Can a broken family be fixed?

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sdegutis

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My wife and I both grew up in very low-class families. We experienced lots of yelling and fighting, we saw bad things, we picked up tons of bad habits, never really learned the right way of doing basically anything.

Then we got together and started a family 10 years ago. Needless to say, there was lots of yelling and fighting, we taught our kids bad habits, we said bad things, we never taught them how to do things properly.

Fast forward 10 years, now we’re Catholic and trying to do everything the proper way. But we have all these bad habits and so do all our children. Every day is still yelling and arguing. The house is never clean, and it’s a struggle to get our kids to do any simple responsibilities. They complain and whine over the smallest thing.

My wife is out of steam at about 9am every day. (We homeschool them, and I work from home in my office.) We haven’t brought this up with anyone else because my wife was brought up that your family problems stay in the family, never let them out.

Is it possible, 10 years into this for our kids, 30 years into this for us, that our bad habits can change, and we can actually get the kids to never misbehave, get the kids to do responsibilities, get them to do it without arguing, get them to stop being mean to each other, and actually have a clean, safe house on a daily basis? I can’t imagine that it’s possible, but has anyone done this?

For most of the past few years my hope in this happening has gotten smaller and smaller, now it’s almost gone. It seems like we just have to keep them alive until they move out, and that’s the best we can hope for.
 
sdegutis said:
My wife and I both grew up in very low-class families. We experienced lots of yelling and fighting, we saw bad things, we picked up tons of bad habits, never really learned the right way of doing basically anything.

Then we got together and started a family 10 years ago. Needless to say, there was lots of yelling and fighting, we taught our kids bad habits, we said bad things, we never taught them how to do things properly.

Fast forward 10 years, now we’re Catholic and trying to do everything the proper way. But we have all these bad habits and so do all our children. Every day is still yelling and arguing. The house is never clean, and it’s a struggle to get our kids to do any simple responsibilities. They complain and whine over the smallest thing.

My wife is out of steam at about 9am every day. (We homeschool them, and I work from home in my office.) We haven’t brought this up with anyone else because my wife was brought up that your family problems stay in the family, never let them out.

Is it possible, 10 years into this for our kids, 30 years into this for us, that our bad habits can change, and we can actually get the kids to never misbehave, get the kids to do responsibilities, get them to do it without arguing, get them to stop being mean to each other, and actually have a clean, safe house on a daily basis? I can’t imagine that it’s possible, but has anyone done this?

For most of the past few years my hope in this happening has gotten smaller and smaller, now it’s almost gone. It seems like we just have to keep them alive until they move out, and that’s the best we can hope for.
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No one has kids who never misbehave, never complain, never argue, and are never mean to each other. That is not going to happen. This is why we go to confession. (I would recommend going to confession on first Saturdays.) If they complain and do their chores anyway without having to be reminded too often and let up on their siblings with some prompting and minor grumbling that they are not really at fault, you ought to count that a major victory.

People who have had bad habits swear by the FlyLady. Change a habit at a time and be patient with yourself, and get out of CHAOS. (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome). Parents often say, “when you get out if the house, you’ll thank me for this” and never get thanked until years later, but the children do benefit from good habits.
 
Hi. I don’t have much advice but perhaps saying the rosary as a family everyday could be a good start?
 
Praying the rosary together is a very good start, and I think with your desire to change and do the right thing, family counseling will do a lot for you all. Get in touch with your local Catholic Charities and they can refer you to low cost Catholic family services. Don’t worry, bad habits are learned and can be unlearned.
 
sdegutis said:
Is it possible, 10 years into this for our kids, 30 years into this for us, that our bad habits can change, .
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With God, anything is possible. However, don’t expect habits that took 30 years to develop to change overnight. It is a long process, one bad habit should be kicked at a time
sdegutis said:
and we can actually get the kids to never misbehave,.
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Had God created kids to never misbehave, kids would never have needed parents after they are born.😉 You need to enforce appropriate boundaries and consequences with your kids. There are tons of resources out there. However, I would recommend having very few consistent rules that you insist are always enforce. If you have a lot of rules and change them all the time and never enforce them, your kids will NEVER know when to take you seriously.

Now this is just a suggestion which you may not like. It sounds like your wife and you have a lot of work ahead of you. I would propose sending the kids to a public school for a while so you and your wife have an opportunity during the day to clean and learn to communicate between the 2 of you. At night, when the kids come home, ensure they do not mess what was cleaned and slowly see you and your wife communicate in more mature ways everyday. Believe it or not, if your kids are young enough, seeing parents communicate properly will do wonders on their attitude

Honestly, even in the healthiest of families, most people would go bonkers if they were all in the house together 24/7

God bless

Angie

get the kids to do responsibilities, get them to do it without arguing, get them to stop being mean to each other, and actually have a clean, safe house on a daily basis? I can’t imagine that it’s possible, but has anyone done this?

