In "The Limits of Mother's Day and Father's Day" ( HYPERLINK "http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings/archive_2002/0613.html" Sightings, 6/13/02) Reverend James L. Evans asked us to "find a way to affirm those families that work hard everyday to be faithful and effective." Evans brought us back to a valuable truth between Mother's Day and Father's Day this year. When I read his article, though, I read with the eyes of a child who has lived in all three of the "non-traditional" family situations that he mentioned, "single-parent families, divorced families, and step-families." While Evans' points are valid, I'd like to make sure we don't miss some things. 

There is a problem in our culture: many of us are not careful with the words we choose. As a means of convenience, I think, Reverend Evans referred to "divorced families and step-families." There really is no such thing as a divorced family. There are adults who are divorced, and sometimes those people have children. When we tell children that they are from a divorced family, we are giving them the clear message that their families do not measure up, just as Evans asked us not to do. When a child is told that they are from a divorced family, the responsibility for that family's situation becomes ambiguous. Instead of saying the child is from a divorced family, let us name the situation just as it is: the child's parents are divorced. This places responsibility with the parents where it belongs, instead of implying that the child had any choice in the status of his or her family. Let us tell children, clearly, that they are not responsible for the choices their parents have made. 

The term "step-families" isn't much better than "divorced families." When I was a member of a family with children from two different sets of parents, my step-sister and I talked about "your mom and my dad" instead of saying "our parents." It was our attempt to recognize clearly that her father didn't live in our house, and my mother didn't live in our house. If a term must be used for this "your mom and my dad" situation, the term "blended family" is better. I t is a term that signifies that members of two different families are attempting to live as one family now. 

Ultimately, this is an issue of accountability. It should not be easy to name something that is the result of broken vows. 

As we express compassion for families that are different from the "ideal," we run the risk of affirming the choice to break marriage vows. One of the most compassionate things we can do for children whose parents make this choice is to say, "You are reaping the fruits of someone's sin, but this is still God's world and sin does not have to have the last word." A message for the parents might be "The breaking of vows and promises is a sin that comes with consequences for many people, but God is able to heal and forgive." 

Reverend Evans quoted the words of Jesus: "They that do the will of my Father are my mother, and my brothers and my sisters." I agree that Jesus has left room for families that are not the "biblical ideal." I also think Jesus has redefined the boundaries of whom I claim as my family. I know that the relationships I share with my brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ have demanded that I claim them and that I let them claim me. What a gift that has been in my life! Let us consider what it might mean to affirm the people who aren't being claimed by anyone. 

Let us dare to balance our compassion with accountability. It might bring us closer to a truer embodiment of the gospel that "comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable." 

Jennifer M. Cole is a senior at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. She is a Christianity and Mathematics major.