Catholic Life Ministries

You Do Not Babysit Your Own Children!

…and other insights I’ve learned from Lori

by Robert Fontana

When we were a young couple filled with the naiveté, innocence, and idealism of… well… youth, we thought we were mature enough to get married, and we did.

Where were my parents? What were they thinking? How could they let their 20-year-old son —who had never, ever changed a diaper or wiped the snot from a toddler’s nose, who did not know that a checkbook needed to be balanced at the end of the month— marry?

Well, we did marry; I at the tender age of almost 21 and Lori a little bit older (24).

Ah… love and marriage, and no money;
Ah…love and marriage, and psychology (read “unemployed”) college degree and no real job skills;
Ah… love and marriage, and natural family planning!

Oh, we were so happy with three children in diapers, living in a tiny un-air-conditioned house in southern Louisiana, and working for the only professional organization that would hire a person as qualified as I was: the Church!

It was about this time that our parish was sponsoring a retreat called the “Parish Retreat.” The title was evocative. It seemed to offer something unique and enriching. Lori, fresh from birthing our third child, had the strange idea that she needed a weekend retreat. I boldly stepped forward and offered to babysit the children.

Note to young fathers; never tell your wife that you would be happy to babysit your own children. I had to call 911 and get fire and rescue on the scene to pry Lori’s fingers from off my neck as she repeated over and over again like a crazy woman,

“YOU DO NOT BABYSIT YOUR OWN CHILDREN!”

Good thing I had a degree in psychology and knew all about being patient with a new mom getting all emotional after having a baby… the third one in four years… with the other two still in diapers… and none of them sleeping through the night. After she calmed down, she went to sign up for the retreat.

Now one might think that the Monsignor at the parish would have welcomed to the retreat this devout Catholic woman, a Natural Family Planning mom and wife of his woefully underpaid youth minister. However, when he learned that Lori intended to bring a nursing infant (I’ll sit in the waaaaay back) on the weekend, he was FLABBERGASTED! SHOCKED! SCANDALIZED! “After all,” said he, “what would the other people think of this… inappropriate behavior on a weekend devoted to prayer and God?”

Lori was a little disappointed by this. “You tell me it’s God’s will that we do Vatican Roulette, I mean Natural Family Planning, and I can’t bring a nursing baby on a parish retreat?” (That’s the printable version of what she said.)

Still this incident did help me begin to look at ministry in a different light. It occurred to me that no one in the parish visited Lori when any of our babies were born. However, if she volunteered to become a Eucharistic minister or catechist, the parish ministers and pastor would fawn all over her with attention, training, and a complimentary meal.

That got me thinking about the enormous good that Lori was doing for the Church and society by being a mom, a friend to other moms and their children, a good neighbor to old Miss Agnes, and a friendly face to “Sarge” who came by each week for a jelly (no peanut butter!) sandwich.

Then I had a Holy Spirit moment. We’ve got this “back-*** backward.” The real work of the Church is not at Church, it is in the world. And the real challenge of the Church is not to train “lay ministers” for a couple of hours of work a week, though this, too, is important. The real challenge is to inspire the Christian faithful to get out of the pew and be missionaries in their world of family, school, work, politics, and commerce; in short TO LIVE THE GOSPEL!

That brings me to the point of this article. The fundamental purpose of CLM is to help Christians live the Beatitudes and be a power for good wherever life takes them. One of the best ways that we can accomplish this is to support marriages, especially for young couples with small children.

Dads, remember this and you will avoid the choke hold from your wife: “YOU DO NOT BABYSIT YOUR OWN CHILDREN!”