Sometime around Christmas, I received the following email from a friend of mine who recently converted to the faith:
Big question: Do you have any thoughts on how to raise a baby up in faith? Both Liz and I were not really brought up in a faith environment, and so we’re at a bit of a loss about how to translate our secular experience as children over to a real, faithful and Catholic environment.
I laughed out loud when I read it, since what could I, as merely the mama of a four month old, possibly know about creating a Catholic environment and raising kids in the faith? I emailed my friend back to ask me in twenty years. And then, of course, my mother called me just to see what was going on. It was that phone call that made me realize, growing up in a Catholic home, in a way, qualifies me to talk about Catholic parenting!
My hypothesis is that raising Catholic kids has less to do with parenting and more to do with simply being a faithful Catholic yourself. A person’s instincts, merely by knowing Christ died for our sins, makes him intuitively know that he, in some small way, must try to mimic that love. For example, God shows us how to mimic the love He has for His children via our love for our babies. Babies are utterly helpless creatures, but what they need most of all is love. Sure, it sounds cliche, but when you have a baby, you literally put loving these tiny creatures before showering, going out with friends and even sleeping. When you have no real interaction with babies for a couple decades, you forget that it’s possible for one creature to be so utterly reliant on another. You forget what real helplessness looks like. Your heart is truly moved to do what ever is possible to make the baby happy and healthy. Jesus repeatedly talks about helping the helpless and the most vulnerable… babies are the epitome of that kind of love. In that way, instinctively being a parent shows you how to be a better Catholic, and vice versa.
When it comes to older kids, showing them what it means to be a Catholic means so much more than sitting them down with a chalk board and making them memorize the succession of the popes (although it would be a really cool party trick to have your 6 year old reciting Holy Fathers in chronological order). As kids, my sister and I went to Mass every Sunday and Sunday school every week. We had to do this until we were confirmed and then our parents let us decide what we did on Sundays… but they kept going to Mass. We didn’t pray the rosary as a family or anything, but my parents selflessly loved us on a daily basis. My sister and I made mistakes, were awful to our parents, and had interests my parents didn’t understand , but they loved each other, supported us, and cheered us on every single day.
Going to Mass and Sunday School each week seems like the bare minimum I hope to do as a family; I hope to instill morning and evening prayers for our children, discussions about our relationships with Jesus and I hope to create an environment where everyone feels welcomed and loved. And yet, in the CCD class John and I teach, almost none of the kids go to Mass every week. The other teachers told us that the kids had no idea who the parish priest was when he made a visit. That alone got me thinking about the vital role the Mass plays in forming a child’s ideas and how, without it, kids really don’t have a good idea of why it’s important to have a relationship with God at all. Since Sunday Mass attendance is essentially the bare minimum the Church asks of Catholics each week, it should also be the bare minimum we ask of our kids each week.
My husband and I have all sorts of Catholic day dreams and aspirations about raising our kids. I know John wants to read them Chronicles of Narnia (did anyone think it was a coincidence that we named our eldest, Peter?) and I want Catholic music to be a constant presence in our home. We want to start Christmas and Easter traditions and make sure our kids know how beautiful and amazing the Catholic Church is and how it’ll always be our home, no matter what geographical location we find ourselves. All of those details, however, are contingent upon all sorts of things: a mama who has energy, a daddy who isn’t deployed overseas, etc. What I think we hope our kids will remember most is the way we tried our hardest to show them Christ’s love for them. Realistically, Christ’s love is what the Church is built on and if kid’s are exposed to and appreciate that love, I think everything else will fall into place.