Dear IF readers,

Each day I work on International Family Magazine, I work as a mother, and as a teacher. Each day I go into the kitchen and start my day over with my children. No matter what happened the day before, I get up early and start breakfast with all the love in my heart for my kids. I care deeply that one meal a day is warm, homemade and with all the food groups. For this morning person, its breakfast. And as the day unfolds and we are hurrying around and there are pee pee accidents, and crying, and “its not fair”, I try and remember that moment in the quiet of the morning when I am cooking and it was perfect because it was a moment of pure hope and good intention.

I go into a classroom of students, and I have a bag of lessons, and tricks, and music, and games, and whatever I think will capture the attention of pre-teen, teenagers in middle school that’s heads are so noisy. I try to learn each student’s name and think of them as individuals with victories, challenges, and a very unique story all their own. And when the class clown gets up and challenges me, I try to imagine that he or she is somewhere needing attention and not getting their needs met. That usually lasts a couple rounds and then of course, detention is handed out, referrals are written and even the Assistant Principal’s awe-inspiring threats of removal get tossed around. Again, the best intentions can get side-tracked.

For the last 27 months, in-between my babies teething, studying for the Masters in Education, and the teaching, there has been this pure hope of a different family magazine. International Family Magazine was born from the idea that families just couldn’t fit into a perfect holiday or a perfect cupcake. International Family Magazine was created so that when another father, mother, grandparent, teen went to reach for something to understand their less than perfect family and home, something would be there for them to grab. International Family Magazine was the answer to a hopeless day in 2001 when walking home from downtown Manhattan, I need desperately to believe there was something that connected us all: family.

Tonight as my boys sleep and Papa watches the news, I have no idea if ever a single advertiser will ever share this vision for a family magazine. Maybe IF Mag’s stories, these words will simply become memorabilia for my old age. And yet these months have been filled with hope and pure intention. Hope is energizing. IF Mag is my hope, my children are my hope, and my students are my hope. Here is to never letting hope die.

Gratefully yours, Cat Wayland

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