Honoring Our Parents, Ethical Adoptions, and Meatless Meals

Weekly Notes

Monday Greetings, friends. I am so, so sorry last week’s newsletter is coming to you today instead of last Friday. We were in Rock Island for most of last week, visiting my mom, and I had the best of intentions to work on the newsletter while we were home, but between a cold I couldn’t shake, the changing needs of my mom, and a nasty abrasion on my cornea, I just couldn’t swing it. Again, I am sorry, (and I have included two recipes in this newsletter by way of reparation!)

This is a free for all newsletter, but if you want to support my work (and read next week’s full subscriber only newsletter), I would love it if you upgraded your subscription today.

Question Box

Do you have thoughts on how to honor one’s parents as a single woman living out of state?

As someone who has spent the entirety of her adult life living at least ten hours away from her parents, I have many thoughts on this! It’s hard, however, to know which ones to share. Many people adore their parents and honor them as easily as they breathe. Other people carry deep wounds from abusive parents and have no relationship with them at all. I’m not sure if either group would benefit from my thoughts.

My thoughts are probably more for those who fall somewhere in the middle: those who love their parents, but don’t feel particularly close to them … or those who have become so caught up in their own life that they neglect their relationship with their mom and dad … or those who have a relationship with their parents, but struggle to forgive them for past hurts and failures. I can speak to those people, because at different points over the last thirty years, I have been in all their shoes—distant, distracted, and hurting. I’m just glad I had as many years as I did with my parents, before my dad passed away and my mom slipped into the fog of Alzheimer’s. It gave me time to grow in both my understanding of my parents and my understanding of what honoring my parents meant.

For many years, though, I didn’t think about the Fourth Commandment much at all. In our particular culture, where we tend to glorify individualism and self-determination, a lot of us don’t think about it. Honoring your parents can be as tough as practicing NFP, but you never hear people saying they left the Church because honoring the Fourth Commandment was too tough. Instead, we just don’t think about it. Which is not only wrong, but foolish. After all, it’s the only one of the Ten Commandments, that comes with a blessing attached to it: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you,” (Exodus 20:12).

Note how God doesn’t attach any qualifiers to those words. He doesn’t say, “Honor your father and mother if they’re good to you,” or “Honor your father and mother if they never fail you,” or even “Honor your father and mother as long as they’re remotely decent people.” Rather, the commandment is a blanket one. Honor your father and mother. Period. The end. Even if they hurt you. Even if they misunderstand you, fail you, or live differently than you do. Even if they don’t honor you back.

That can be a hard pill to swallow. It has to be like this, though, with no qualifiers attached, because inevitably, whether in big ways or small ways, our parents will hurt us. They will fail us. They won’t understand us perfectly or agree with our every thought, preference, and decision. Many will fail to honor us. Not because they’re monsters. But because they’re human. They’re fragile, wounded, struggling men and women just like us, and screwing up is what we humans do. It’s part of our nature after the Fall. And so God’s command to honor fathers and mothers is always a command to honor very imperfect fathers and mothers. It’s a command to honor our fathers and mothers not for what they do, but for who they are.

What does this look like, though, especially once you’re all grown up and living far from home?

The Church doesn’t spell it out in great detail. The Bible gives us a few non-negotiables, like not publicly shaming or mocking our parents (“He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die,” Matthew 15:5), as well as caring for them in old age (“O son, help your father in his old age, and do not grieve him as long as he lives,” Sirach 3:5). But most of what “honoring” our parents entails is a question of prudence. You won’t find a papal encyclical detailing how often adult children should visit and call or telling us what advice we should listen to and what advice we can ignore. My guess is, when in doubt, we should strive to err on the side of more calls and more visits. We should err on the side of more mercy, too.

