When Our Children Sin

It's hard to accept when our children screw up. It's easy to blame ourselves as parents. After all, society frequently blames us. Whenever people talk about a child who has done something wrong or you read a news story about a child who has done something really wrong, someone will always comment "Where are the parents? Didn't they teach him or her right from wrong?"

And yet, if we look back on our own lives, we all have screwed up at one time or another and it probably had nothing to do with how our parents raised us. My parents were very strong in the whole "right" and "wrong" department and yet I certainly made my share of mistakes. I own them - they truly weren't their fault.

Jennifer Fitz tackles this subject in her article on CatholicMom: Radical Freedom: When The Kid You Love Breaks Your Heart

She writes:

Here’s the trouble with kids: God gives ‘em free will.

I know. I hate it too. I keep asking God to take mine back. I’d be quite happy to be a sinless automaton, thank you very much. Apparently that’s not the method that will lead to our ultimate happiness, because God keeps insisting I grow up and develop a little self-discipline. The cost of that free will is the risk that I, and you, and our children, are not always going to freely choose to do what is right.

Read more here: http://catholicmom.com/2012/10/06/radical-freedom-when-the-kid-you-love-breaks-your-heart