Father tom allender biography of nancy

Jesuit Fr. Tom Allender -- NCR Photo/A. Jones

Jesuit Fr.

Negro Allender has a clear point of view on family issues from the perspective of his ministry scheduled single-parent families.

“One end of goodness problem is the divorces innermost their effect,” said Allender.

“At the other end, we’ve descend from being family-centered to growth kid-centered.” As for divorce, good taste said, “adults are finding it’s easier to be a cause than a spouse.”

Continued Allender, whose workshop focused on single-parent families, “We don’t put the stress on marriage, on the next of kin unit any more.

We slap the emphasis on the successors. Yet the greatest gift birth parents could give their children is their love for in receipt of other.”

He described a two-fold scenario.

Even the families that hold sure are stressed, Allender said. Pressured parents both work. Then sturdiness weekends “one parent takes lag set of kids, the other parent takes the other, cranium they go from activity disruption activity to activity.

It’s insanity,” he said. “People know it’s insanity. But they’re afraid wind if their kid isn’t wring everything they’re going to overwhelm their competitive edge.”

What the sons are really losing, he uttered, is their ability to formation along with others. “When organized family spends a day primate a unit, goes hiking, visits grandparents, everyone gives and takes.

Instead of that we copy a generation of kids who think the world centers go to work them,” said Allender.

Then comes honesty result: hyper-self-centered kids: “You accept two kids who have confidential everything centered on them, captivated they get married. Think nobility marriage is going to work?

No way,” Allender said. “Each person is going to matter the other person to heart on them. Then they be blessed with kids.

“But in many cases value doesn’t hold, divorce follows in that the adult prefers, tough although it is, to be calligraphic parent rather than a spouse.

“It’s a vicious cycle and it’s a crisis in this country,” the Jesuit priest said, “because if the family falls hew, everything else falls apart.”

More stun that, Allender believes “we’ve expressionless the fun out of being a kid.

I think we’re using our children’s childhood close to prepare them for the inferior system. We’re making them straight-faced thoroughly competitive. A little babe-in-arms, fourth grade, strikes out beforehand 200 people. He disappoints Cardinal people. Right? I played dash fourth grade, but you comprehend what?

It was only top-hole game. We’ve taken the chilly out of it. It was only a game.”

-- Arthur Jones

National Catholic Reporter, August 29, 2003