I didn’t always do this. I spent a good stretch of time in my twenties at loggerheads with my parents. They never shared my piety or passion for the Faith. They also never understood why their smart, successful daughter walked away from her high-powered job in politics, not once, but twice—first to do a year of missionary work and later to move to Steubenville and study theology. They felt like I was being headstrong and wasting my gifts. I felt misunderstood and frustrated. So, for a time, I didn’t go home all that often. I didn’t call much either. I also found myself comparing my parents to my friends’ more faithful and devout parents. I faulted my mom and dad for all that they lacked. Later, in my early thirties, I avoided going home or on family vacations because I felt like I didn’t fit in with them. I wanted my family to be like my friends. Because they weren’t, I chose to spend less time with them. There were also times when I told myself (and others) that I was avoiding going home because I didn’t want to be participate in certain unhealthy family dynamics. Which is sort of true. But also a cop out. Avoidance was a lot easier than being patient, regulating myself, and not responding when my buttons were pushed.

During that time, if you asked me how I was honoring the Fourth Commandment, I probably would have answered, “By trying to be a good woman.” And I was trying. I was seeking God’s face and God’s will. I was striving for virtue and pursuing holiness. That is a way we honor our parents. I wasn’t entirely wrong. And sometimes, in some cases, it’s the only way we can honor our parents. Well, that and prayer.

But as the years passed, I realized I needed to do more. I wanted to do more. And I wanted to do more because I was coming to a deeper understanding of just how flawed I was. I saw my own faults more clearly. I saw the broken condition of humanity more clearly, too. As I did, I stopped expecting my parents to be different from the rest of humanity. In other words, I stopped seeing them as simply my parents and started seeing them as human beings with stories and struggles of their own. I also stopped focusing on what they lacked or where I thought they had made mistakes and just started appreciating all the good they did do as parents. Which, in truth, is what they had been doing with me all my life. They put up with so much from me—so much sass and condescension and anger—and loved me through it all, even if they didn’t understand me or agree with all my choices. I was the one who had decided I didn’t fit in, not them.

After that, I started going home a lot more. I also started trying to include them in my decision-making more. Not necessarily about work or dating or matters of faith, but definitely about the things they were good at: finances and managing money and home renovations. It always made my dad so happy when I would turn to him for advice about buying houses and cars. My mom felt the same way when I would consult her on paint colors or where to hang a picture. Asking for their advice became a really important way of honoring them. They wanted to feel like I still needed them, like I was still their little girl. And a phone call about interest rates made them feel that way. It was such a little thing to do. It cost me nothing. But it meant the world to them.

So, I guess that would be my advice. Yes, honor your parents by being a virtuous, kind, truthful, loving person. But also honor them by seeking their counsel and their company. Make sacrifices to be with them. Make time to call them. Bear their faults patiently. Forgive them for what they’ve done wrong. Thank them for what they’ve done right. Extend mercy, show compassion, and don’t let difficult family dynamics have the last word on your relationship with them.

I know this is not always easy for everyone. It costs money and time. Once you’re married, it requires negotiating holidays and visits with multiple families. And through it all, old wounds and hurts can make it difficult for us to want to do any of this. So can new wounds and hurts. Parents don’t suddenly become perfect and stop wounding us when they turn 50, 60, or 70. But forgiveness, understanding, and patience are part of honoring them, too. Even if our parents are still struggling to mature late in life, we honor them when we are the mature ones, capable of seeing their sins in the context of their wounds and having compassion on them as they age.

Sometimes, of course, we can’t do this. Sometimes we need to set boundaries or limit contact because of addiction, abuse, or wanton cruelty. But the hope should always be for reconciliation. The hope should always be for repairing the relationship and making peace. Maybe that’s another way we honor them: by not giving up, by praying and sacrificing and trying again and again and again to repair what has been broken.

It might not work. Healing might not come on this side of the veil. But it also might. Either way, you’ll have done your best. I don’t know if I did my best. I tried. And in the last fifteen years before my dad died and my mom faded, I had so many good times with them. But I wish I had more. I wish I had been more compassionate with my parents’ failure to understand my decisions. I wish I had made more time to be with them, regardless of their disappointment in me. I really, really wish I had gone on all those family vacations I skipped. I would give almost anything for one more trip to Door County with my parents. But that is never going to happen. I will never get that time back. It’s gone forever. And it’s gone so much earlier than I ever expected.

I don’t know if that answers your question or not. But, if you can, try not to make the same mistakes I did. Call your parents more than you need to. Make the time to visit them as often as possible. Seek their advice, while they can still give it. Listen to their stories while they can still tell them. Honor them now, while you can. Because once they are gone, there is no getting that time back or making your relationship right. At least not in this life.

