My niece, tattling & her dad's beer can

Like every other generation before it I belong to a generation that bemoans what has happened to young people, and what they are doing to themselves.

I was reminded of this story from my life when listening to witness at church this weekend. The man bearing witness was struck by how several impoverished girls in an orphanage shared the remaining half bottle of his soda pop with a total of 15 other children, so each could get a sip. I observed the same type of thing with the Native American children I sponsored. But listen to what happened in my own family, back in the not so good old 1970's.

My brother and wife with their young child, my niece, was visiting grandma's house, where I still had a room. My brother being much older than I, when he went to college I moved into his room, had his furniture and the little knick knacks that he left for me. For example, he had a beautiful little ceramic of a fawn (that I still treasure, though I've not seen it in many years, as all my stuff is locked up in storage out of my reach). On the desk I had a beer can that my brother had used as a pencil cup, and I used it the same. It was cool, being of a brand of beer, Jaguar I think, with decoration of the same skin pattern.

My niece was fairly well grown, a child, not a toddler by any means. I was showing her around my room. In order to give her a feeling for how our family (small as it was) passed down the few things we had (we were poor and all my mom's stuff was lost in World War II), when we got to the pencil cup I told her how it was her dad's.

I was shocked, and still remember, how that little head whipped around to look at me with, to my amazement, dislike! Without a word she ran into the other room, squealing, "Dad! Dad! Aunt C has YOUR CAN!" running as fast as she could to, yep, you guessed it, "tattle" on me. Even when my bro came into the room and fondly reminisced about the can, she just glared at me, thinking only that I had stolen her precious dad's can.

Now, you might think that was funny, but it was quite a jolt for two reasons. One is that this was the first time I met a child that did not understand older sibling handing down to younger sibling his no longer wanted stuff. See, she had fine new bought things all her life. (She would later tell her grandmother that she didn't like staying in her house because she did not have a TV in every room). So I saw the first example of that very worrying and shallow, grasping trend in children, children who are old enough to know better. Second I had a premonition of where this mindset would lead her. And true, now she hangs out with celebrity tattle tales ha.

Parents, parents, parents... you are the generation that my niece belongs to. What are you teaching your children? If you were born into the way my niece was, how much worse is your children's generation? The Bible and good parenting teaches moderation, grace, good manners, appreciation, and being honorable (not tattlers) for a reason: it is not only the righteous and just way to be, but it is the way to avoid many physical and spiritual pitfalls in life. It is not healthy nor is it fair to not object when your little prince or princess has their fanny buffed constantly so that they think everyone else has "their stuff," where no matter what they have legitimately, they resent what others have, as small as it is.

So I'm glad there are still generous children who share rather than tattle, though according to the witness I heard on Sunday, I guess they are in Mongolia!

Bible Reading: Proverbs 4:1-9

Hear, O children, a father's instruction, be attentive, that you may gain understanding! 2. Yes, excellent advice I give you; my teaching do not forsake. 3. When I was my father's child, frail, yet the darling of my mother, 4. He taught me, and said to me: "Let your heart hold fast to my words: keep my commands, that you may live!

5. "Get wisdom, get understanding! Do not forget or turn aside from the words I utter. 6. Forsake her not, and she will preserve you; love her, and she will safeguard you; 7. The beginning of wisdom is: get wisdom; at the cost of all you have, get understanding. 8. Extol her, and she will exalt you; she will bring you honors if you embrace her; 9. She will put on your head a graceful diadem; a glorious crown will she bestow on you."

Understanding God-quick thought on heavy topic

I've had a thought regarding a quick and simple way to understand one of the heaviest topics about God, that being his All Knowingness. I know that's hard for people to understand the way it ought to be understood, which is that God is more than just a complete walking encyclopedia. So I thought of an analogy that would really relate to you parents out there, and also to those of you who cared for younger brothers and sisters.

One of the things people don't understand about God is how he can be All Knowing, and yet interact with people moment by moment, day by day, and be active in world events, for example. People think that if God knows "how the movie ends" about everything in life, why and how does he interact with people, if at all. Well, it is really simple to understand on what level if you think of it this way.

