Three Things the Bo Sanchez Family Talk About at the Dinner Table

It is humbling to get a response from a famous lay Catholic evangelist, Bo Sanchez, about the question, "What do you talk about at the dinner table with your boys?"

You see, Bo speaks on Sundays live at the Kerygma Feasts in front of thousands of people, writes a lot of books, have TV and radio programs here and there, runs many NGOs, runs many websites (KerygmaFamily.com, BoSanchez.ph, TrulyRichClub.com, PreacherInBlueJeans.com, etc.), sits down shoulder-to-shoulder with bishops and cardinals and and does many other stuff you'd think only Superman can do.

An updated photo (2013) of the Sanchez Family.
Source: Catholic Filipino Academy website

Then, here comes an email from a newly created blog asking him, "What do you talk about with your boys at the dinner table during meal time?" Would you expect a reply in just a few days with an excited, "Hi Marvin, Sure!  My pleasure."

Well, he actually did! Now we have a peek about what goes on at the Bo Sanchez dinner table on meal time.

Ten Heart-Shaking Insights From James Dobson's "bringing up BOYS"

The book "bringing up BOYS" pulled me like a powerful magnet one day in a bookstore in Greenbelt, Makati. It was written by James Dobson, an unfamiliar name. The cover design wasn't attractive to me either. So I was sure it was the title that mercilessly tugged me that day.

After hovering around the shelf for 30 minutes and inspecting the book three times, I decided to buy it. After all, I had a 3-year old boy that time (now the boy's five years and nine months old). This boy was (and is) very much like me...and deep inside I was desperate about how my wife and I should raise him up into the kind of person we wanted him to be.

Maybe a little education would help, I thought. Forget about being stingy for the time being.

Was this feeling of being at a loss about sons a normal feeling among fathers? or was it just me?

Raising Filipino Boys 101

Parents, especially Fathers, don't you wish there's a course such as "Raising Filipino Boys 101" in any university or college somewhere near? I'm wondering how many of us have felt clueless, at one time or another, about our role as parents, or as fathers, in raising boys.

Father and son, one Sunday morning at the
University of the Philippines Diliman grounds

Some of us may have simply handed on to our kids the things we have learned from our parents. But then, others may have found themselves simply learning the new tricks of the "trade" along the way. The rest, most likely, are still groping in the dark.

Either way, I hope many of us have discovered that father-son relationships are the most special in the world of parenting. Yet there doesn't seem to be a lot of literature covering this subject.