My husband and I are considering adoption, but we have some concern about ethics. Do you have any suggestions?

Adoption can be an incredibly wonderful thing. It has brought more joy, grace, and beauty into my life than anything other than Christ and Chris. At the same time, even in the midst of the joy and beauty, adoption can be filled with trauma for all involved—the child, the birth family, and the adoptive family. That trauma can then be further exacerbated by ethical quagmires that need to be navigated. It is a good thing you are thinking about this from the start. Many aren’t.

For those not familiar with the myriad of ethical dilemmas surrounding adoption, here is a crash course.

First, there are the obvious big issues—agencies matching families with non-existent birth mothers and women faking pregnancies or lying about an intention to place in order to secure financial support. Both do happen and both are criminal. Both, however, are also rare.

Much more common are ethical violations that are not criminal, but that can be devastating just the same. These include (but are not limited to): pressuring an expectant mother to place her baby; not providing an expectant mother with adequate information about all her options, as well as the support and counseling she needs to make her decision; pressuring a birth mother to choose a family while she is still early in the pregnancy; denying a mother the chance to spend time with her baby after delivery (barring questions of the child’s physical safety); agencies taking on more clients than they could ever reasonably serve; agencies lying to prospective adoptive parents about the expectant mother or withholding information about her and the baby; agencies or birth families manipulating or pressuring adoptive parents into giving the birth mother more money than it’s necessary and legal to give; adoptive parents lying or hiding facts about who they are and what they value; adoptive parents breaking their commitments to birth parents about visits or communication without a just and necessary reason; adoptive families denying a child knowledge of their adoption; adoptive families denying a child knowledge of their birth family; adoptive families preventing a child from having a relationship with their birth family (if it is safe, health, and possible to do so); and many more.

If God is calling you to adopt, you have to navigate your way through this ethical quagmire. Doing that, however, doesn’t start with putting together a list of questions you need to ask an agency. It starts with putting together a list of questions you need to ask yourself. You need to thoroughly examine your own heart and intentions, asking:

1. Am I pursuing adoption hopefully or resentfully?

2. Is adoption something my spouse and have discerned together or is it something I feel dragged into?

3. Do I fully understand that children are gifts not rights, and that I am not entitled to a child?

4. Am I prepared to love and support the expectant mother through the pregnancy, knowing that she has every right to change her mind at any point before the papers are signed?

5. Am I willing to be her advocate as she makes her decision?

6. Am I committed to ensuring that any child we adopt is always told the truth about their story in an age-appropriate way?

7. Am I committed to fostering a relationship with our child’s birth family to the extent that it is safe, healthy, and possible?

Once you have asked those questions and done your best to make sure your heart and head are in the right place, you can turn your attention to agencies and consultants. Here are some questions to ask that will help you discern potential ethical issues:

1. What type of counseling support (and how much of it) do you offer to expectant moms?

2. How many times do you meet with expectant moms before presenting them with family profiles? (The more meetings, the better.)

3. How early do you allow expectant mothers to choose or be matched with a family? (Unless the agency knows the mom well/has worked with her before, early matches are often problematic. Ideally, the mother should not choose a family until late second or early third trimester, so that she has time to think her decision through; feel the baby move; begin bonding with it; etc.)

4. What happens to the money we’ve given you if the mother decides to parent? (Ethical agencies typically absorb most of the costs and apply much or all of what has already been paid to another adoption with them. This is because they have done the work to support the mother, educate her fully on her options, and help her have confidence in her decision. The more work agencies do up front, the fewer disruptions they experience.)

5. Will the expectant mother have her own advocate or will we share the same agency social worker? (The expectant mother and prospective adoptive parents don’t always have the same interests, so making sure someone is looking out for her interests and not just yours is important. This is where good adoption consultants can be really helpful.)

6. How many families do you currently have waiting to adopt?

7. How many completed adoptions did you have over the last two years?

8. How many disrupted adoptions did you have over the past two years?

9. How many of your waiting families have been waiting longer than one year? Longer than two years? (Long waits signify that they are taking too many families on)

10. Do you have a limit to the number of waiting families you will enroll? (They better say yes!)

Even after you have asked all those questions, continue to think and rethink what is happening. If something doesn’t seem right, speak up. Continue advocating for the expectant mother to get the support she needs and reassure her of all her possible options. Let her know that you are there to serve her and her child, and that you understand your role is to help them; not the other way around.

