More is "Caught Than Taught" -- Part One of Two

Like anyone else who writes on a daily basis, I use personal experiences to illustrate truths that transcend what may be happening to me and my family. That is today's objective.

I wrote this edition of TN&V on Monday. As you read these remarks my wife and I are taking our fourth (and last) child off to college.

Reproduced in part two of TN&V for August 21 is a superb "Open Letter" that ran in National Right to Life News a few months ago. It offers '"Sage Advice" to pro-life students as they leave the nest and head for university life. The counsel that is offered can be of assistance to your child and to mine.

In our case, Louisa, our youngest, benefits from having three older siblings already attend college. Indeed, our oldest daughter, Emily, went to the same school her first two years while our middle daughter, Joanna, is a rising junior at the same university.

Thus, Louisa is familiar with the campus and with college life, which ought to help quiet the butterflies. Moreover, much of what will be unfamiliar territory to her will be a landscape Emily and Joanna have already transversed.

As I drove into work yesterday, I was thinking about today's momentous events at the same time I listened with one ear to a popular radio program. I smiled when the moderator reminded his audience of a great parental adage: more is "caught than taught."

This is not to diminish the significance of what we say to our children. But it does reinforce the truth that kids are always, always watching and will match up our words with our deeds. In this instance, if you want to raise pro-life kids, it's crucial that we not only talk the talk but walk the walk.

Being mere mortals, I can only hope that my wife and I have demonstrated that kind of consistency and moral coherence to our four children. What I do know is that my children are strongly and unabashedly pro-life.

Sometimes this commitment gets illustrated in symbolic ways. For example, Louisa works at a restaurant. On a recent occasion, the employees were told to wear a tee-shirt of their own choosing.

Louisa picked out the "Rally for Life" tee-shirt I wore as one of  a crowd of 300,000+ back in 1990. (She would have been seven months old when that massive pro-life throng filled the Mall in Washington, D.C.) While other employees wore apparel adorned with representations of the faces of famous Hollywood celebrities or athletes, Louisa's customers were reminded that there are powerless people who need their concern: unborn children.

Other times the demonstration is more substantive. My two younger girls have been there for a young unmarried woman--from the time she first found out she was pregnant, through her baby's delivery, and ever since. They have provided practical help and loads of encouragement. I cannot begin to tell you how proud I am of them both.

Tomorrow Lisa and I will take our place alongside millions of others in what amounts to a collective month-long trek that culminates when parents drop their kids off at bastions of higher education. Keep all of us in your prayers.

And we sure to read Amanda McClone's "Open Letter" in Part Two.

Part Two