When you are with your young child, or any young child that you care for, you will play with them, and let them "help" you, by speaking and interacting with them at their own level. Further, you help your child discover the world (and what they are going to do in it) just as if you didn't know the answer either.

For example, when toddlers are learning about the world, you will often take your toddler to something new, like a picture book, or a drawer in a cabinet, and make a big fuss about opening it for the first time, creating excitement in the child as you say things like "Oh, what is this! It's a booooook. Let's open the book!" And then you oooh and aaah along with the child as if you are experiencing the wonder of discovering the book right along with the child.

God is the ultimate expert, of course, in pacing himself along with humans, for their benefit, not his, although he has that parental pleasure, even though he "knows" in advance, of course, what is in the book he is showing you, how many times you will read books in your life, what you will think of them, how you will use the knowledge, etc.

So every time that you pray to God, or are in comfortable silence with him, God is responding to you in exactly in the "here and now," just as he would in the example I've given as a loving parent with a learning toddler.

For example, God does not minimize his spiritual interaction with you even if he knows that you are going to do this many bad things, or waste these many opportunities... or that there are "better" people he could "invest" his time (which is infinite anyway) with. Every second of time that God spends with you is truly "one on one" of the type of "loving parent paces himself with the toddler," no matter what the future, which God knows all of, holds.

Think of the wonder of how different God is from humans. If you, as a parent, knew in advance that your little toddler would grow up and deliver in the future terrible disappointments to you, any parent, being flawed and human, would emotionally invest "less" in that toddler. This is one reason, by the way, that false arts such as fortune telling is so strictly forbidden in the Bible. It closes rather than opens the heart to great spirituality and Christ like charity. It's human nature. If you knew that your bright eyed blond toddler would grow up to be a hard core and ungrateful thief, no human could resist modifying their behavior with that child, since the burden of that knowledge is too heavy for any human to be untouched by. But God is not like that at all.

God does not remove one iota of his constancy of availability and attention from any human, even though he knows every bitter thought and deed and disappointment that human will render in the future.

So that is how God is able to be All Knowing on the one hand, and yet interact (as you see in the Bible) with humans in a moment by moment way, just as if he is in the moment and does not already know "how it will all turn out."

Think about it. When God is walking in the Garden of Eden, and calls for Adam and Eve, knowing that they had already eaten the forbidden fruit, he calls them just as if he doesn't know. But God is interacting with them on the level that they can handle and is truly "in the moment" with them, even though he, of course "already knows" 1) what they had done 2) what will happen to them for the rest of their lives, 3) what will happen to every other human being for all of time 4) when he will send Jesus Christ 5) which people of which faiths will choose salvation and 6) when will be the End of Times. So God, like a parent, is able to have continual "in the moment" conversation and interaction with humans (for their benefit, not his) even as he at the same time knows everything there is to know and ever will be in the future to know (and God even knows, of course, all the what-ifs that never happen!)

Thus God is genuinely speaking to and interacting with Adam and Eve exactly in the moments, shaping with them, according to their exercise of their God given free will (and then his reaction to it) the present and thus the step by step moments of life into the future.

That is what should be marveled about, wondered about and loved about God, that he does know all there is to know, and at the same time, is genuinely in each moment with each person, and does not ever rob a person of any of his (God's) availability just because God already "knows" whether his attention is a "good investment" or "not." God is fully there and present for each person, whenever they reach out to him, and even when they do not (in his form of the Holy Spirit, which strives to reach even the hardest and most distant of hearts).

I hope that you have found this helpful! Loving hello and wave, as usual, to the young people who follow my blogging :-)

Personal recollection and the role of good parents

Here is a little personal story to share with you, since it came to mind tonight after church services.

I grew up in the 1950's and at that time, even though my mother could, of course, drive a car, it was usually my father who did the driving. As soon as I was old enough to be observing of the landscape around us as we were driving, and to understand the mechanics, I started to worry about something. I've always loved animals of all kinds, and as a small girl I noticed that birds often landed on or were standing on the road or the road's shoulder. I worried about them and asked my dad about them, urging him to be careful and to avoid hitting them! He was very kind and reassured me that the birds are fast enough that they always get out of the way. This was exactly the right thing to say to a young child, and I believed it for many years.

