Chapter I

Keeping Your Balance
The new postmodern family is more flexible, more permeable, more urbane, but also out of balance because it fails to meet the needs of children.

David Elkind
Ties That Stress

In the early 1970s, I came back to the U.S. after working as a missionary priest in Peru for eight years. The first thing that struck me was the pet food ads on television. Frolicking cats and dogs were romping through lush green yards, their glistening fur and boundless energy a proof of the care they were getting from the smiling owners who sang the praises of the advertised pet food.

In the abject poverty of the Barriadas (slums) of Lima, the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and the Altiplano of Bolivia, I had seen people near starvation. The wide-eyed, vacant expression on the faces of starving children had burned an indelible image in my mind. To me something seemed out of balance with well-fed animals on the one hand and hungry men, women and children on the other.

The last few years I've been getting the feeling that many people are out of balance. Bonnie and I watch the media bombard families with messages of instant gratification. In commercials, people appear happy, contented and fulfilled all because they've bought one of the endless variety of advertised products. At the same time, however, we don't hear many offsetting voices that speak to our children's deeper human and spiritual sides, that speak of their souls. Because of this, we feel the need to encourage parents to get back on track psychologically and spiritually in order to nourish the souls of their children.

Something is wrong. We've all felt that. Modern life seems to have "jumped the track." At the many talks Bonnie and I give, we find people are trying to be good parents, but they don't know how to bring their families back into balance. They sense something is off with many of the values that society is espousing. For example, some well-known actors are casually portraying smoking cigarettes as "cool." Yet we have overwhelming evidence of cigarettes' deadly effects and of the powerful influence of movies on viewers, especially children. Sports heroes and a sprinkling of Hollywood glitterati give the message that cigar smoking is "in," unaware, or worse, unconcerned that young people eagerly follow their lead.

Some in the media use our precious first amendment rights to pump out gratuitous sex and inappropriate violence without considering their effects on youth. Parents need the knowledge and skills to deal with these modern problems in raising their children. Parents need to know how to make good choices to protect their children without going to an extreme and making them overly fearful and suspicious of society. In order to make wise choices, parents have to stay balanced psychologically and spiritually.
There Balance Is Missing

Balance is missing in parents whose kids have become selfish and ungrateful, even though they have been given so much, whose teenagers believe they are totally in charge of their own lives, and whose children refuse to do homework because it's unpleasant. Balance is missing in parents who say they can no longer control their four-year-olds, and whose ten-year-olds become alcoholics. It is missing in marriages where the only positive connection between the parents is the children, in families that seldom talk to each other, in parents who are more connected to their children's achievements than to their souls, and in divorces where parents use the children as weapons against each other. Balance is missing in the parent who uses his child as a confidant, and, most tragically, in families whose children run away or think seriously of suicide.

There are two kinds of balance that we have to develop: psychological and spiritual. Neither one by itself is enough to truly nurture the souls of our children. Psychological and spiritual balance are two sides of the same coin, are interwoven pieces of the same fabric, are two halves forming a whole. To exaggerate one is to diminish the other. As parents, we need to pay equal importance to and understand both if we want to nurture the souls of our children.
Psychological Balance

Psychological balance is not a permanent state of mind. It comes and goes. There are times when balanced adults feel more grounded, and times when they feel utterly lost and at sea. Sometimes it's admitting the feeling of being lost and at sea that is the proof of balance. Generally, the balanced adult is simply more balanced than not, which is all any of us can ever hope to be.

It takes years of experience with both success and failure before we can establish the priorities that make for a balanced life. That you have to be a mature adult to be psychologically balanced is hardly a new idea. Plato didn't think a person could be in charge of others until mid-life. He thought a few years under your belt was a necessary teacher.

Balanced people are not often thrown off track for long. When something upsetting happens, a balanced person usually recovers before he or she does something self-destructive or harmful to others, even though the urge to strangle is intense. My sister and brother-in-law, who have ten children, came home from an overnight trip to find that their fifteen-year-old daughter had driven the family station wagon into the side of the house, ripping out a sizeable portion of stucco and smashing the fender beyond repair. In their absence, she had decided to practice backing out of the driveway. They found the culprit shaking and crying, too frightened to talk or even to look them in
the eye. My brother-in-law, who with ten kids could write a book about upsetting experiences, put his arm around his daughter and gently told her he was happy she wasn't hurt, that the car and house could always be repaired. Here was a balanced parent showing good judgment by nurturing his daughter's troubled soul rather than punishing her already-crushed spirit. He knew blunders are part of life.

