Holidays

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
20 Jan 2002

Family life today struggles under a host of pressures. Both parents work in most families, often long hours for the overtime pay rates or due simply to the pressure of work. Smaller numbers of children in families should have meant extra care and attention for them but the influence of parents on their offspring seems to have weakened, not strengthened, in favour especially of T.V., videos and the Internet.

Mothers traditionally have handed on the moral and spiritual teaching in families, but many mothers are too busy or too tired to provide as much of this care as is needed. Although there have been gains, too many dads leave all this side of things to "the wife".

Holidays can be a marvellous time to make up solid ground in all these areas, away from the tensions of work, rush and sport; to heal small wounds, deepen friendships across the generations and for parents to build up a stronger credit balance with the young ones before the turbulence of adolescence.

Old practices still work their charm; such as regularly sitting around a table for a meal, for conversation as well as feeding. Probably regular sitting around a television with a tray on our knees has caused more long-term family damage than trashy videos.

Holidays are also a good time to maintain and deepen our friendships with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins and family friends. We should also make an effort to include those who might be ignored.

Holiday times can bring trouble as we have discovered again with Prince Harry's antics during the last Northern summer.

While he might have become obnoxious over a period, his not untypical weaknesses as a seventeen year old do not deserve the world wide publicity he received. Home alone, even in beautiful surroundings, often means that children slip into bad, older company.

The young prince has many reasons to feel sorry for himself. He lives in the glare of regular publicity, has only limited privacy, and he has not been entirely surrounded by good example.

His parents divorced, his mother died tragically and every move of his father is scrutinised and often criticised. But for him to use this as an excuse will make his situation worse.

His father did well to send him for a day visit to a clinic where drug addicts are rehabilitated. Press reports tell us that he is now off the drugs and drink, and getting his act together.

We should all wish him well and leave him alone to get on with the job, helped by his family, school and friends. Like everyone else he will need to be strong, as the pressures to slip further on a slippery slope become stronger with every binge.

Everyone makes mistakes while growing up, but most get over this to go on and make good contributions. The overwhelming majority of those called before a juvenile court never return, because they learnt a hard lesson.

Growing up today is harder than it was forty or fifty years ago. The prizes for success and penalties for failure are both greater.

Young adults deserve our sympathy and support, especially when they stumble.