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María Elena Olmos Ortega
Full Professor, University of Valencia

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Many people say that they were educated to do everything except marry and have children - and they are right. Our societies are concerned about the health care system and the economy, about professional training and qualifications. The State fine-tunes its tax legislation. Why doesn’t the “system” provide a sound training for people who are going to start a family? Why does it do just the opposite?

More than ever necessary in our times is preparation of young people for marriage and family life (…) Experience teaches that young people who have been well prepared for family life generally succeed better than others.

The Church must therefore promote better and more intensive programs of marriage preparation, in order to eliminate as far as possible the difficulties that many married couples find themselves in, and even more in order to favor positively the establishing and maturing of successful marriages.

John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio, 22 November 1981, no. 66.

Commentary

In this increasingly competitive society, we direct our greatest efforts towards completing the right training to get a good job, by studying at university or elsewhere, taking a Master’s degree, and so on. Once we achieve this, we mustn’t slack - we have to go on training to get promotion, to be the best in our profession.

If this time, effort and dedication were invested in preparing for marriage and learning how to give our children an all-round education, and if we were truly committed to these goals, I am sure that our family (husband, wife, children) would be grateful – and they are what really counts in our lives. I am equally convinced that there would be fewer difficulties and failures in marriage, and the quality of our marriage and our family would improve. As a result of this, the society which we live in would be healthier for everyone.