Parenting and Family Life: December 2008 Archives

This heartwarming video of Penn Jillette discussing his feelings about a man who gave him a Bible after a show comes to us from The Anchoress via The Curt Jester. I
In summary Penn states that as an atheist, he has no problem with Christians proselytizing because if they really believe you need Christ to get to Heaven, and to avoid Hell:

“How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible, and not tell them that?”

I don't want to, nor could I add onto the above blogger's commentary, but rather ask that you read their words of wisdom. However, for me this strongly calls to mind our duties as parents. My 15-year old is now at the age of, well Fifteendom. She is questioning what she has been taught (not without the aid of her new public school teachers). I am not totally perturbed, it happens. Her biggest issues with Catholicism are now raised when she has to get up early Sunday mornings to go to Mass. "Why can't I decide for myself what religion I want to be?" Mind you, being Catholic is not a problem when it doesn't mean waking up early on a day off, or when you are celebrating Christmas. So she gets 1/2 a point for the "nice try" bag, and we tell her "get up, get ready, now's not the time."

Let me go back a bit to 2001. My husband and I were 27 and 28. There was a new young adult ministry that they were trying to develop in this diocese and my husband and I wanted very much to be part of it. Up until that point, although we met some wonderful family people through homeschooling groups, our children were younger, and we were not that old ourselves. We would have enjoyed being part of events like Theology on Tap. The problem was every "young adult" (ages 18-36) event seemed more like an adolescent event. There was always talk about "someday when you get married and have children." Um "someday". 18-36-year olds? I am 36 now and would feel real stupid of someone started lecturing me about "someday if and when you have a family". Anywho, as a part of this, I asked our Parish, um, what was her title, oh yeah, "Faith Formation Director" (someone on a substantial payroll to do what used to be the work of volunteers) if one night a week we could have a prayer night for married young adults in the parish. I said while we are still young, we face certain challenges in our culture that singles do not face and older couples (post menopausal to put it bluntly) do not deal with. I was told first and foremost I had to attend this Symposium the Diocese was holing on Young Adult Ministry. OK, fair enough.

My husband and I went-it was October 2001, I remember because I was pregnant with my Number 4, Matthew. (I also remember making some Vegetarian Chili in the crock-pot because we had a little home schooling science project pot luck after the fact. Total non-sequitar, I know.) The symposium had only a smidgen of young adults, but mostly aging baby boomers in Birks talking about the way to young adult's hearts was folk music (another aside, I will never forget when I recapped the events for Peony, she responded "Are you serious? When was the last time Judy Collins had a hit?") and getting rid of all those constraining Church rules. The last part wasn't a quote, but we spent the day going from presentation to presentation where people complained about structure and rules.

One of these "discussion groups" was just a complain session about the Sacrament of Confirmation. In Albany, they do Confirmation really screwy. The age they wait to give the sacrament is like 16-17, and it is not done at every parish. The end result is many people do not get confirmed. So there was talk of only getting it done to get married to which a priest emphatically replied that is a Church lie that you need to be confirmed to get married. OK, so what, we should do away with the sacrament? Do this day, I get his point and in retrospect, I don't think he had one. This turned into a discussion about how parents should not push their Catholic faith on their children, but allow the children to decide if they want to be Catholic when they grow up, then it is more meaningful. Especially since their parents had no idea why they were Catholic, they just were because their parents were and their parents were... Always a great excuse for you not being responsible for your religious life. And not wanting to get up on Sunday mornings.

(Now of course here is where the need for a slightly different group for young adult married couples is needed. My husband and I had been home schooling for about 5 years at that point and made the decision a long time ago that indoctrinating (yes, I do mean "indoctrinate") our children in the faith was priority number 1 as Catholic parents. We were beyond the point of discussion of "should I get confirmed before my wedding some day, and am I just doing that because my parents are Catholic?" )

I hear this argument a lot, not just from teenagers who do not want to get up on Sunday mornings, but from adults: "you shouldn't force your religion onto your children, but let them choose when they get older." This point of view always baffles the heck out of me because it is just like Penn said. I love my children more than anything. It is my responsibility to keep them healthy, well-fed, educated. But most importantly it is my responsibility to teach them that the path to Eternal Life is through the Eucharist. How bizarre would it be to only concern myself with healthy teeth and gums, and career goals for the future, and never concern myself with their long-long term futures when in my own heart, I believe in Heaven and Hell and that the path to Heaven in through The Church? What kind of mother would that make me? I remember that coming to mind right away as I heard early twenty-somethings whine about the horrors of CCD.

The Anchoress said:

Think about it. How many times have you not engaged someone - and not exclusively for the purpose of proselytizing, but on any level - because you’ve simply assumed they are ‘not the sort’ to be receptive to you, or they are ‘one of them’ - the avowed secularists? Is that a sort of passive, impersonal “hate?” When you’ve passed them by, have you stopped to think that everything a Christian says or does, how a Christian comports himself or herself, minute-by-minute, gives endless witness, and so only kindliness will do?

I know I’ve failed in that. Often. Too often.

Me too.

I have lost site quite often about what I originally knew to be my duty as a mother. As a Christian. As a Catholic. I worry more about pushing my children away from the faith by shoving it down their throats. But no, just like they need to clean their rooms, brush their teeth, and eat their vegetables, they have to go to Mass on Sundays. If she wants to go to her girlfriend's house, she needs to do her schoolwork first; if you want to celebrate Christmas, you need to do the hard part too.

I have become to mired down with things of this world.

