Catholic mom on ensuring that your child has no friends

[louisa05]

I got flamed too. First a parent is for life for 18 years. My older kids are still learning from me. Second I want my kids to take their own path in life. I don't want clones of myself. I said on a christian homeschool forum, bad idea that children aren't both Christians they're both to christian parents. They decide if they follow your or his teachings. I'm more of a free parenting approach when it comes to religion. I want my kids to choose. I think if they all had the same ideas, religion, customs I would think I failed as a parent. They're individuals.

This was my parents' philosophy. My father was a lapsed Catholic and my mother was raised in a mainline Protestant denomination. They took us to whatever churches were available (most of my childhood was spent moving from one teeny rural town to another). Most were mainline Protestant, once we were liturgical Lutherans for about six months. Then they ended up sending us to Catholic schools because of terrible public schools (and it wasn't an issue of academics or belief systems--we were being bothered by teachers and administrators over my father's business decisions in the very small town--a few incidents proved that we were not even physically safe in their schools). Now that we are both adults, I ended up converting to Catholicism and my brother doesn't go to church at all. And my parents are fine with that. They never considered that it was their job to decide what our spiritual lives, practices and beliefs would be.

[NachosFlandersStyle]

Reading everyone else's stories makes me realize how much my family is a counterexample to this lady. I think my parents did a wonderful job of raising us, but they could not have foreseen that my little brother would have mental health problems, or that those issues would led him to make some really poor choices. Right now he is living with mom and dad while serving out a probation sentence related to drug charges. But I don't think it's the end of the line or that he's a lost cause or anything. And that's precisely because he did not grow up in a household like this crazy lady's.

1) My parents are making sure their relationship with him is honest and based on respect. They have sensible rules for him to live in their house, and he knows that if he meets those expectations they will treat him like an adult.

2) After my brother's arrest my parents went "through the grapevine" of families they know through the tight-knit Catholic school community and found an attorney who was willing to represent him at a friendly rate. One of those people whose big Irish family has been sending their kids to the same school since 1950 and would do anything for another family in the parish. If it weren't for those connections my brother would likely be in prison.

3) He was having trouble finding a job because of his rap sheet, but the father of one of his friends (a friend that I honestly thought was bad news back when they were teenagers) agreed to take him on as an apprentice in his trade.

4) He is going to NA meetings, where he interacts with all manner of humanity. In fact I think most of his social life right now involves sitting around in a church basement with a bunch of ex-junkies, people this lady would certainly never let within a hundred yards of her children. But from the conversations we have had, it seems like he has gained an enormous amount of genuine insight from the process.

Can you imagine how it might be different if he were raised in an isolated, manipulative, fearful family instead? He would not have any of the resources that are helping him to get back on his feet. That's the thing. You can shake your kids by the shoulders and say DON'T DO THIS! DON'T DO THAT! ONLY DO AS I SAY! as much as you want. But life is unpredictable and some percentage of people are always going to get off track. If you see the world in black and white then someone who has made mistakes is simply lost; you can't understand the things they need or the choices they face in order to recover.

[NachosFlandersStyle]

The thing that really irritated me was the author's reply to some of the comments. Especially the one to the lady who let her kids play with anyone, and the author makes some snark about wait until they are teenagers, and she will regret her decision.

Did you see the comment from the person who says that she was raised in a similar household and was emotionally damaged by it, and that all of her siblings now have a strained relationship with the parents? The author basically tells her that her parents did everything right and she's a shitty daughter for not appreciating it. Gahhh! Now that's logic. "If my children grow up to despise me and need therapy, does it mean I did something wrong? No, it's the children who are wrong."

[louisa05]

Reading everyone else's stories makes me realize how much my family is a counterexample to this lady. I think my parents did a wonderful job of raising us, but they could not have foreseen that my little brother would have mental health problems, or that those issues would led him to make some really poor choices. Right now he is living with mom and dad while serving out a probation sentence related to drug charges. But I don't think it's the end of the line or that he's a lost cause or anything. And that's precisely because he did not grow up in a household like this crazy lady's.

1) My parents are making sure their relationship with him is honest and based on respect. They have sensible rules for him to live in their house, and he knows that if he meets those expectations they will treat him like an adult.

2) After my brother's arrest my parents went "through the grapevine" of families they know through the tight-knit Catholic school community and found an attorney who was willing to represent him at a friendly rate. One of those people whose big Irish family has been sending their kids to the same school since 1950 and would do anything for another family in the parish. If it weren't for those connections my brother would likely be in prison.

