Local view: Large families can teach life lessons
Shortly before Mother’s Day, Arkansans Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar announced on the NBC “Today Show” that they were expecting their 18th child. As their children beamed, the nation collectively gasped.
My personal reaction was a bit different. It opened my mind to memories of growing up in a large family and to my experiences now as a parent of a large family.
I reflected on the joy and the heartache and the life’s lessons those experiences have provided me. It also drew my thoughts to the state of the family in the world today.
International and domestic attitudes and policies toward families seem to be revealing incredibly disturbing trends.
For example, last October, the Australian Medical Association published a letter by a professor of medical obstetrics who proposed that a tax be imposed on children for their carbon footprints. He recommended that a $5,000 tax be imposed upon third and subsequent children followed by a $400-$800 carbon tax per child because “every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years.”
Last May in China, thousands of parents who the government had forced to abide by an oppressive one-child-per-family policy were reeling from an earthquake’s toll of 70,000 lives and raced to adopt orphaned children to fill the hole left in their national heart. Here in America, a day seldom passes without someone introducing a position that assaults the status of our nation’s core unit, the family.
I am the oldest of six children. As an Omaha first-grader in the mid-1970s, I recall having classmates who were the youngest of 13 and even 17 children. Today, those great stories of big families seem to be increasingly scarce. While there are many reasons today that couples do not have children or choose to have smaller families, I can’t help but feel that something precious has been lost — that the value we used to place on family itself, of any size, has somehow been misplaced.
The renowned philosopher Fulton Sheen once said, “Home life is the God-appointed training ground of human character, for from the home life of the child springs the maturity of manhood, either for good or for evil.”
Sheen also was famous for making important points about life’s fundamental lessons by making lists. Here is my short list of some life lessons I learned from my home life as a child — and continue to learn as a parent — about the value of being a part of a family, especially a large family:
* Respect for authority and the value of working together.
* Learning to serve and care for others.
* The appreciation of others’ ideas and the recognition of diversity.
* The importance of honesty and trusting relationships.
* Gratitude and humility.
Strong families are the core of our local, national and global societies. As a community, we must respect, strengthen and support families and those who dedicate their lives to building strong families, especially large ones, as they will provide the training ground for not only our world’s character, but for its heart and soul.
Jennifer Gutierrez is a strategic communications consultant specializing in work with Nebraska’s Hispanic market.
My personal reaction was a bit different. It opened my mind to memories of growing up in a large family and to my experiences now as a parent of a large family.
I reflected on the joy and the heartache and the life’s lessons those experiences have provided me. It also drew my thoughts to the state of the family in the world today.
International and domestic attitudes and policies toward families seem to be revealing incredibly disturbing trends.
For example, last October, the Australian Medical Association published a letter by a professor of medical obstetrics who proposed that a tax be imposed on children for their carbon footprints. He recommended that a $5,000 tax be imposed upon third and subsequent children followed by a $400-$800 carbon tax per child because “every newborn baby in Australia represents a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions for an average of 80 years.”
Last May in China, thousands of parents who the government had forced to abide by an oppressive one-child-per-family policy were reeling from an earthquake’s toll of 70,000 lives and raced to adopt orphaned children to fill the hole left in their national heart. Here in America, a day seldom passes without someone introducing a position that assaults the status of our nation’s core unit, the family.
I am the oldest of six children. As an Omaha first-grader in the mid-1970s, I recall having classmates who were the youngest of 13 and even 17 children. Today, those great stories of big families seem to be increasingly scarce. While there are many reasons today that couples do not have children or choose to have smaller families, I can’t help but feel that something precious has been lost — that the value we used to place on family itself, of any size, has somehow been misplaced.
The renowned philosopher Fulton Sheen once said, “Home life is the God-appointed training ground of human character, for from the home life of the child springs the maturity of manhood, either for good or for evil.”
Sheen also was famous for making important points about life’s fundamental lessons by making lists. Here is my short list of some life lessons I learned from my home life as a child — and continue to learn as a parent — about the value of being a part of a family, especially a large family:
* Respect for authority and the value of working together.
* Learning to serve and care for others.
* The appreciation of others’ ideas and the recognition of diversity.
* The importance of honesty and trusting relationships.
* Gratitude and humility.
Strong families are the core of our local, national and global societies. As a community, we must respect, strengthen and support families and those who dedicate their lives to building strong families, especially large ones, as they will provide the training ground for not only our world’s character, but for its heart and soul.
Jennifer Gutierrez is a strategic communications consultant specializing in work with Nebraska’s Hispanic market.
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