It was much later, when I was older, that I noticed the occasional dead bird on the side of the road, LOL. By then of course I realized that some birds were not fast or observant enough to avoid a car! But I was grateful for and benefited from the peace of mind that my father had given to me for many years.

Friends, that is how it should and it must be. The Bible says that parents should not grieve their children. What does grieve mean? It means a sadness and sorrow in the heart.

Today there are so many hypocrites about the truth. Modern society values all kinds of untruths, exaggerations, malicious gossip and lies, yet some people would probably think that my father was "lying" to me that birds are never hit by cars and that kids need to be "prepared for life."

The media is even worse in this. How many stupid videos, films, advertisements and so forth show "humorous" flattened animals, graphic details of realities of nature, etc for a far too young audience? Gosh, if a child asked the question that I did back then during these times, I'd be afraid that some parents would go out and run over a bird so the three year old could see the squashed corpse and be "prepared for real life."

Children-all children-have tender innocent souls given to them by God and that are besmirched and harmed only by humans, or by illnesses that affect the child's stability. It is not proper for parents to "harden" or "prepare for 'reality'" (so called) the innocent souls of children. In other words, it is not a parent's job to give children grief, not the slang term of giving grief (to nag or to hassle, which sometimes is necessary), but to grieve and sadden children with graphic violence and sadness, which needs no introduction or promotion to children, since sadly as they age life tends to bring this stuff to them anyway in due course.

So one of my fondest memories, that gives me a smile, of my much loved (and wise) father is that he gave me so many years of thinking that all birds everywhere got out of the way of cars, and it is only later that I had what then was an appropriate humorous moment when I, being older, first noticed a pile of feathers on the side of the road, and said to myself, "Hey! Now wait a minute..."

LOL. I hope that you have found this diverting and even somewhat thought provoking.

Tips for parents: child Internet safety

I meant to post this a few days ago, right after the story of the young man who commit suicide while broadcasting from his room. One is a repeat of an often made suggestion by professionals, and I've added a thought of my own.

Parents are urged not to allow children, even teenagers, to keep a computer in their bedroom. The family computer and the computer that the child uses should be in a public area where parents can supervise and easily see what the child is accessing on the Internet. Teens will whine this is embarrassing and an invasion of privacy. Well, tell them that when we were growing up, we'd do our homework at the kitchen table, so we could be among the family and also keep an eye on what was at the time the only family TV. That type of arrangement worked for a reason, as we are seeing now. "Privacy" means giving youngsters chances to be tempted into activities that they do not yet have the good judgment and maturity to discern. So do whatever you can to keep all computer activities in the common living area.

My second suggestion is if all else fails and you must have a child use a computer in their own or otherwise specialized room away from everyone else, ban the use of a video camera. Here is how to explain it to your teenager. You, the parent, gets to choose for safety and privacy sake who enters your home and to who you give personal details about your family. A web camera is an uncontrolled and unapproved "eye" into the house and family, which is a security and privacy threat, and your responsibility as a parent. Therefore at the very least ban the use of web cameras by your children and keep the device if you have them only in the common room. Again, a video camera boosts ego gratification and narcissism at a time when youth are just not emotionally equipped to handle it and to discern how unwise that is as a practice. So if you feel you cannot win the war of getting the computer in the common area, at least insist on no private web camera usage, and that it must be used only under supervision. The brains of children and teens are not ready for exhibitionism, trust me.

Important medical advice to parents

Something clicked for me today, realizing another important health care practice that generations of parents have used to protect their children that is totally forgotten today. What clicked for me was the realization that modern parents didn't know this obvious information about babies and young children.

If you look at old pictures or speak to someone as old as me (LOL) you'll see that all babies wore bonnets. Bonnets are close fitting caps with an all around rim, usually ruffles or lace. It has dawned on me that this generation thinks that was a quaint fashion decision, but if you think about it, duh, why would everyone have done it for generations if it was "fashion?" Bonnets were one of the essential items that protected babies' and young children's health in two ways.

One is that they regulate the temperature of the baby. When it is hot the bonnet protects the baby from the sun. When it is cold the bonnet keeps the baby warm (that's why wearing a hat is important in the cold, since much body heat is lost through the head). So bonnets were essential for regulating the proper body temperature of the infant.

