(Barbara Stirling is a wife and mother who drinks a lot of coffee in Irving, Texas. This article was originally published in Canticle, the Voice of Today's Catholic Woman.)
I must say it “haunts” me a little as I make my daily determinations about how to divide my time:
Cleaning and scrubbing can wait `til tomorrow,
For babies grow up, we learn to our sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs, and dust, go to sleep;
I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep.
True enough, yet children thrive on order and become deeply attached to the parent who provides it. What is so much less clear than these obvious fallacies is my path of action when the baby is crying to be held, my half-dressed four year old (where did his pants go?) is dancing triumphantly in a shower of legos and packing peanuts (where did he get those?) and dinner is only half-ready (is it really supposed to smell like that, or did I forget to change the baby's diaper?) as my exhausted and hungry husband opens the front door.
In interesting moments such as these, there comes no definitive “Do This,” pealing forth from the heavens, no chapter from Dr. Sears, no Thomistic treatise and no Platonic Dialogue. However, I do remember from my philosophical education that it is in these particular circumstances where the general ethical principles that I've learned (e.g. The Ten Commandments, the Laws of the Church) need to be “particularized” in my life. The virtue of prudence helps me do this.
Prudence is where the “rubber meets the road” and the “Do This” issues forth from my own conscience, for better or worse.
I've often thought that Prudence became a popular women's name primarily because it is a virtue that is so crucial for the daily life of a successful wife and mother. Women's lives are so incredibly particular, and the circumstances in which we make moral judgments fluctuate so rapidly that our heads spin. In the course of an hour we may need to be doctors, accountants, spiritual directors, or teachers, and the subjects toward which we direct our activities may be tired, hungry, antsy, stubborn, affectionate or naughty, all in the course of the aforementioned hour.
Saint Thomas identifies prudence as a virtue of the practical intellect, as opposed to the speculative intellect. We use our speculative intellect to perfect the way that we think — to grasp a truth like “God exists.” Our practical intellect, however, is directed more toward doing than knowing — it tries to grasp a certain good way to deal with other people or express our emotions. Prudence is a perfection of our practical intellect, and it is learned with greatest facility not from the philosopher's tome, but from observing moral people acting in moral ways; as Aristotle observed “A good man is the measure.”
When perfecting the speculative intellect, it doesn't matter so much whether the person teaching you a certain truth is a good person or not, that is, whether or not your professor is an adulterer or a thief will not deter him much from helping you to arrive at the proposition “God exists.” But when you are set on perfecting the practical intellect, the kind of person you rely upon to help you matters immensely. If a person is cheating on her husband, using artificial contraception, or reading pornography, her advice to you about sexual morality certainly will be “colored” by her behaviors.
Women, with their uncanny intuition (which I like to think of as “streamlined” logic) can identify a good moral example when they see her. She has all the obvious attributes, such as adherence to the laws of the Church and good sacramental habits, and other more subtle marks as well, such as a reasonably happy husband and content children (perhaps even clean ones on a really good day).
Most importantly, she radiates a genuine joy about her mission as a mother, and certainly a confidence in her judgments about her children. I have known this sort of person in the many women I've shared a cup of coffee with while our children scamper like mice across a backyard lawn. It is for no trivial reason that whenever women gather there is a continual stream of anecdote and story-telling about nursing, potty-training, sleeping habits, cooking meals, and discipline; our vocations require this contact and conversation as we continually apply general principles to particular souls that change in age and size and intelligence before our eyes.
When I asked them to be as general as they can, my coffee-clutch graciously provided the following while wiping two noses, distributing cake, changing a diaper, and removing various contraband items from the mouth of a toddler:
• Seek out and accept God's forgiveness. If your conscience tells you you've fallen short of the mark, nothing can be so paralyzing in daily decision-making than guilt. Remember also that errors in prudential judgment are not sinful if our motives are good, and a good confessor or spiritual director can help you determine the difference between an honest mistake and sinful behavior.
• Recognize the individual charism of your family. God calls families to be different from one another, to be large or small, to be active or contemplative, or to espouse different parenting methods. This recognition also gives you an appreciation for the charisms of other families. It helps to think of families as we think of different religious orders in the Church (Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, etc.). All contribute to the Body of Christ in very different ways.
• Seek the company of holy women. Let them be women whose marriages and families you admire, and let them be confident and full of joy. It also would be helpful if her family shares the same charism as yours. Since this has become a culture whose families are so divided by materialism and selfishness, it is not often that we can rely upon examples of authentic femininity in our aunts or mothers. Stop listening to voices from popular culture when you need advice or correction — even if they come from within your own extended family. Be polite about it, but stop listening.
• Try an organizational method. There are shelves of these kinds of books at your local library. Few things aid prudential decisions like the “space” to reflect. An orderly home gives you the freedom to lift your eyes from the particular for a moment, in order to recapture and re-embrace the reasons that you do all these particular things in the first place. It is a paradox, but there is freedom in a schedule, even if it is a provisional one and followed only loosely.
• Cultivate simplicity. If you don't have a lot of stuff, there's less stuff to make decisions about. Try to make a determination of what you need, rather than what popular culture inspires you to want. This goes for activities as well, like television-watching, clubs, sports, charitable groups, and play-groups.
When the baby ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Young babies have very few needs: a loving look, an arm to hold them, and milk. Most people, especially women and little children, are made uncomfortable by a baby's cry — it is specifically designed by God to mobilize the emotions and motivate the hearers to help. Prudential decisions should be made taking into consideration this short period in a child's life when his communication skills are so limited and yet his needs are so simple.