Doing all this will not make adoption a trauma-free experience. Adoption calls you right to the heart of human brokenness in a way that few other experiences do. It’s always complicated. It’s often messy. It can be difficult to do well. But difficult does not mean impossible, and despite all the complications, challenges, and heartaches, adoption is still necessary.

We live in a profoundly broken world, so for a whole host of reasons, some parents simply cannot parent. In those cases, it’s important to have strong, loving, capable, healthy couples standing by, ready to welcome the children of those parents into their home. It’s also important for those couples to advocate for the most ethical adoption possible. It is, in the end, up to us to do everything we can to serve the expectant mother and her child. So, if you believe you can do that, if you believe God is calling you to do that, then don’t hesitate to answer that call. We need more good families, who are willing to do things the right way, not fewer. Expectant mothers who need to place their child deserve nothing less.

If you are looking for help with all this, I highly recommend setting up a phone call with the adoption consulting group we worked with for Becket’s adoption (and who helped us navigate some complicated issues with Ellie’s adoption, as well). Cradled in Grace is amazing and absolutely sets the gold standard in adoption ethics. I can’t recommend them highly enough.

Do you have any ideas for No Meat Fridays, that aren’t just pasta/carbs?

I do! I’ll be including a bunch of new ones in the revised and expanded hardback edition of my cookbook (coming this Spring). For now, though, I can share a couple here: Herbed Salmon with Cannellini Beans and Butter Lettuce Salad and Spanish Shrimp and Peppers.

They aren’t carb free, but they are pasta and grain free. I’ve shared both at the very bottom of this newsletter.

Five Things I’m Loving

1. If you or someone you love had a challenging experience of religious life or working for the Church (or have a child discerning a religious vocation), I highly recommend a book called Abuses in the Religious Life and the Path to Healing by the French abbot Dom Dysmas De Lassus. It is powerful, faithful, and good.

2. Chris and I spent Friday night watching the documentary Chasing Childhood. We missed it when it came out in 2020 (I wonder why), but I am so glad we finally came across it. It is absolutely excellent (and Chris is letting Toby walk around our block by himself as I type). You can stream it for free on YouTube or watch it online at chasingchildhood.com.

3. On our drive back from Illinois, we were talking about how the US Olympic gymnastics team is so much older (and stronger) than the teams we remember growing up in the 1980s and 1990s. I went to Google to see if there was an explanation for this, and low and behold, I found a dozen recent articles on the question. It seems we were not the only ones wondering about this. This one in particular was fascinating.

4. If you are in Pittsburgh or Steubenville or just really like to drive, registration has finally opened up for the annual Pittsburgh Catholic women’s conference, sponsored by Joan of Arc Ministries, that I will be keynoting this November. This is the first conference I have spoken at since 2020, the year Becket was born, and it may very well be my last conference for quite a bit longer. Either way, I would love to see you there, so head on over to sign up, and if you are coming, let me know!

5. There is a lot I love about my new Arbonne skincare routine. What I don’t love, though, is the price. It (along with every other clean skincare line I looked at) is pricier than Beautycounter. Who knew Beautycounter was the cheap option? But there is one consistent way to save on Arbonne. It’s by becoming a Preferred Client, which is a lot like Band of Beauty, only better. As a Preferred Client you save 20 percent on every order for a year, earn free shipping on orders of $150+, and earn free gifts on qualifying purchases. Normally it’s $29 to join, but for the whole month of August, becoming a Preferred Client is free with every purchase of $120 or more. If you have been thinking about making the switch to Arbonne until Beautycounter comes back, this is the time to do it.

In Case You Missed It

Freemasonry, Hurtful Siblings, and Prayers About Hell (Free for All Subscribers)

The Sources of Our Discontent: On Happiness, Feminism, and Grandmothers (Full Subscribers Only)

Signs of Contradiction: On Trad Wives, Keyboard Warriors, and Saving the World While Losing Your Soul (Full Subscribers Only)

And now for those recipes I owe you.

