Living on an Island: Raising a Family in a Culture That Has Changed

By John C. Preiss

Sometimes it feels like raising a family today is like living on an island.

Not because we isolate ourselves from the world, but because it often seems that very few families are trying to protect their children from the same dangers. Our children have friends from many different backgrounds, and we encourage them to love others, be kind, and build friendships. Yet that doesn’t remove the challenge of living in a culture that increasingly celebrates what previous generations recognized as harmful.

Why has wrong become right and right become wrong?

Why is a mother who chooses to stay home and raise her children sometimes viewed as lacking ambition, when she is investing in one of the greatest vocations God has given? Why is a young man who chooses a trade instead of college often looked down upon, when many skilled craftsmen, business owners, and entrepreneurs have built successful lives through hard work, integrity, and perseverance?

The world’s standards have changed dramatically. Success is often measured by status, income, popularity, and entertainment rather than by virtue, holiness, and strong family life.

Perhaps one of the greatest struggles for Christian parents today is inconsistency.

How can we faithfully attend Mass every Sunday, pray the Rosary together, and sincerely desire our children to love Christ, while at the same time allowing influences into our homes that pull them away from Him?

How do we reconcile teaching modesty while purchasing clothing that encourages immodesty? How do we teach purity while allowing music that glorifies lust, anger, or disrespect? How do we teach self-control while permitting endless hours of video games filled with violence, crude language, or immoral themes?

Children are always learning.

Long before they listen to our lectures, they absorb the culture we permit into our homes.

This isn’t about legalism or creating impossible rules. Nor is it about pretending that faithful parents never struggle. Every parent knows that even when we do our best, children still have free will. Every family experiences disappointments, mistakes, and moments of heartbreak.

But there is an important difference between struggling against temptation and inviting temptation into our homes.

Parents cannot control every influence their children will encounter outside the home. School, sports, friendships, work, and society will expose them to many different ideas. But while our children live under our roof, we still have a sacred responsibility to shape the atmosphere of our homes.

The home should be a refuge where truth is loved, virtue is encouraged, and Christ is welcomed.

This requires courage.

Sometimes it means saying no when other parents say yes.

Sometimes it means our children will feel different from their friends.

Sometimes it means limiting technology, choosing entertainment carefully, setting standards for modesty, encouraging wholesome friendships, and being willing to explain—not just enforce—our convictions.

Children may not always appreciate those boundaries while they are young, but many will one day recognize that those limits were expressions of love rather than control.

The culture is constantly discipling our children. If parents do not intentionally form them, someone else gladly will.

The solution is not fear or isolation.

The solution is intentional Christian parenting.

Pray together.

Attend Mass faithfully.

Receive the sacraments.

Read Scripture.

Talk openly about difficult issues.

Know what your children are watching, listening to, and playing.

Model the virtues you hope they will imitate.

Fill your home with beauty, goodness, truth, laughter, and genuine family life.

Above all, ask God daily for the wisdom to lead your family.

We may sometimes feel like we are living on an island, but we are not alone. Throughout history, faithful families have often found themselves swimming against the current. The saints did not become saints because they followed the culture; they became saints because they followed Christ.

Our calling has never been to raise children who simply fit into the world.

Our calling is to raise sons and daughters who know how to live faithfully within it—and, by God’s grace, help transform it.