{"id":2116,"date":"2008-07-08T09:47:38","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T14:47:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/?p=2116"},"modified":"2008-07-08T09:47:38","modified_gmt":"2008-07-08T14:47:38","slug":"what-is-up-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/2008\/07\/what-is-up-with\/","title":{"rendered":"What Up Wit Dat Generation?!?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dawn Eden links<\/a> to this wonderful article from America<\/i> Magazine about a woman’s intellectual journey from being a pro-choice atheist to a pro-life Catholic. <\/a> I recommend it, it is an enjoyable read.
\nSome of the comments<\/a> made me chuckle. Take for example comment #73 by Tricia Harrigan:<\/p>\n

73. \tOK, abortion is killing a baby; agreed. Not to be
\ndone. But contraception? why is that wrong? Must
\none have a baby a year? We were well on that
\npath, when our third child was born before our
\neldest was three years old. We tried the rhythm
\nmethod and almost lost our marriage. The scars
\nremain. Our fourth child was born by choice, and
\nthen I took the pill, which had just become
\navailable. This was the time of Vatican II; we had
\ngreat hopes that the church would listen to the
\nfaithful and come to a less ‘all or nothing’
\napproach to marriage; a commission was appointed to
\nstudy marriage and eminent Catholic leaders like
\nthe Crowleys from Chicago were on it. But when the
\ngroup presented its conclusions, they were the
\nwrong ones, i.e. they did not echo the church’s
\nposition, so they were dismissed. What after all
\ndid married people know? So we don’t listen to
\ncelibates on the subject of marriage! A
\ngrandmother of 10, married 50 years.
\nBy Tricia Harrigan on July 6, 2008 at 6:11 PM <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know where to begin. This sounds so Diocese of Albany and so that 60’s generation. This is the generation whose philosophy is closing Churches left and right and watering down the faith.
\nI suppose I could go on about the abuses of folk music Masses, and stupid “cool” homilies about Bravo TV shows etc. etc, but I will stick to the topic at hand. I don’t understand this woman’s philosphy. I don’t understand my parents or my grandmother or my in-laws. I don’t get being Catholic except in regard to the birth control issue.I totally get how having another child when you are not planning on it is a struggle. But it seems like every time you make a choice to do something right, the immediate consequences seem very difficult compared to the alternative. However, the long term good makes life better.
\nI don’t get fighting the Church on this issue. It makes no sense to me to say “I am certainly Catholic and I agree in the Church’s wisdom on everything…except this. This is just dumb.” Do they think the Church is being cute and sentimental but doesn’t really mean it on this issue? I used to think they thought they were championing some cause or helping people by saying “you must go on birth control” but all that has happened is the opposite: it has turned people who desire to follow Church teachings and have more than 2 children into a pariah.
\nPeople always fall back on the economical reasoning-people should not have too many children that they cannot afford. That sounds logical and makes sense, but I think the philosophy behind this thinking has more to do simply with selfishness. Somewhere in this generation, or the one before, selfishness became a virtue. I cannot tell you how many times I hear people of that generation say things like “I enjoy my things”, “this belongs to me”, “I need my time”, “I deserve This”. It’s like a mantra, and they are used as excuses for reasons why they do not have to come visit their grandchildren on special occasions, or help with families or whatever, as well as simple random declarations of their life mission statements. It baffles me why people are not embarrassed to make such proclamations. If I was simply too tired to attend an important event, I would at least make an excuse. My mother-in-law just two days ago told us we are not worthy to make the 3 hour trip to visit. She has better things to do. For the life of me, I cannot understand how this is fulfilling. I don’t think it is. One of my girlfriend’s mother used to tell her constantly she should have been aborted. Growing up, everyone but her mother took care of my friend, her grandparents, neighbors, after-school programs.The woman dated, partied, finished school and obtained many graduate degrees, and acted in shows. Now that she is grown and her mother is in her fifties, her mother announced to her that her daughter “stole her youth away”. I wish I could say this is so weird and was just her, but it is not. Maybe to this extent yes. Not sure, my husband was a “we should have aborted you” child yet his parents invested no time or effort into raising him. They claim all the time they did, the sacrificed so much. It is OK to say that because it “would have been the right thing for me”.
\nI am so glad to have many Catholic friends in my generation, who in the very least, abandoned folk music Masses. If I had to sit around with my friends and talk about how great that generation was because of Woodstock and liberation theology, I would lock myself in my closet and never come out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dawn Eden links to this wonderful article from America Magazine about a woman’s intellectual journey from being a pro-choice atheist to a pro-life Catholic. I recommend it, it is an enjoyable read. Some of the comments made me chuckle. Take for example comment #73 by Tricia Harrigan: 73. OK, abortion is killing a baby; agreed.… Continue reading What Up Wit Dat Generation?!?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-issues","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2116\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moss-place.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}