MFP 373: Parenting is Your Mission

Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

Mike and Alicia Hernon : Catholic Marriage Parent and Family

Parenting, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity, Kids & Family

4.9 • 841 Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2026

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There is so much noise in the world of parenting today, and it's easy to feel overwhelmed by pressure, comparison, and fear. In this episode, Mike and Alicia remind parents that there is not just one way to raise a family well. God has given you the grace for your mission, and your job is not to control your children or guarantee outcomes. Your call is to build a strong marriage, create a healthy home, communicate your values, and allow God to use family life to make you holy. Parenting is not about perfection — it is about faithfulness.

Key Takeaways

There is not just one right way to be a good parent.
God gives you the grace for the family and mission He has entrusted to you.
Your marriage must remain the foundation of your family.
A child-centered family creates unhealthy pressure and instability.
Your children have free will, so parenting is about faithfulness, not control.
Parenting is one of the primary ways God makes us holy through sacrifice and love.
You are irreplaceable in the life of your child and responsible for forming the culture of your home.

Couple Discussion Questions

Where do we feel the most pressure or insecurity in our parenting right now?
In what ways can we strengthen our marriage as the foundation of our family life?
Are there any ways our home has become too child-centered?
What values are we most trying to communicate to our children?
How might God be using parenting to refine us and make us holy?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Family, all in this together.
0:08.2	Family, we're taking a chance.
0:10.8	Family, like birds of a feather.
0:13.3	Family, get off my shoes and dance.
0:15.4	Hey, we are Mike and Alicia Hernin.
0:17.4	We have 10 kids and grandkids too, and we are here for every parent. Because we are on a
0:22.2	mission to empower moms and dads to embrace their sacred calling. So join the conversation.
0:28.5	Family, we're taking a chance.
0:32.6	Welcome to the podcast. We're so glad you joined us. I do feel like it's a little bit of a retro,
0:38.0	uh, experience for you today. For those who may have listened from the beginning or,
0:44.5	or selectively from the beginning, um, because we want to get back to basics. And I feel like,
0:50.6	yeah, even though we're, um, you know, when this will be released, we'll have been substantially in Lent.
0:57.6	Lent, Bishop Barron was talking about this.
1:00.7	And the, and he actually, he often talks about like Lent is sort of like spring training, getting back to the basics.
1:06.5	Yeah, exactly.
1:07.2	And I feel like that's what we're going to try to do.
1:10.4	And we've really been building this with identity and belonging, right?
1:16.8	And now we are, we want to talk just broadly about mission.
1:20.2	And the reason we're talking about these three are, we believe these are the three
1:25.3	fundamental needs of the human person. Right.
1:27.7	That are first fulfilled within the family.
1:29.8	It's the foundation that's set there.
	...

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