Children offer opinions, and the parents see it as insolence. Families also teach us how to make choices. As Fulgum's story illustrates, we choose to stay with the mess or to run away. We choose to interfere or to let someone learn from a mistake. We choose to accept a certain amount of pain and conflict as part of life, or we choose to let it wipe us out.
Every day brings a little annunciation of one sort or another.
Eke Mary's Sometimes I think that if we could only take some of the humility and patience we learn from being part of family or a community, we would have a deeper, richer sense of what the kingdom of God is meant to be. The McGinnis' maintain that if we want peace on earth, we begin at home. We build it in small ways on a small scale by encouraging open communication and negotiation and non-violent behavior in families, and then we transfer that behavior to larger and larger arenas. Parenting for peace and justice means that we choose to be just and fair, and we try hard, even though there are times when everything seems to go wrong anyway. Parenting for peace and justice means that we choose to stay flexible, to be creative, and to keep our sense of humor.