At a workshop we were giving for school directors on psychological and spiritual balance, one of them told us that her infant son had died from crib death some years before. Whenever something unusually upsetting happens, she said, her husband keeps her grounded by whispering, "Nobody's dying here."

It's not easy to keep our balance, especially as parents. Our children don't usually give us advance notice about their actions. Your preteen doesn't call you up at work and say, "Dad, I want to let you know that at 8:00 tonight I'm going to pull something that will drive you crazy." Or, your toddler doesn't warn you that in fifteen minutes she's going to throw a tantrum. It's always a surprise. I know I've gone from the tenderest of thoughts toward my kids to near-homicidal feelings in less than ten seconds.

It's a struggle to pull yourself back to the center, back to balance, back to where the soul resides. Tom, a chaplain friend of mine, described this struggle when he said, "Keeping your balance today takes a lot of energy since you have to hold the two extremes equally distant from you. It's like controlling the reins of two wild horses." Most parents know what he means.

The artist Louise Bourgeois also talks about balance as the fragile center between two extremes. We are pulled between the incessant demands of parenting and the need for a life of our own. It's only by keeping an appropriate balance between these two extremes that we are able to develop psychologically and spiritually, and, thereby, be capable of nurturing the souls of our children.
Spiritual Balance

We believe spiritually-balanced people have four characteristics: 1) they ponder the deeper questions of life like death, serious illness, suffering, evil, the meaning of life, and life after death; 2) they consider others as important as themselves; 3) they connect to a cause or belief that recognizes a power greater than the self; and 4) they experience a genuine inner peace.

Psychology focuses on making our lives run smoothly so we can avoid conflicts within ourselves and with others. There is even some common ground between spirituality and psychology since both address human suffering, resilience and change. However, the emphasis of psychology is on eliminating the symptoms that cause our lives to be unsatisfying. For example, communication skills are taught to couples or to parents and children who don't understand each other. Clinical depression is sometimes treated by medication to lessen the severity of the symptoms, along with psychotherapy to find self-fulfilling ways to deal with life.

On the other hand, spirituality focuses on what meaning my life will have had as an individual, a spouse, or a parent when I have to face death. Is there a purpose or plan to the sixty, seventy or more years I'll be alive? How do I find meaning in a serious illness — my own or a loved one's? Psychology prepares us to become better students of life. Spirituality makes us philosophers — to make sense out of life and death. Years ago the singer Peggy Lee caused many people to think about their lives with the song, "Is that all there is, my friend?"

The second characteristic of spiritually-balanced people is recognizing they are not the center of the world. Psychology emphasizes the development of the self. Words like self-worth, self-esteem, self-actualization, individuation, and independence are buzzwords in the world of psychology. Some people take this search to the extreme.

Spirituality turns the obsessive search for the self on its heels. Spirituality lingers in paradoxes. It sees wisdom in the following: only by losing the self can a person find himself and his soul; the more you learn the less you know; the more you give to others the richer you are; the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

Spirituality connects us to others. Their need is as important to us as ours is. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And "Love your neighbor as yourself" are good guidelines for people who are searching for spiritual balance. Nor is there any need to put others down or to be first all the time. Our modern obsession with being "number one" is a sad, yet graphic symptom of the absence of spirituality today.

We have also noticed that spiritually balanced people almost inevitably turn their attention to the needs of children. They see children as both vulnerable and as the hope of the future. They are willing to make sacrifices to ensure children have a brighter future.

Thirdly, spiritually-balanced people have a sense of security in life. This quality grows out of their ability to lean confidently on a power or cause greater than the self. They feel part of a plan, which gives meaning to their lives. There is great relief from believing your life has a purpose — that your life is linked and even guided by a higher power. This is what the spiritual He's Got the Whole World in His Hands conveys.

Bonnie and I can only explain our involvement in the work we do by some power outside ourselves. We set out to distance ourselves from the spiritual by emphasizing the psychological. Yet, now we are passionately urging modern families to integrate the spiritual with the psychological in nurturing the souls of their children.

Finally, spiritually-balanced people are more relaxed. They don't take themselves too seriously. They can laugh at themselves. They feel comfortable with themselves. They don't have unrealistic expectations of others or of themselves. They are not easily thrown off track by the latest fad. They are reflective and wise. As far as possible, they have made some sense out of their lives. They see good more powerful than evil. They accept tragedy, grief, and death as part of life. They are joyful. They are resilient. They are at peace.

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