Marist son-rise breakfast sheds light on father-son bonds

The following are some excerpts from a keynote speech delivered by Chris Carlile at the Marist College Canberra Son-Rise breakfast which hosted over 240 guests on Tuesday 26 March 2019. The guests were welcomed into a beautifully prepared space and were treated to a wonderful breakfast cooked and served by the Hospitality students and staff. Chris is a former Marist parent and spoke about his experiences as a father of two sons who attended the College. He made special reference to an ‘equation of influence’ and explained the role of the parents, teachers and others in the formation of fine young men.

We can think of the role that Mary played in the life of Jesus – she was in the background, but that doesn’t mean she was without influence. The scriptures record that the first miracle of Jesus was done at the marriage at Cana at the behest of Mary… It is a good example of the positive influence that parents can have on their children – as part of what I would call the equation of influence. All of us are influenced by many factors in our environment and we know from psychology that that is how people are formed.

We all know how important it is for them to have positive influences in their life – especially in this day and age where the influences on them do not stop at the school gate, or, when they get off the school bus, but pursues our young people home through their mobile devices, or, on their computer games that they play with their peers to all hours of the night

Raising our sons is a shared responsibility – whether we like it or not. Some of the factors that make up the equation of influence we can choose, but many others come into our sons lives without our knowledge, and are literally beyond our control to stop.

We send our sons to Marist to increase the number of favourable factors in that influencing equation, to stack the odds in favour of the positive influences on our sons.  This school is not just an educational facility – it is place of formation for our young men.  It is my sincere hope that the teachers and students at Marist, along with our parish community and our families will have the most significant influence on our sons, be the biggest factors that count in their lives. But we shouldn’t take this for granted and we need to support and collaborate with the positive influencers that we value in order to raise our sons together.

Our comments and advice are not always welcomed by our sons – but what is important is that we speak with love and support so that they know they will always they have a safe place to come to when things in their life get tough. This to me is the ‘X’ factor in the equation of influence and sending them here to Marist is an additional ‘X’ factor in the ongoing task of raising our sons together.     

The following comments are from participants at the 2019 Son-Rise Breakfast:

• I would like to thank everyone involved for putting on a great event. The catering staff did a tremendous job with the food and service and I enjoyed listening to Mr Carlile. We look forward to next year’s Son Rise breakfast.
• Please pass on my congratulations to all the team particularly the catering crew who did a fantastic job and yourself for the wonderful organisation.  I was especially pleased to see limited use of plastic and it great to see Marist is making an effort to be sustainable.
• I managed to get a photo with all 4 sons which I am very happy about given it’s the last year they are all together.

Marists would like to especially thank their Facilities Staff, Sandra Marron, Dean Parkes, Toni Clark, Katherine Anderson and Hospitality students who made this events such a huge success.

Source: Marist College, Canberra