For most of the past few years my hope in this happening has gotten smaller and smaller, now it’s almost gone. It seems like we just have to keep them alive until they move out, and that’s the best we can hope for.
 
Petersprincess1 said:
Hi. I don’t have much advice but perhaps saying the rosary as a family everyday could be a good start?
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Family prayer of any kind is beneficial – sometimes I have to start our prayers with “Forgive me, God, for be such a cranky grump of a mom today.” That usually lightens the tension in the room, because my son will giggle with my honesty. It also opens the door for him to be straight up with God.

Make sure you and your wife pray together on your own for your children and your marriage. Acknowledge any positive changes you see in each other.

Keep up the fight – God loves you and your family more than you could ever love yourself and them…

God bless you!

Gertie
 
We pray every single night together as a family, a few formal Catholic prayers and an informal personal one for each of us. Most of those times, the kids are looking angrily at each other or playing in a silly way or in some way misbehaving or being mean to someone else.

Anyway, thank you all for your advice. I am giving up hope for my family. We’re broken and our home life is pathetic and depressing and it always has been. Yes it took 30 years to make, which means it’ll take at least 30 to fix, and by that time they’ll all be gone. So no point in trying.
 
sdegutis said:
We pray every single night together as a family, a few formal Catholic prayers and an informal personal one for each of us. Most of those times, the kids are looking angrily at each other or playing in a silly way or in some way misbehaving or being mean to someone else.

Anyway, thank you all for your advice. I am giving up hope for my family. We’re broken and our home life is pathetic and depressing and it always has been. Yes it took 30 years to make, which means it’ll take at least 30 to fix, and by that time they’ll all be gone. So no point in trying.
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Take a break from thinking you should be perfect right now. Take a deep breath, and just be imperfect. God’s cool with that – that’s what grace is for.

And yeah, it did take 30 years to get this way, but no way is it going to take 30 years to undo it. But it ain’t gonna happen before bedtime, so give it a rest. Wrestle with the kids, watch a movie, have a water balloon fight. Life is messy. Focus on loving each other (1 Corinthians 13) and find something to enjoy with your family.

God bless you!

Gertie (with dirty dishes in the sink, three piles of dirty laundry, two piles of clean laundry, an infestation of earwigs in the living room – yuck!, and having to walk a path wandering through boxes of recycling and donations just to get across the room…)
 
sdegutis said:
My wife and I both grew up in very low-class families. We experienced lots of yelling and fighting, we saw bad things, we picked up tons of bad habits, never really learned the right way of doing basically anything.

Then we got together and started a family 10 years ago. Needless to say, there was lots of yelling and fighting, we taught our kids bad habits, we said bad things, we never taught them how to do things properly.

Fast forward 10 years, now we’re Catholic and trying to do everything the proper way. But we have all these bad habits and so do all our children. Every day is still yelling and arguing. The house is never clean, and it’s a struggle to get our kids to do any simple responsibilities. They complain and whine over the smallest thing.

My wife is out of steam at about 9am every day. (We homeschool them, and I work from home in my office.) We haven’t brought this up with anyone else because my wife was brought up that your family problems stay in the family, never let them out.

Is it possible, 10 years into this for our kids, 30 years into this for us, that our bad habits can change, and we can actually get the kids to never misbehave, get the kids to do responsibilities, get them to do it without arguing, get them to stop being mean to each other, and actually have a clean, safe house on a daily basis? I can’t imagine that it’s possible, but has anyone done this?

For most of the past few years my hope in this happening has gotten smaller and smaller, now it’s almost gone. It seems like we just have to keep them alive until they move out, and that’s the best we can hope for.
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  1. Public school (at least for elementary kids, and maybe for older kids if the public schools aren’t that bad). You guys are so disorganized that unless the local elementary school is plagued with daily stabbings, your kids are better off there.
  2. Fly Lady!
The 27-Fling Boogie is something you guys can do every day. If each member of the family above 4 picks up 27 items and you do that every day, your house is going to look much better very soon!

flylady.net/d/getting-started/flying-lessons/decluttering-15-minutes/

I suggest doing that before family movie viewing in the evening.
  1. Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University for the two of you (getting one area of your life under control will help you get other areas under control)
  2. “Transforming the Difficult Child.”
If you can afford it, pay to have your house cleaned. If you can get it cleaned once, then you have a chance of maintaining it that way. (I have to confess here that I’ve had a housecleaner ever since my oldest was born nearly 12 years ago. We started with once a month and then eventually went to twice a month. We’d have to literally be living off beans and rice before I’d part with my cleaning help. Things get messy in between, but it doesn’t make me feel bad, because it’s not a huge big deal to wipe up a floor that was 100% clean 48 hours ago and I know help is coming in a couple weeks. Lots of people have cleaning help–that’s why there are a million companies doing it.)

