I was just thinking about this today, reading two separate newspaper stories involving children who had been abused or killed by a live-in boyfriend or abused by an unmarried step-parent. Now, I haven’t searched for any statistics on this, but just from anecodotes and observation, it seems to me that the rise of unmarried or cohabiting households has just been bad for children. They live in a situation in which one or both parents have decided that raising children is secondary to someone else’s desires.

:clapping:Indeed. And as compassionate people, we all can help when people “fall through the cracks.” We do our best to steer our children and grown children towards loving relationships and to live lives of integrity. But so many in the world are not raised in loving homes and the discordance continues to the next generation to the next.
Co-habitation seems to be a trend for a great number of engaged coupes as well, months or years before a wedding date is set. I have heard statistics on this, that the chances for divorce are at least equally as high in cases where people “try each other out” first, versus those who wait to enter a full relationship until after marriage. I am old fashioned enough (a good thing) to agree that Catholic teaching on purity is the ideal.
I also know people who are very fine, who have entered marriages with all good intent, but their partners have changed dramatically in their beliefs and become abusive, where it is impossible for the parents to co-exist even in what appeared to be a perfect marriage. Sadly, after years of psychological abuse or distress, divorce can occur. All is not hopeless though! Love moves in wherever it is most needed. Christ yearns to heal the breech even when we think things impossible. Grandparents, siblings, extended family must move quickly to help parents and children involved. Compassion must rule here, especially when things go wrong.
For people in the most dire circumstances, there is also help:
In honoring The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Holy Mother, we can support shelters that are there for the safety of families in crisis (sometimes father, mother and children in families where jobs have been lost, homeless families living on the street and in cars.) There are shelters for single mothers and their children, homeless veterans that we visit to encourage them towards positive outcomes. Parental training, help towards getting GED’s, job skills training, but most of all, raising all children involved in the best environment possible when the family is able to go out again “on its own.” I hope no struggling family is ever truly alone. Shelters often offer many services, but they need our help.
Although we all strive to instill ideals in our own children, so that they will grow up to raise children in a loving, two- parent environment, there are so many wives and mothers who have been emotionally and physically abused and where divorce, possibly annulment may follow. Rather than judge individuals, our compassion moves us to show them that with Christ, every person is whole and worthy of dignity.
I appreciate your comments because they are not judgemental but simply raise awareness. Yes, we hope so much that our children live out their lives surrounded by love. When we see someone along the way, some within our extended family who are hurting, we can reach out in compassion, knowing sometimes people of great personal integrity are going through confusing, distressing times.*** And we must ask ourselves, who is our family? ***Christ shows us the way as His Blessed Mother does: All, all are in our human, imperfect family. Just as I am so imperfect,
I have a common bond with everyone who is blessed or distressed! Jesus said “I call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Who but those in distress need His love and ours more then they? And so we give them His love through our acts of kindness. You are good to remind us to look beyond ourselves. :flowers::yyeess::kiss4you:
:angel1:

