How to be unabashedly pro-life with your family

Mid-January often finds me talking about abortion with my kids.

Yeah, I know how that sounds. And yet, especially as my older kids get older, the conversation comes up again and again. There are some helpful strategies at Culture of Life Studies that may help you approach this conversation.

Whenever there’s a presidential election, the schools inevitably use it as a teaching opportunity, and that makes sense to me. What ended up being a surprise to me was how that led to the conversation about abortion, too.

So, as I follow and talk about various marches and walks going on around the country, my kids inevitably take it in. As I pray for an end to abortion, they hear it.

When we had to have a dearly loved pet euthanized last summer, we talked about how it’s never ever OK to end a person’s life using the same set of criteria we used in that case. Humans are different than animals.

Creating a pro-life culture in your home isn’t just a one-time thing: It’s ongoing. I liked the ideas in this list of eight ways to be pro-life. I especially enjoyed how they challenged me to get out of my home and show my kids how to live this way, as opposed to just talking about it.

The USCCB has a page with pro-life prayers. Why not print one off and make it part of your family prayer routine?

Print off this coloring page from Paper Dali, which includes a pro-life novena. Put it up on the fridge to remind you to pray it each day of the novena, and color one of the babies each day of the novena.

This printable novena coloring sheet will make praying a novena a completely different experience.

If your kids are anything like mine, the invitation to coloring is irresistible. Make use of those snow days or days off school to make some cool signs, starting with the ideas Lacy’s outlined at Catholic Icing. (And the fact that she uses paint makes her my hero. We’ll be using…I don’t even know. Maybe even paint.)

This is one of the sign ideas from Lacy at Catholic Icing. Isn’t it great?

Do you have a link or resource to share? Send it to us at takeout@osv.com so we can share it in a future issue!