I have so much more to say on this, but this entry is becoming too long. Perhaps a Part II in the near future.

Elena at My Domestic Church talks about Saving Advent. I swear she wrote this just for me. I started my Advent out with the best of intentions, with our wreath, I put together daily Bible readings and pictures to put on the Jesse Tree every night with the kids, I had planned to faithfully start O Antiphons on 12/17. But somehow I got mired down in being pregnant and exhausted, and in complete panic that again, due to either pregnancy or a new baby, I just wasn't prepared enough for Christmas, or too tired to put all my little Jesse Tree drawings up. So I thank Elena for this practical advice because I am feeling quite like the Grinch who stole Advent lately. And that's not the Mom I wanted to be.

1. Go to daily mass. Maybe not daily, but even if you get one extra mass in a week it will make you feel like you have taken a step in the right direction!

2. Get to confession. Nothing says "clean slate" better than... well a clean slate! So get to confession and make a fresh start from there!

3. Pick an online Advent Calendar, breeze through the days you missed and start off with renewed commitment tomorrow! Here's a nice one to follow.

4. Analyze your Christmas preparations. Maybe you've done enough already. Remember the first Christmas was in a barren, cold cave. Maybe you have enough decorations, maybe you've bought enough gifts. Remember, the gifts that matter the most are ones that come from the heart, not the pocketbook!

In the past couple of days, I stumbled on some pretty depressing internet tools. I am not sure if it more depressing that they simply exist, or that they are advertised like normal, run of the mill stuff.

The first was from a site called divorce360.com. Yep, a whole entire site dedicated to all things divorce. What was interesting was what they called the Marriage Calculator, or more to the point, a "divorce calculator". You put in some information such as your education level, how old you were when you got married, how long you have been married and they give you an odd percentage of the people who have gotten divorced in your "group" and a prediction of what percentage of people from your "group" will divorce.

For example, my results:

People with similar backgrounds who are already divorced: 36%

People with similar backgrounds who will be divorced over the next five years: 10%

In general for the five-year divorce prediction rates, those with less than 3 percent are at lower
risk, 3 - 7 percent are of average risk and more than 7 percent are at higher risk.

I have no idea what this summary says about me and my marriage. I would be inclined to ask things like "is your husband a Poopy-Head *?" Honestly though, I don't know what our culture's fascination is with constantly throwing out statistics about what increases divorce rates. I have read so many times that my marriage is doomed, doomed, doomed because we got married young. I would love to see as much attention devoted why marriages succeed, succeed, succeed! No, I am not claiming that there are no such things as conditions that certainly do or do not stack the cards for or against a marriage working, just simply this is plain ole depressing. I can see reaching road blocks in a marriage and easily throwing in the towel simply because "well, I shouldn't have gotten married anyway." It conveys a message of hopelessness rather than one of hope.

Perhaps this sort of info is useful prior to marriage, but once there is a commitment, I am not sure how telling people their chances of failing is of any help.

The second sad shock for the day was the DNA Eye Color Paternity Test. I actually cannot fathom at all what the point of this tool is. I clicked on it because I saw a link on one of my celebrity gossip sites stating "now you know if it's positive or negative, now find out if it's blue, green, or brown". Not an exact quote. I thought "oh fun, like one of those 'child height predictors'. I don't even know why I find this kind of thing fun. It's like "short Dad, short Mom, there's a good chance you will have a short kid." Wow. Really? Amazing!

But the eye color thing intrigued me. My husband and I have plain, not light, not dark, but just average, middle of the road brown eyes. Out of six kids, we managed to produce one with brown eyes like us, one with hazel eyes, one with heterochromia, or in other words one brown eye and 3/4 of another brown eye and 1/4 blue eye, another with hazel eyes, one with deep, chocolate brown eyes, and one blue/green-eyed little girl (yes, yes shamelessly showing off my kids). If you asked me before they were here, I would have guessed they all would have had dark, brown eyes, but God is full of surprises.

So I clicked on the quiz to see what other interesting combos might come up. I missed the point. It wasn't just for fun, it was some sort of paternity-predictor quiz. I am baffled how someone has slept with so many people in one month, they have no concept who the other parent is, and only have a few eye colors to go by, but I guess I don't watch enough Maury.

So here's the quiz:

First you select the "biological mother": "brown"

Then the "child": "blue-green"

Then the "Alleged Father": "brown"

Here are the results:

EYE COLOR ANALYSIS

Eye Color Test Results: Not Excluded

Summary: The Alleged Father is Not Excluded from being the biological father of the child because the eye color of the Alleged Father is consistent with the Child

The eye color chart (located below) highlights the eye colors that are most likely to occur in offspring (children) based on the eye colors that were selected for the parents. The eye colors 'highlighted' in color are most likely to occur. The eye colors indicated in 'gray' are considered to be unlikely.

Blue-green was in the "gray" area. So my husband is considered unlikely to be my daughter's father. Ah, science. Seriosuly, what is the point? Can you imagine if I was someone desperate for the kind of information this thing is supposed to help provide, and all I got was a "maybe, but unlikely"? Sheesh.

*"Poopy Head is an official psychiatric diagnoses. My father is a psychologist so I know smart stuff like this. True story. I highly recommend that if you are dating someone who is diagnosed as a "Poopy Head", you reconsider.

left school forgetting her coat in her locker. Why? She doesn't know. She realized she forgot when she had to walk home from her bus stop in the High of 36 degree upstate NY weather, and someone actually yelled out their car window "Girl, you need a coat!"

I told her I had to blog her story.