MadCatHerald: The importance of family meals

When I was growing up, our family ate all of our meals together at home. This included breakfast, lunch, and supper. We sat around our kitchen table, often lingering to talk after the food was gone.

Editor's View by Mary C. UhlerMealtime became an opportunity to share our plans for the day, to find out what we thought about the day’s news, and even to debate various issues. My parents always encouraged open discussion, even on such topics as politics and religion.

With our own children, my husband and I also encouraged shared meal times. We almost always ate dinner together, even delaying the meal for sports and after-school activities so that we could sit down and share a meal.

I think our children — now grown with children of their own — enjoyed those times to eat and talk with each other. Now we like getting together with our extended families for meals. Even the grandchildren from babies and up are brought to the table when possible to join with the family for hors d’oeuvres and the meal.
Eating together makes a difference

It’s sad to hear that many families today do not eat together. That’s why it was necessary to set aside a day to remind families to eat together. This year’s “Family Day — A Day to Eat Dinner with Your Children” will be held on Monday, Sept. 26.

Family Day is a national movement that reminds parents that dinner makes a difference. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University launched Family Day in 2001. It grew out of research which consistently found that the more often kids eat dinner with their families, the less likely are they to smoke, drink, or use drugs. Those kids are also more likely to get better grades in school and have an excellent relationship with their parents.

Many Catholic archdioceses and dioceses are promoting Family Day. Andy Galvin, coordinator of marriage preparation in the Diocese of Madison, is encouraging families to support this initiative.

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State of Illinois severs foster-care ties with Catholic Charities

Who else will the State of Illinois look to shut down?

The state of Illinois has declined to renew its foster care and adoption contracts with Catholic Charities across Illinois, possibly ending a historic public and private partnership initiated by the Roman Catholic Church a half century ago and potentially severing the relationship between 2,500 foster children and their caseworkers.

Lawyers for three of the Catholic Charities agencies will seek an injunction from a Sangamon County judge on Tuesday.

In a letter sent last week to Catholic Charities in the dioceses of Peoria, Joliet, Springfield and Belleville, the Department of Children and Family Services told all four agencies that the state could not accept its signed contracts for the 2012 fiscal year because “your agency has made it clear that it does not intend to comply with the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act.”

“That law applies to foster care and adoption services,” each letter stated. “Thus, there is no meeting of the minds as to the [Fiscal Year 2012] Foster Care and Adoption Contracts.”

Last month, Catholic Charities in the dioceses of Springfield, Peoria and Joliet sued the Illinois attorney general and DCFS for threatening to enforce new policies that accommodate civil unions. The three agencies asked the court to declare that they are legally justified to preserve their current policy of exclusively granting licenses to married couples and single, non-cohabiting individuals and referring couples in civil unions to other child welfare agencies.

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