MFP 301: How to Parent Like a Catholic

Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

Your authority in the family does not come from perfection, it comes as a grace from your parenthood.

Summary

There are two kinds of families - those that are frantic and those that are fruitful. As Catholics we have an incredible grace to be fruitful families, but often our families don’t look much different than the secular, frantic families around us! How can we live family life differently? There are so many different parenting philosophies out there. Which ones should Catholics follow? In this podcast, we give an overview of The Catholic Parenting Course - a guide for parents who want to have a roadmap for raising their families to be in the world, but not of the world. The two parts of this podcast are how to parent like God the Father and then the secret weapon of the Catholic family (our regular listeners can guess what that is!). Listen in!

Other Resources

Book: Abba’s Heart

Podcast: MFP096 and 097, Elements of a Family Culture and Building a Family Culture

Key Takeaways

• To parent like God the Father, we need to start by conforming our hearts to His.

• Unity within your marriage needs to flow out and encompass everyone, all of your children giving them purpose and belonging.

• More than anything else, our children need us to delight in them.

• Forming the hearts of our children is our sacred task. Our goal should be to hand over the locus of control from us as parents to them.

• When lived intentionally, the culture within your home can be a powerful weapon against secular forces arrayed against us.

Couple Discussion Questions

• Do we see our Heavenly Father as delighting in us? Why or why not?

• On a continuum from isolation to oneness, where are we now? How unified are we in our home?

• What does it mean to delight in our children? What does that look like for each of us, realizing that we will do this differently?

• What are the values that our family culture is communicating to our children?