From the Editors: April’s ‘Ouch’

July/August 2008 Issue | Posted by Tom and April Hoopes in Editor's Note

April: Ouch. Sometimes
an issue of Faith & Family hits you right between the eyes.

Someone came up to me after Mass
recently and told me, “I’ve just got to thank you for that last issue of the
magazine. It seemed like every article was written for me!” Now I know what she
means.

First, there’s the Marriage Matters (page 21). In each issue, we feature the story of a marriage that walks
up to the brink of disaster, then steps back and turns around. In this case,
the problem that almost pushed them over the edge was too much volunteering.
It’s a balance I have always struggled to find.

But right after that comes the “Open (page 27), and I love the idea of being the house that everyone
hangs out at! I want our house to be clean enough to be that house! So now I
need to rework my housecleaning to-do list …

Then comes “Fat to Fit” (page 31) — and
just at the time I was comparing my measurements to what they were in college.

I drove a Grand Am back then. Now I
drive a Ford Ecoliner. And my car isn’t all that has grown.

Tom: Well, those measurements haven’t grown that much. And April
isn’t mentioning that her waistline has shrunk recently, since her
exercise routine has returned with the warmer weather. 

Which brings up another issue in April’s
“Ouch.” It’s a women’s thing, I think. Here she is seeing the dark side of
these articles and her life. She could just as easily have pointed out that she
is a successfully recovering volunteer-aholic, and that our house has been the
site of impressive boarding, crowd-control, and cooking experiments involving
outsiders of late.

The thing that most reminded me
of April in this issue was Rebecca Teti’s piece (page 13) on the anniversary of (On the Dignity and
Vocation of Women). This is stuff April studied when she got her
master’s degree at the John Paul II Institute for Studies of Marriage and
Family, during which time she also had two babies.

I’ll never forget the day April announced to me that a troubled friend had inquired about the faith, and so she
gave her Mulieris Dignatatem. It seemed like a huge mistake to me. But
it helped change her friend’s life. I learned never to doubt April’s instincts.

April: Well, that’s very nice. Tom exaggerates on all fronts (and omits key
facts), but it’s nice of him, and I get his point. We women need to see the
bright spots — not just the shadows — in our lives!

Which brings me to the last article in
this magazine that felt like it was written for me: Susie Lloyd’s Back Porch. Read it for an attitude adjustment. She doesn’t ask, “Which age of a
child is the most obnoxious, needy, or disobedient?” Instead, she asks and
answers the question … well, turn to page 96 and see!

Tom and April Hoopes, Editorial Directors

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