Equally important, though, and this should be the attention getter for you modern parents. Bonnets were used to protect infant ears from the wind and drafts which cause... yes, chronic ear aches. Babies and young children have very sensitive ear canals and ear drums. When I was a kid all of us got ear aches when we rode in cars with the window down. Every parent knew this, which was why they wouldn't let kids roll down the windows very far in the cars (remember, this is pre-air conditioning). Whenever a baby got an ear ache the family doctor knew that drafts were likely behind it. And I can testify because it is something I've actually not outgrown as an adult. That is why I wear a "do rag" (what we used to call bandannas) that covers my ears when I am outside on a windy day, or if I have the air conditioner on in the car for extended time periods. I still get ear aches when wind or air conditioning blows near my ear. Also, people have wondered why I wear my very long hair forward so it covers my ears (the subject usually comes up when women have suggested I wear earrings, which I don't, only to discover that even if I wore earrings my hair totally covers my ears.) Because my ears have remained very sensitive to drafts, just as when I was a child, I keep my hair over my ears and do not like a "pulled back" hair do, in general.

Now, all you parents know there has been a so called "epidemic" of "ear infections" in babies and young children that are very painful. Duh. This coincides with the society that stopped putting bonnets that cover the ears on their babies AND inundate cars, offices and homes with the cold air venting from air conditioners. While driving today with my do rag on and seeing a young boy riding in a Jeep (driven by his mom) it suddenly dawned on me that you all don't realize this! I'm telling you that many of the episodes of "ear infections" occur because the infant is not wearing a bonnet and is exposed to direct air blowing into the ear. When we were young we never "needed" antibiotics for ear aches because most of the time they occurred it was because a youngster was exposed to direct air blowing in his or her ear, like I said, if the car window was cranked down too low. Babies rarely had ear aches in those days because like I said, bonnets were constantly worn as parents knew about preventing them from, what we called "getting a draft." A draft was not a beer. A draft is a blowing wind, either the natural wind outside or human caused such as fans or air conditioning, that both chills infants and also inflames the inner ear when the tissue is very sensitive and still growing, thus very vulnerable.

I hope this helps open some eyes. Bonnets were essential health needs for babies, not quaint clothes that are "old fashioned." And the "ear ache" epidemic is from another modern society lack of common sense and knowledge that every parent used to have, and of course, now gets called an "epidemic," a "disease," and medicated. Meanwhile the baby is sitting there directly under an air vent or outdoors in the wind with unprotected ears. Duh! I hope you find this helpful.

Text of two Pope messages at Lourdes

Here is the text of his message at the Angelus:

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=29328

(For those who are not Catholics, the Angelus can be thought of as mid-day prayers).

snip

At noon, when the first hours of the day are already beginning to weigh us down with fatigue, our availability and our generosity are renewed by the contemplation of Mary’s “yes”. This clear and unreserved “yes” is rooted in the mystery of Mary’s freedom, a total and entire freedom before God, completely separated from any complicity with sin, thanks to the privilege of her Immaculate Conception. This privilege given to Mary, which sets her apart from our common condition, does not distance her from us, but on the contrary, it brings her closer.

While sin divides, separating us from one another, Mary’s purity makes her infinitely close to our hearts, attentive to each of us and desirous of our true good. You see it here in Lourdes, as in all Marian shrines; immense crowds come thronging to Mary’s feet to entrust to her their most intimate thoughts, their most heartfelt wishes. That which many, either because of embarrassment or modesty, do not confide to their nearest and dearest, they confide to her who is all pure, to her Immaculate Heart: with simplicity, without frills, in truth. Before Mary, by virtue of her very purity, man does not hesitate to reveal his weakness, to express his questions and his doubts, to formulate his most secret hopes and desires. The Virgin Mary’s maternal love disarms all pride; it renders man capable of seeing himself as he is, and it inspires in him the desire to be converted so as to give glory to God.