Recipes

Herbed Salmon with Cannellini Beans and Butter Lettuce

Serves 6; Prep Time: 20 minutes; Cook Time 40 minutes

• Fresh Basil, .25 cup chopped

• Fresh Parsley, .75 cup cup, chopped

• Fresh Mint,.25 cup, chopped

• Salmon fillets, 6, skin on (or one 3 lb side of salmon)

• Cannellini Beans, 3 15 ounce cans, drained and rinsed

• Baking potatoes, 4 large, peeled and sliced into 1 inch thick rounds

• Red Onion, 1 large, halved and thinly sliced

• Mayonnaise, .5 cup

• Garlic, 3 cloves, minced

• Lemons, 4

• Capers, 3 Tablespoons

• Butter Lettuce, 3 small heads, roughly torn or chopped

• Olive oil

• Kosher Salt and Pepper

Instructions

1. 1.     Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit; Bring a large pot, half filled with water to a boil.

2. Wash, then prep the vegetables: chop the herbs, peel the potatoes and slice into one-inch-thick rounds; slice the onion; mince the garlic; chop the lettuce.

3. In a small bowl, combine .25 cup basil,. .25 cup parsley, .25 cup mint;

4. In another small bowl, combine mayo, capers, garlic, juice of 1.5 lemons, and remaining parsley; add six tablespoons of olive oil, and season with salt and pepper to taste;

5. When the water comes to a boil; add potatoes and boil for 10 minutes; drain, then arrange on a large sheet pan, lined with parchment paper; drizzle generously with olive oil, salt and pepper;

6. While the potatoes boil, pat salmon dry; season with salt and pepper; arrange on a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper; evenly top with herb mixture; slice one lemon into 6 thin slices and place one slice on top of each piece of salmon; bake in oven for 12-20 minutes (depending on thickness of fish, longer if cooking a whole slab), until the salmon flakes easily with a fork; set aside and cover with foil to keep warm;

7. When the salmon comes out of the oven, increase heat to 500; roast potatoes for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown; remove from oven;

8. While the potatoes cook, mix lettuce, beans, onion, and dressing in a large bowl; toss until evenly mixed;

9. To serve, divide salad between 6 plates, top with salmon and roasted potatoes

Spanish Shrimp & Peppers

Serves: 6, Prep Time: 25 minutes; Cook Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

• Red Potatoes, 2 lbs., cut into bite sized pieces

• Red Pepper, 2, cored and sliced

• Orange or Yellow Pepper, 2, cored and sliced

• Red Onion, 1 large, halved and sliced

• Garlic, 4 cloves, minced

• Shrimp, medium or large, 2 pounds, peeled and deveined

• Smoky Spanish Paprika, 1 Tablespoon

• Ground Cumin, 1 teaspoon

• Ancho Chile Powder, 1 teaspoon

• Harissa Spice Blend, 1 teaspoon

• Cayenne Pepper, .25 teaspoon

• Extra Virgin Olive Oil

• Kosher Salt and Pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 Fahrenheit;

2. In a small bowl, combine paprika, cumin, chile powder, harissa, and cayenne; mix well and set aside;

3. Chop your vegetables;

4. In a large bowl, combine potatoes with 3 Tablespoons Olive Oil, half of the spice mixture, and desired amount of salt and pepper; toss to coat, then spread out on a parchment lined baking sheet; roast for 20-22 minutes (tossing midway through) or until potatoes are soft and golden;

5. On a paper-towel lined plate, pat shrimp dry shrimp, then season with half of the seasoning mix, plus salt and pepper; set aside;

6. While the potatoes cook, heat 2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil in a large skillet; add onions and a pinch of salt; cook until they begin to soften and brown (5 minutes); add peppers and the remaining spice mixture, and continue cooking, until they are soft and beginning to brown (8 minutes); taste for seasoning, adding salt and pepper if desired and transfer to a large bowl; cover to keep warm;

7. In the same pan, heat another 2 Tablespoons of Olive Oil; add shrimp and cook for two to three minutes without stirring; add garlic; cook another one to two minutes until shrimp are pink and cooked through; remove from heat;

8. In a large bowl, combine shrimp, peppers, and potatoes; toss well; then plate