3) He was having trouble finding a job because of his rap sheet, but the father of one of his friends (a friend that I honestly thought was bad news back when they were teenagers) agreed to take him on as an apprentice in his trade.

4) He is going to NA meetings, where he interacts with all manner of humanity. In fact I think most of his social life right now involves sitting around in a church basement with a bunch of ex-junkies, people this lady would certainly never let within a hundred yards of her children. But from the conversations we have had, it seems like he has gained an enormous amount of genuine insight from the process.

Can you imagine how it might be different if he were raised in an isolated, manipulative, fearful family instead? He would not have any of the resources that are helping him to get back on his feet. That's the thing. You can shake your kids by the shoulders and say DON'T DO THIS! DON'T DO THAT! ONLY DO AS I SAY! as much as you want. But life is unpredictable and some percentage of people are always going to get off track. If you see the world in black and white then someone who has made mistakes is simply lost; you can't understand the things they need or the choices they face in order to recover.

My cousin made some pretty bad choices in her teens. Like having a baby with an older guy who had two other girls pregnant with his babies at the same time as her. And forging a check from her mother's account to pay his bail once. Instead of taking any positive steps to help her get her life together at any point, they screamed and yelled at her, guilt tripped her over anything they did to financially help her (that baby turned 21 last month and his grandmother still moans about how they spent money to buy his diapers sometimes), and ultimately kicked her out. The result has been a lifetime of bad choices on her part which has doomed her and her kids (she had two more, also in bad circumstances) to poverty and struggle.

I taught at Christian school when she had her second baby. Her parents had thrown her out by then. I was trying to help her through that pregnancy and was criticized by the staff and threatened by the admins for doing so. One teacher, a man in his late 50s with grown kids, took my side. Unlike everyone else, he maintained that my aunt and uncle were in the wrong. He said that if your child makes big mistakes like that, it is the responsibility and, indeed the calling, of a Christian parent to love them through it and do everything in their power to give them the tools to make new and better choices. He also said that bullying them back to church does not constitute loving them through it. I only wish more people thought like that.

[luv2run]

I posted the article to my fb page, where numerous friends of mine are still home schoolers. One is a Catholic author and pretty well known. They were all horrified by the author. I think the words, "sick", "manipulative", "creepy", and "unsettling" were used. Among others.

Im also going to have my 14 year old daughter read it, and get her insight. One reason we sent them to school was I noticed this child in particular was becoming depressed. Probably due to being lonely. We couldn't do a lot of things in our home school group as I had two of my kids in public school for services, and the time frames nerve worked out for getting them anywhere, and being back to get kids off the bus. She was home schooled for 8 years, and has said on more than one occasion it's not something she cares to go back to.

[nausicaa]

So I got curious about the magazine that this was posted in and read a bunch of the articles. After some of the fundie stuff normally linked to on here, it really wasn't bad, but in one article about the benefits of homeschooling, the author writes of how you don't have to worry about your child associating with children from questionable backgrounds like in public school, where children may come from broken families or have relatives with drug issues. So now we're not only judging people for what they do, but for what backgrounds they come from? How Christian of you, Seton-ites. :roll:

Also, off topic, but the founder of that magazine was a fellow guest at a baby shower I was at once. My first real life sort of fundie connection! I'll take it.

And this seems to be just a wee bit of rose colored glassing combined with a nice dose of "no true Scotsman"

setonmagazine.com/family/family-life/what-are-the-marks-of-a-truly-catholic-family

[nokidsmom]

Did you see the comment from the person who says that she was raised in a similar household and was emotionally damaged by it, and that all of her siblings now have a strained relationship with the parents? The author basically tells her that her parents did everything right and she's a shitty daughter for not appreciating it. Gahhh! Now that's logic. "If my children grow up to despise me and need therapy, does it mean I did something wrong? No, it's the children who are wrong."

The assumption of virtue always given to these "overprotective to the point of damage" parents and the assumption of "wrong" or "bad" or "ungrateful" always given to the children who suffered for it astounds me.

[IReallyAmHopewell]

"Keeping kidults at home and not letting them try their wings makes me think that these kids have no roots either. They're a bunch of little hot house flowers who will wilt and die the first trial that hits them. I hope none of them ever run into some REAL shit..."

The "young plants" needing to be "sheltered" from "harsh weather" is a Gothard stand-by. The Bates have used it in interviews and maybe the Duggars, too.

[Hisey]

Have friends who went round the bend in Evangelical Catholic Homeschooling [if that name is even possible] They have a huge family, though some are adopted.

Not really sure I understand the bolded.