And here is the text of Pope Benedict's homily:

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=29327

snip

This is the great mystery that Mary also entrusts to us this morning, inviting us to turn towards her Son. In fact, it is significant that, during the first apparition to Bernadette, Mary begins the encounter with the sign of the Cross. More than a simple sign, it is an initiation into the mysteries of the faith that Bernadette receives from Mary. The sign of the Cross is a kind of synthesis of our faith, for it tells how much God loves us; it tells us that there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weaknesses and sins. The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us. It is this mystery of the universality of God’s love for men that Mary came to reveal here, in Lourdes. She invites all people of good will, all those who suffer in heart or body, to raise their eyes towards the Cross of Jesus, so as to discover there the source of life, the source of salvation.

The Church has received the mission of showing all people this loving face of God, manifested in Jesus Christ.

A homily is the "sermon" given during a Catholic Mass.

These are highly recommended readings because once again Pope Benedict XVI shows himself to be the loving instructor of the flock. He knows that people, even those with great belief, have failings in their knowledge and need to regain educational context for their faith. And so with every paragraph he does three things at once: he preaches, he explains and teaches, and he performs as the role model for the faith. If you read these two texts (and all future ones from him) and keep these three points in mind, you'll see for yourself how he is doing all of those essential tasks at once. For example, through his careful example and explanations, Pope Benedict corrects, without having to say a word about them, misconceptions that people have about the role of Mary and reinforce that Mary is totally about the primacy of God, to whom all worship is due and who holds all power, and the completeness of the role of Savior in and only in Jesus Christ. Pope Benedict demonstrates how he can frame the truthful context of God, Jesus, Mary, and the importance of the Cross so that misguided misconceptions simply fall away and do not have to be confronted.

Studying Pope Benedict and his writings and utterances in this way also helps when one reads the Bible. You see, Bible authors who recorded the true events in faith history were doing the same thing: preaching, instructing and establishing role models. It is much easier to understand Bible figures and also the saints and others who followed when you recognize those who are particularly gifted and conscientious, as is Pope Benedict, to do all of these three tasks at once that are essential to good faith formation.

Parents, you might want to think about this too in your relationship to your children, including in secular activities. Children develop the best when they understand at the same time: 1) what to do 2) why it is the way it is and 3) they can observe good role models.

I hope that you find this helpful.

Inappropriate child "sex education"

I just heard that there is some sort of law allowing Kindergarten level teachers to “give a clinically correct answer” to the theoretical question if a five or six year old child asks “Where do babies come from?” Argh! What incredible morons modern people have become! (And when I use the term moron I am not disrespecting the developmentally disabled because, um, that’s what I actually call people, developmentally disabled, being compassionate I have never called them morons in the first place. Thus I have always reserved the term moron for incredibly willful stupid people who ought to know better). Anyway, here is the problem with this “law.”

Modern humans have somehow forgotten so much of basic biology and infant/child development that I truly despair. Remember that not so long ago I had to blog to explain that one reason that babies cry when their diapers are being changed is that the cold air striking the wet part of their bodies actually hurts their sensitive skin. Anyone human knew that a mere forty years ago, including young brothers and sisters who were children themselves. Yet somehow we have raised a narcissistic generation or two that are too foolish to even understand the basics about infant and child biology and development. The “asking where babies comes from” is exactly the same problem. People worked out what the proper response was decades ago because they understood a child’s mind at that age if they ask that question.

When a child asks that question at that age they do NOT want a clinical and detailed answer! There were many studies showing that providing a child with too much detail in answer to that question is disturbing to them. By study I do not mean lab rats or highly paid liberals in universities who “test” in false conditions. We had this marvelous resource called pediatricians (who were the lowest paid of the doctors at that time so they were truly in the profession for love of children) and parents who shared anecdotal information that was considered to be filled with valuable knowledge. Here is what the previous generations of parents and pediatricians used to know.

