Love and responsibility

"The family is an institution created by procreation within the framework of marriage. It is a natural community, directly dependent on the parents for its existence and functioning. The parents create the family as a complement to and extension of their love. To create a family means to create a community, since the family is a social unit or else it is not a family. To be a community it must have a certain size. This is most obvious in the context of education. For the family is an educational institution within the framework of which the personality of a new human being is formed. If it is to be correctly formed it is very important that this human being should not be alone, but surrounded by a natural community. We are sometimes told that it is easier to bring up several children together than an only child, and also that two children are not a community - they are two only children. It is the role of the parents to direct their children's upbringing, but under their direction the children educate themselves, because they develop within the framework of a community of children, a collective of siblings."
- Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla (Saint John Paul II), pg 242 (chapter "Justice Towards the Creator" subtitle "Periodic Continence: Method and Interpretation")

I read Love and Responsibility yeeeears ago, but this quote has always stayed in my mind. Especially now that we are having a third child. 

When Davy was born, I was totally focused on the birth itself and on figuring out how to care for a baby again. Now I feel like I am more focused on Addie and Davy, how to be present to them, how we will get back into life again with an extra element after my husband is back at work. I've been ordering books for them and hatching ideas. 

Somewhere around when Davy turned one, things got easier and more exciting for us as a family. He gets funnier and funnier each day. Addie and Davy play more and more each day (and fight too!). Somehow it doesn't seem like it will be as upsetting to add a new element to the group... it's a group! What an amazing thing to be creating a community, like JPII says. And a huge responsibility.