Best wishes!
 
Never mind. Please just drop it. There’s no hope for us. I don’t mean in the theological sense, because there’s always hope for everyone. But my wife and kids and I are all doomed to have miserable lives in this lifetime. So just drop it.
 
sdegutis said:
Never mind. Please just drop it. There’s no hope for us. I don’t mean in the theological sense, because there’s always hope for everyone. But my wife and kids and I are all doomed to have miserable lives in this lifetime. So just drop it.
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You’re a Christian. Resigning yourself to gloom and despair is not an option. It’s not that you cannot manage to do it, but if you give in to pessimism and gloom, that is not living the Christian life.

“…Dear friends, if we walk in hope, allowing ourselves to be surprised by the new wine which Jesus offers us, we have joy in our hearts and we cannot fail to be witnesses of this joy. Christians are joyful, they are never gloomy. God is at our side. We have a Mother who always intercedes for the life of her children, for us, as Queen Esther did in the first reading (cf Est 5:3). Jesus has shown us that the face of God is that of a loving Father. Sin and death have been defeated. Christians cannot be pessimists! They do not look like someone in constant mourning. If we are truly in love with Christ and if we sense how much he loves us, our heart will “light up” with a joy that spreads to everyone around us…” --Pope Francis

w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130724_gmg-omelia-aparecida.html

*“Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.” *― Teresa of Ávila

*“God save us from gloomy saints!” *― Teresa of Ávila

*“Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.” *― Teresa of Ávila

I’ll leave you alone, but do take this to prayer. We don’t have what you need. God does, though.
 
Well then I don’t know how to live the Christian life. Sorry to disappoint. But I do know how to live my life.
 
See a doctor and explain your feelings. You and/or your wife may be clinically depressed.

As long as there’s life, there’s hope.

What you’ve described is just a messy chaotic home with kids that squabble and whine. Everybody who has had kids for any length of time has had to deal with the stuff you describe.
 
Xantippe said:
See a doctor and explain your feelings. You and/or your wife may be clinically depressed.

As long as there’s life, there’s hope.

What you’ve described is just a messy chaotic home with kids that squabble and whine. Everybody who has had kids for any length of time has had to deal with the stuff you describe.
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No, we’re just sinners. Me, my wife, our kids. Just plain old sinners. The love in this house is dying.
 
sdegutis said:
Well then I don’t know how to live the Christian life. Sorry to disappoint. But I do know how to live my life.
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Do you really want to gamble that you’re giving up too soon? 🤷

It’s your life. You’ll do what you want to do. You can make what you will of what the saints and the Popes have taught. If changing things is what you decide you want, God will provide a way, that is what they say. It is there, that is all we can tell you. If you don’t want to believe that, though, there isn’t anything anyone else can do, whether saint or sinner. God won’t force you, and none of us can.
 
Xantippe said:
  1. Public school (at least for elementary kids, and maybe for older kids if the public schools aren’t that bad). You guys are so disorganized that unless the local elementary school is plagued with daily stabbings, your kids are better off there.
  2. Fly Lady!
The 27-Fling Boogie is something you guys can do every day. If each member of the family above 4 picks up 27 items and you do that every day, your house is going to look much better very soon!

flylady.net/d/getting-started/flying-lessons/decluttering-15-minutes/

I suggest doing that before family movie viewing in the evening.
  1. Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University for the two of you (getting one area of your life under control will help you get other areas under control)
  2. “Transforming the Difficult Child.”
If you can afford it, pay to have your house cleaned. If you can get it cleaned once, then you have a chance of maintaining it that way. (I have to confess here that I’ve had a housecleaner ever since my oldest was born nearly 12 years ago. We started with once a month and then eventually went to twice a month. We’d have to literally be living off beans and rice before I’d part with my cleaning help. Things get messy in between, but it doesn’t make me feel bad, because it’s not a huge big deal to wipe up a floor that was 100% clean 48 hours ago and I know help is coming in a couple weeks. Lots of people have cleaning help–that’s why there are a million companies doing it.)

Best wishes!
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Excellent advice here. I am not opposed to Homeschooling, I know people who have raised brilliant, highly successful, and well adjusted children this way. But it’s not for everyone. And if you wife is wiped out, they can’t be learning at an optimum pace.
I would not focus on being the perfect family, but I would strive for peace in the house and happy parents. Then you will get happy kids. God bless you.
 
Kindly stop suggesting public school. It’s not going to happen, we are 100% certain on this. They may not have the best life in the world, but we won’t put them through public school.
 
Brother, do not give up hope! Jesus died for you to give you hope, by his resurrection he conquered death! Do you truly believe that God who conquered death can’t conquer whatever problems you have in your life? Trust in Jesus, and his grace, he is merciful and will heal your family sooner or later. Just never give up hope! For nothing is impossible for God.

:blessyou:
 
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