Being broken...

Broken family may be defined when a parent left his partner and children and cling to another partner. This may be easily said that the person has left one’s family and built another family. It happens because of various and unavoidable reasons and we cannot confine only to a particular reason. It is a reality that cannot be denied that it breaks the family as an institution – the societal unit and cell of the community. Thus when one belongs to this institution, one cannot help but he or she is also broken in one’s personality.

Effects of being broken

Let us focus on the person who is part of the broken family. That person is in one way or another is broken. There is a leak or crack in one’s personality, an imbalance self. It affects too one’s perspective and principles too. The worst is that it affects in dealing with another person the way we deal that hurts others as well. Here the hurt dominates, and so it blinds him from not hurting others. Unless one is ready to face and figure out the source of this hurt, one cannot move on in his life but continually hurting innocent and wonderful people especially when the subject of conversation is about family.

Remedy

Only in being conscious of one’s brokenness can help remedy the situation, and then healing begins to take place. But being conscious is not enough. One needs to exert extraordinary effort in getting healed by accepting the reality. It will be of help when one develops a positive attitude and value towards human relationship especially family relationship. The consequence is this that wounded person becomes defender and protector of family.

Is it possible?

Yes, it is possible, even the wounded or broken person did not experience having a complete family; so long our willingness to live in the realm of possibility is present. Our brokenness must not hinder us from taking good care of others, lest we scar others with our own wounds. Just live life with acceptance, and by treating each other as brothers and sisters, and the older ones as if he or she is one’s mother and father. If one strives and believes in making this messy world like heaven (like St. Therese did), why can’t the broken?

Parents and Sex Education

Parents are the right persons to teach sex education at home. This is the official stand of the Catholic Church in the Philippines on the recently aborted issue on sex education promoted by the DePed. The Church has been vocal and critical on this event while the DePed people are busy in disseminating their modules to be given to the pilot schools in public secondary level. Their undertaking will be evaluated, and if it proves to be successful, another option will push through for the elementary levels on the same topics.

The church keeps repeating that parents are the right persons to handle the issue on sex. Her position is borne out from the development of the doctrine on the sacrament of matrimony, where Augustine began the idea of the three goods of marriage, and later Aquinas modified them to ends of marriage. What is the contention all about? The first end of Christian marriage is to procreate and educate their children, and it has become the basis of the Church's stand on the brewing issue of sex education.

Following the thought of the Church, when it comes to who is the right person to teach their children about sex, the answer is very clear – parents and not anybody-teachers. The role of the teachers is not being downplayed here, but the role of parents is indispensable because it is their prime duty to exercise as such.

If the right persons on this matter are the parents, it follows that the right place for sex education to be conducted is in their very home. Why is that so? It is where the bond of friendship, intimacy, belongingness, familiarity among parents and children established. And everybody seems to believe that the home is a place where all the positive values such as love, respect, care are taught and practised.

The opposite might be true when sex education will be taken place at school. The situation is not healthy and conducive for a well-rounded process of learning, where students and teachers come from different family backgrounds and perspectives. Only when parents become active teachers to their children especially on the issue, the fear of negative effects such as promiscuity, increasing of AIDS victims, unwanted pregnancy, abortion and the like will be of less possibility to occur.