Don’t do for others what they can do themselves

Did New Year sneak up on you and pass you by? Did you celebrate the passing of the old and coming of the new with happiness, relief, anxiety or a mixture of feelings? Were you at home tucked up in bed and not inclined to this type of celebration? Were you out partying but came home before the witching hour? Were you watching TV and dozing off only to find that the magic hour had passed without you being fully present?

The latter was my experience and I did feel cheated.

What does New Year mean to us now? Probably others of my generation have grown cynical and no longer make resolutions or wishes. After all, wars continue and not only the poor but pretty well all of us have grown poorer this last year. But how can we grasp the future with both hands and make it work, not just for ourselves but for the sake of the kingdom?

Planning and starting on the MARFAM Lent and Easter booklet (which this year will be built around Catholic Social Teaching) occupied my mind for some time these holidays. I reflected on such themes as the common good, the dignity of everyone, solidarity and subsidiarity.

Most of these concepts are, I think, fairly well understood, if not always applied in family life. I find subsidiarity to be an especially interesting concept. Essentially it means not letting a higher authority perform a function that a lower authority can do. Or, don’t do (better) for someone else what they can do for themselves.

Apply this to family life. Don’t cover the kids’ school books if they can do it themselves. Don’t do their homework projects for them. Help them learn. Hover around, but let them try to cook a meal or bake a cake and take responsibility for certain chores, but administering reasonable disciplinary measures if necessary.

Of course the opposite applies too. Don’t help your parents with managing all the functions on their cellphones; let them learn for themselves.

Oh, oh! Now it becomes tricky and a question of who really is the higher authority. Is it the one who has the most knowledge or is the father automatically the head of the home or, as happens in so many woman-headed families, the mother? Or are the elders necessarily the higher authority?

It surely is all to do with attitude and balance and communication. Bringing in the thinking of Paul contributes to the picture too. “Love is patient and kind, does not take offence, is not jealous or conceited, does not rejoice in wrongs.”

So affirm and praise one another for little achievements, don’t put children down and undermine their confidence. Be patient with older people too, recognise their skills and the difficulties they find in the modern technological world that too easily takes a material line, fixes or trashes and replaces.

Relationships have to evolve and grow over time.  That is the family life theme for 2009 — marriage and family growing together, growing with or alongside one another and towards one another.  January’s theme of growing roots concerns becoming rooted, passing on and developing values, such as subsidiarity and working for the common good.

When this column appears I will be in Mexico at the 6th World Meeting of Families, where the theme of families as teachers and transmitters of values will be explored. I hope to return with deeper and wiser insights to continue to develop this ministry in the year ahead.

My prayer for all families now is:

May families in 2009 practise and learn the art of loving well, patiently and with kindness as we teach each other yet allow the other to learn valuable and much-needed skills for themselves.

May families model these qualities and help society to recognise and value the differences, the need for skills, yet also for tolerance and acceptance of differences. In that way families can promote the all-important value of the common good. We need each other not for what we can get for ourselves but for what together we can become.