Every parent is Monica, completely devoted to giving our
children everything good, consumed with devotion to them, and yet sometimes driving them
crazy with that very desire to protect and manage them. Children, please be patient with your
parents! And parents, please be patient
with your children. It’s so hard to
strike a balance between “being there” unconditionally for our children and
being overbearing. (For Libby and I, and
for our children, all of this is made more complicated and crazy by their overwhelming
health care needs, and because we are all so stubborn and intelligent and
intense.) But the fact that this very
struggle is what made Monica a saint—and how would you have liked being St. Augustine’s
mother?—is both inspiring and consoling to me.
Pray for us parents, and for our own parents and our children, Saint Monica!
