Earlier this month, I had the great pleasure of conversing of an hour with the sharp-as-a-tack Fr. McTeigue of the Society of Jesus. He hosts the daily radio show and podcast the Catholic Current. The episode aired October 12. Among other topics, we discussed the phenomenon of people intentionally having fewer children than they desire.
Fr. McTeigue is an excellent and engaging homilist, whom I had the pleasure of listening to frequently when we were both in Florida for a time. As such, I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to have a conversation with him.
His observations about attention as the greatest gift a mother or father can offer a child is a subject on which I’ve thought often. We also discussed at some length the loss of intergenerational wisdom when families are severed from a steady and constant way of living and a life of faith passed from parents to children. Reinventing the wheel is an exercise fraught with perils and unintended consequences.
I would argue literature is a fabulous way of restoring a connection to the generations before us. Parents will mention frequently the benefits of watching the Australian cartoon Bluey. Through the show, mothers and fathers can witness the kind of patient and loving parenting they aspire to demonstrate to their children. The show teaches, as some psychologists put it, “There is a poignant wisdom that comes with the drudgery and absurdity of parenting.”
Life lessons are not limited to cartoon television shows. There is perennial wisdom in living out the vocation of marriage through the bearing and caring for children. It is an experience of immense challenge and great joys, joys that can often only be experienced as one grows in virtue.
While my radio interview skills still leave much to be desired, I greatly enjoyed the challenge and the conversation.
