"Taught That Sin Does Not Matter"

I do not have the strength to have been a parent.

Looks as if I should - I'm stubborn, confident, smart, very sure of what I actually know and very interested in looking into what I don't, flexible...
I love babies, I love children, I even love, (though it's hard sometimes,) teen-agers going through their sullen phase. I love teaching. I love learning from them. I love the negotiations between generations.

I love the spats. Yes, really.

I love large, no, make that enormous families, I come from one and would happily have continued the family business, (which for generations seemed to have been producing children.)

But the good Lord knew what he was doing.
I read articles like this open letter, and I literally tremble.

Sin was introduced into all our children’s lives, and one by one we watched as they began to weaken and fall. The teenagers in our community were suffering the broken hearts, bodies and souls that sexual experimentation brings with it....
As our children’s hearts broke, they had to turn to ways to dull the pain. Alcohol and drug abuse followed shortly behind. Then, of course, mental and emotional problems. Eating disorders were rampant in our daughters’ Catholic girls’ high school. Abortions were common. Suicides not unheard of. 

The family to which I am closest, have seen the most over the years as they grew up, have lived with and cared for for solid stretches, never were in this deep a whole, nowhere near - and yet, I don't know if I could have handled even those 5.
They're young adults now, only 1 doesn't go to Mass with anything like regularity, 1 thinks too highly of drinking as a recreation, 1 lived with spouse-to-be before marrying, (presumably not to have a partner with whom to say their pater noster...)
But all in all, a really good family.
They had great parents, (their worst transgression, as far as I knew? letting a son keep a "Grand Theft Auto" in the house. Can't think of much else I would have done differently.)
I just would not have had the strength.

But Susan Fox? more than strong, she's mighty. But never mind that she "saved" her family.

Read her take on today's problems, and their long, winding, hardy and tenacious root.
We should remember, the devil does, after all, have gardening experience...