Fr M's 3 Generation Theory

I just finished writing about Corpus Christi High School's wonderful Inspectors' Report for the newsletter. I make the point there about never taking things for granted such as our school system. Several times recently the subject of people being handed things "on a plate" and therefore not appreciating them, has come up in conversation. For example, if parents experience difficulty in some aspect of their lives, they don't want their children to have such a bad time, so they work hard to enable that to be avoided. Then those children take whatever it is for granted, grow up taking it for granted, and this can lead to problems of one sort or another in the third generation.

Think of young couples starting off a few decades ago, and then their children and grandchildren starting off now, and what they expect to have and achieve. Young couples starting off now sometimes think something is wrong if they can't have what their grandparents or greatgrandparents had to struggle to have. I think it works sometimes with family relationships too. Parents who had difficult childhoods, through losing a parent or whatever, will often work extra hard to make sure their children are surrounded with love and security. These then grow up taking it for granted, and sometimes forget to pass it on to their children. That can lead to problems, and lo and behold, we are back where we started. Fr Matthew's Theory of the Three Generations....