hire someone if you have to and if you can possibly afford it. Consider it an investment in your most valuable asset--your mental health.

Sometimes when you’re in the midst of parenting tiny humans, it’s easy to get caught up in the negative. They scream a lot. They make messes. They keep you from having a sane sleep schedule. Having babies makes you gain weight. They make most adult activities harder. 

All of this is true. Kids can be a pain. But they have their pluses. And I’m not even talking about the obvious things, like their cuteness, their innocence, or their humanness. Though that’s all true too. 

I’m not here to tell you to “enjoy those special moments; they’re only small for awhile.” It’s great when you can take the time to try to notice how cute your kids are…but maybe what you actually need right now is some sleep, or some adult conversation, not a few more toddler cuddles. Take care of yourself. Parenting is a marathon, not a sprint, so you have to pace yourself (wow…could I be more cliche?)

Maybe a better way to put it is that parenting is a lifestyle, and you need to make sure it’s a sustainable lifestyle, not a constant survival mode. If you’re a counselor at a summer camp, it’s okay to push yourself to the limits of your endurance, because the camp will be over in a week or two, and you’ll be able to rest up. Parenting is never really over, so you need to make sure you’re taking care of yourself properly the whole way through. 

Parenting is hard. Your kids take a lot out of you sometimes, and it can be hard to find the time to do necessary self care.

But kids add things besides cuteness now and possible future grandkids down the road. Here’s a few things I’ve noticed my kids do for me–when I let them. (I find that I’m more ready to receive these blessings from my children when I’m not sleep deprived or starving for adult company. So this is absolutely NOT saying that parenting isn’t hard or that you don’t need a break sometimes.) 

Healthy Disruption

Routines and habits are vital. Good routines and habits make life possible. But our habits, like our technology or any other thing we use, need to be our servants, not our masters. It’s all too easy to become a slave to our routines and habits when nothing disrupts our patterns now and then. Nothing is so disruptive as having a child around. Every season or so, you have to rethink your household routines, because your child is in a new stage of development. Storing the remotes and pretty glass knicknacks on the coffee table seemed like such a good idea…until the baby started crawling and pulling himself up on things. 

Kids make you rearrange the furniture, rearrange your schedule, and rethink your life choices. This might not sound like a positive, but it is. If you are never forced to examine your choices, routines, and habits, it’s too easy to slide into unintentional living. Children are a constant reminder that you have to keep deciding what’s important to you, and keep choosing it, not just drift. If you’re parenting young kids right now, it might be helpful to try to think of the constant changes and curveballs as an opportunity to consistently reexamine your habits, and not just a toppling of your neatly laid plans. 

Smelling the roses

With kids around you’re likely to smell a lot of other things too. But what I'm talking about here is enjoying the unexpected, and observing things you might not otherwise see. 

The other day I was hurrying into the grocery store with two small children in tow. Hurrying not because I was in a hurry, but because I like getting things done quickly so that I can get on to other things that I find more interesting. One of my children asked the standard toddler question, “What’s that?” and I looked. There was a dumpster in the parking lot for a renovation project the grocery store had been doing, and a truck was about to take it away. We stood there next to the grocery store and watched the whole process. And you know what? It was fascinating. I never knew before what a marvelous piece of engineering those dumpster-hauling trucks are! Or the skill their drivers need to have. 

And I would still be unaware of it if my kids hadn’t been with me that day. If I’d been alone I wouldn’t have stood there and watched. Partly because I’d have been embarrassed to. (Why, I’m not sure. It should be socially acceptable for adults to stand around and watch interesting things happening.) And partly because I wouldn’t have noticed it. 

Kids are so good at noticing things and wondering at them. As Chesterton says, “The fascination of children lies in this: that with each of them all things are remade…” And while they remake our worlds in unpleasant ways sometimes, they can also refresh it for us; remind us that the world really is a rather marvelous and wonderful place full of interesting things to see. 

Renewal of hope

If children have the power to renew our interest in the outside world simply by being interested in it themselves, they also have the power to renew our hope. A baby is so full of glorious potential. A toddler is constantly learning new skills, new ideas, new abilities. They seem potentially limitless. (Sometimes we wish their energy was not quite so limitless) 

It is strange to think that everyone started out in the same place–as helpless innocent babies. 

Remembering that everyone started out as a tiny baby can be encouraging. If Stalin was once a baby, so was St Therese. There is hope for everyone. Your children are the future, and you have a hand in shaping it.