Simon Humke, 21 months, chases bubbles during a visit to his grandmother, Betty Humke’s house in Sheboygan. Simon is the [...]

Every spring the students at the now-closed St. Catherine School on the northwest side of Milwaukee would celebrate the end [...]

My 11-year-old daughter recently spent the night at a friend’s house and accompanied the friend’s family to a non-denominational Christian service on Sunday morning. Did that meet her Sunday obligation or should we have made sure that she attended a Catholic Mass as well?

The Third Commandment instructs us to “Keep holy the Lord’s day.” Certainly your daughter did this by going to church with her friend’s family. The Catechism of the Catholic Church further instructs: “The Sunday celebration of the Lord’s Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church’s life. (2177)” And, “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass.” (2180)

God doesn’t equip parents with a manual that explains how to raise their bundles of joy, but he sends helpers like Marybeth Hicks who offers tips to parents on how to raise GEEKS – Genuine, Enthusiastic, Empowered Kids.

As a wife and mother of four children – a college senior, college sophomore, high school junior and eighth grader – Hicks highlighted parenting strategies from her book, “Bringing Up Geeks,” on how to raise kids in a “grow-up-too-fast world,” during a presentation last fall to about 75 parents at the Basilica of Holy Hill.

“It is a book of ministry for me, something I really feel strongly about and I wanted to do because I’m really worried about our culture, and I’m worried that one of the things we’re seeing, what we’re seeing in so many ways in our culture, is the direct result of very poor, unskilled parenting,” Hicks said.

She said it’s time for parents return to listening to their instincts.

It’s probably good that the wedding vows are very general. Catholic wedding vows are just two sentences long: “I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”

Perhaps there are a few young couples who grasp exactly what they’re promising with those sentences, but most – myself included – stand on that altar and think the words about bad times and sickness are more of a formality.

As a 25-year-old bride, sickness to me still meant a case of strep throat, and a bad time was rain at Summerfest. The naiveté of youth blended with the fairytale tulle of the wedding dress and the two-foot tall cake for dessert seemed to whisper “liar” to the hints of trouble in the vows.