When a child at that age asks “Where do babies come from?” they want a one sentence answer that gives the category of reference, not the details. Here is an example. If a five year old child asked their mom, “where is the milk” the mom answers “in the refrigerator.” The mom does not answer, “The milk is in the refrigerator. Did you know that milk comes from cows? Farmers squeeze the teats of cows every day so the milk squirts out and then we put it in a bottle and here it is in our refrigerator to drink!” But this is how narcissistic that modern liberal adults have become, that they think that children are miniature versions of adults that want to know the nuts and bolts of things. Children aren’t READY to hear the nuts and bolts! It scares them because they have no adult frame of reference for the implications of hearing the nuts and bolts, since those details are also still mysterious and strange and somewhat scary to a young child. Sheesh. The image of the “precocious” wise cracking smart mouth child who talks like a smart ass mini-adult is a total Hollywood invention, and one of the most destructive (of many) that they have shoveled into the minds and down the throats of this depraved and warped society. SHEESH!!
Only a parent knows at what level of understanding is their child, and how to best deliver the “one liner” response that is all the child expects. At that age the child wants to know only what they are actually asking, which is “where do they come from?” Good answers depending on the age: They come from mommy and daddy when they decide it is a good time to have another baby. Mommy and daddy know how to make a baby. The child at that age is asking “where” not “how.” The child is thus able to eliminate in their mind the other possible places that babies might come from. When they ask “where” they really mean “where.”

I remember reading many books and articles on this subject when I was young and that is what the common wisdom based on pediatricians and parents ACTUALLY UNDERSTANDING children instead of distorting them into something that they are not, and frightening them as a result. This is why the answer to that question at that age must come from the parent or caregiver. They have the frame of reference to understand the context to answer the “where,” such as, for example, if the child asking has brothers and sisters. The parent can then use them as an example and say, “Mommy and daddy decided they wanted a baby so they made your brother so and so and now he’s grown up to be such and such years old.” For the vast majority of children (who have not been raised as freak show society tarts and sex toys from infancy) THAT is the right level of answer. Studies show that kids will think about that and at some point will come back (often months or years later) with follow up questions. It is this freak show society that is forgetting normal and SAFE child development and instead distorting their perception of children so that you all think they are digging for “the details” when they are just in their minds trying to sort out whether babies come from hospitals, stores, God, the stork or whatever. When they ask “where” they MEAN where, only in the most general terms. Parents or the primary caregivers (grandparents for example if parents are “unavailable,” you know, like being drug addicts or in jail or something) must be the ones to answer, NOT teachers who cram agenda down the throats of even the youngest and most vulnerable in our society.

If a child asks a teacher the teacher should send the child home with a note that notifies the parent that the child has asked this question and offering suggestions (pediatrician and so forth) if the parent has trouble answering. PERIOD.

My young readers, you have no idea how much you have been screwed. Your “parents” and the institutions “schools, government, agencies” had destroyed much of the common sense kind and tender knowledge that generations of parents had available to them about how to nurture a child’s development in a healthy and truly “age appropriate” (to use one of their favorite words) way. I hope that what I write as it comes to my attention through the media (since no one yet actually speaks to me or asks me those questions) is useful to you. *Hugs for those who have had to grow up in this depraved and moronic society with its lack of common sense and values.*

Roles of father and mother with children

All the indoctrination and "political correctness" in the world will not change the fact that a child has a different relationship and need between the child's father and the child's mother. There is no one like a father in a child's life, and there is no one like a mother. This is true whether or not the child is the biological child or if there are complicated familial relationships. Every child needs his or her father and every child needs his or her mother.

To a child the mother is the image of love and security, because the mother is the giver of life to the child and the child is totally dependent on the mother both biologically and emotionally. The mother unlocks for the child the reality of being alive and of having both awareness and feelings that are safely expressed and understood.

To a child the father is the image of love and strength, because every child looks up to his or her father, regardless if the father is the strongest guy on the block, or the biggest bread winner or not. Babies are able to perceive love from each parent, and indeed they need love from each parent. But babies are also able to perceive the gender based difference between the mother and the father and indeed to do so is a survival trait that is the gift of millions of years of evolution. Humans look to the father for love that comes in the form of protection and instruction. Humans look to the mother for love that comes in the form of emotional security. It is stupid and self defeating to argue otherwise.

Both parents have roles therefore in the faith formation of their child. Children must be introduced to the reality of God at the earliest age and instructed in their family faith by both parents. There is a valuable nuance of difference in roles between the father and the mother in teaching of faith, however, one that used to be natural and instinctive, but one which now requires awareness to be made and reinforcement.

As the father figure who provides both love and strength, protection and physical security to the child, father has a particularly valuable perspective to give to his young child about God. The father should teach the child how "even daddy has someone that he looks up to for strength and protection, and that is God." Thus the child learns that there is someone so strong and reliable that even his father looks up to him and turns to him for protection. So that is the nuance that gives great dimension and perspective to the child that is unique to the father figure. Traditionally that is taught in Christian families in the context of explaining God and St. Joseph to the young child. God helps St. Joseph to protect the young baby Jesus. Children can instantly understand that, as they feel that their protection comes from their fathers.

Throughout the faith history of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) it is the father's responsibility to ensure that the child is raised from its first days to know about God, to love and respect God, and to know the tenets of their faith. Notice I say it is the responsibility of the father; this does not mean that he is the one who does everything and has this duty as some sort of privilege of gender. Of course not and in fact, it is the mother who often provides the most quantity of religious instruction to the child. But what I am explaining is that "the buck stops here" in the well organized, loving and God fearing family, for it is the father who is ultimately responsible for how well or how poorly the child is instructed in God and his or her faith. This is why it is important for the father to explain the context and reality of God to the child at the earliest age that the child can understand, and in child appropriate ways and language of course. The father ensures that the child understands that daddy believes in God, that daddy has a relationship with God and looks to God for protection and strength, and that daddy makes sure that the child receives all that he or she needs to learn and practice their faith.

The mother has the equally important role, recognizing that nuance is complimentary rather than competitive with the father. For example, the mother is often the one to explain to the child the questions the child will later ask about human relationships from the mother, such as "Where does God come from," "Does God have a mommy and daddy," and "What is heaven like?" We all know that children tend to ask personal and intimate questions from the mother. Thus by working together the father and the mother give a fully dimensional and complimentary faith formation to the child. Another typical place that children tend to learn their faith is that mom is often the one to help them with their prayers before bed. Traditionally, moms would help with the night prayers while dads helped with saying grace before meals. That was how it was in my home, where my stepfather always ensured that grace was said at dinner, while mother's role was the night time routine with the before bed prayers.

I know that many are thinking, "Oh how Ozzie and Harriet. That's not how it is today." Well, yes and no. I am presenting the ideal, but it is the living and real ideal that worked for two thousand years and more. This is not a cool idea of mine; it is an explanation to you of how things actually worked in the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths for many hundreds of years. The father always had the responsibility to leverage the role modeling that he provided by virtue of simply being a father and from that perspective teach the child how father has a relationship with God that he can count on, and ensuring that the child had access to religious instruction and worship service.

Also, remember that lifespans were much shorter and unpredictable in the hardships of more primitive times. It's only in the last century that the norm was to have both parents have a good chance of avoiding early deaths from illness, conflict, poverty and in the woman's case, childbirth. So there were many households that did lose a mother or a father and yet this pattern was followed. How was that done? Obviously in the time of responsible extended families the loss of a father meant that uncles or grandparents took over the religious instruction and responsibility. There was no "gap" in the father's role to ensure religious instruction and the basics of belief in God from the earliest age. Likewise if the mother died due to illness or childbirth, or from wearing out in hardship as many men did of the time too, aunts and grandmothers equally ensured that the child had the portion of religious formation that came from the mother, with the maternal nuance that is to be expected. Older brothers and sisters also had a great responsibility and role in raising their younger siblings in the faith. And this was not a chore but a welcome activity even among children, since they enjoyed their piety and religious instruction within the family. (Remember that for most of human civilization there was no "entertainment" media, like adventure books. Children enjoyed Bible stories as children today enjoy "adventure" stories. So children loved the Bible and reading about saints because they were nonfiction adventure, to put it in a modern analogy of terminology). If you read the lives of the saints you will see that many had influential siblings and how they shared their joy in God.

There is another point I want to make about the Catholic Church's emphasis on the Communion of Saints, especially the veneration of St. Joseph and his spouse, the Blessed Virgin Mary. During the times where there were frequent deaths of a parent due to the primitive and harsh conditions of life prior to this past modern century, the child would often turn to Joseph or Mary to be their heavenly parent if one of their earthly parents perished. Thus a Catholic child who lost their father would often look toward St. Joseph as their substitute for their real father, and the child who lost their mother would look toward Mary as their substitute for their real mother. Thus there was a great comfort and role modeling provided by the Communion of Saints that complimented the roles of the earthly extended family. You can read examples of this again in the lives of the saints and other literary sources. Popes who lost one of their parents, especially the mother, have mentioned that they felt as a child or a young man a turning toward Mary as their "mother" in lieu of their own mother's earthly presence.

This is another reason why it is so vital to a child's well being to introduce them to God and instruct them in God and their faith at a very early age. Previous generations gave their children a stability of faith formation that is essential to not only spiritual well being of the child, but also their physical, mental and emotional well being. The saints were real people and real role models and, as Catholics do, teaching the child that they are "part of the family" and part of the extended family in spirit as well as the physical extended family gives the child a bulwark against feelings of extreme isolation, existentialism and alienation when life gets rough. You don't have to be a social scientist to see that the past several generations have been robbed of that right and that reality. That's why the sacrament of Baptism is performed for infants in the Catholic Church. It is not the water and the oil itself, but it is the heralding of the beginning of the child's religious instruction and privileges of knowing the Communion of Saints as their own family too. Catholics adhere to the Jewish tradition and faith that the parents instruct the children in their faith and initiate them through ritual into the faith from their very birth. (Prior to baptising the equivalent was the presentation of infants in the temple and the sacrifices made on their behalf). There is no foundation in any of the three Abrahamic faiths for "waiting" until the child "decides on their own" to have a "personal relationship with God." That very idea would have been a total scandal among Jews, Christians and Muslims.

I hope that this has given you something to think about. Fathers need to remember that there is real dignity in fatherhood and much of it comes from the God given duty that they are ultimately responsible for their child's faith formation. God frowns on the idea that boys or men think that their pride comes in being a "baby daddy" and that's it. Regardless of the circumstances of the conception, if you are old enough to be a "baby daddy" you are old enough and therefore responsible for raising the child within faith in God (and that applies whether "you" "fully believe or not.") Analogy: you give your infant milk to drink even though you may not drink milk yourself. I mean, duh.

Likewise this is not to shortchange mothers or their role and dignity in the faith formation of their children. I'm putting the onus on both parents to understand that everyone has to do more, and do more earlier and consistently for their children. It is a scandal how, even in my own family, children were raised without their faith or even being baptized. Societal "revolution" and breakdown have cheated children of their birthright in knowing God and practicing their faith. Not raising your child in your institutional mainstream faith is dumber, not smarter, low scale, not "sophisticated," depressive and not "enlightened," oppressive and not "liberating." To raise children so that they don't know of God and his love, guidance and security is scandalous and is one of the worst forms of "parental malpractice." It's also self defeating because it robs you as a parent of one of the greatest joys that parents have, and have attested to throughout the centuries, which is introducing your infants to God and teaching your children his ways, how to make their way in the world, and how to hope for achieving the Kingdom of Heaven in their turn when their time comes.

I hope that you found this helpful. It's never too late, by the way, even with grown children. Tell them what you both have missed out on and learn about God together, wherever you are and in whatever stages of life's journey.

Keeping kids in church, synagogue and mosque

While on my drive this morning, admiring the full parking lots at some churches, I also started thinking about churches and synagogues that are much less full. We of course in the Catholic faith have had this problem for years. And it is not a news flash for me to confirm that much of the problem is the young people who fall away from attendance, if not actually fall away from the basic belief.

There are lots of reasons for this, and I don't plan to make this particular blog posting about all the reasons. I just was thinking about what happens when a family attends church, for example, with young children, and then the children grow up and start to resist going, or at least question it and fall away.

It is not productive or even accurate to have a conversation with them about their church attendance that is focused on salvation or other dire concerns. The whole thing about kids is that they are not supposed to be thinking about death, the end of times and so forth. They have their lives ahead of them, not behind them. (Don't even get me started about the cult crap where kids are raised thinking they have 'past lives' behind them already. I'm talking here about sane mainstream children and families in sane mainstream religions).

Children and teenagers have too much performance and danger stress placed upon them by society already. Pressuring your kids about the need to go to church or something bad might happen to them (either regarding their salvation or regarding future bad moral choices) is not the way to talk to your kids.

First, look at their timetables of activities. Homework and other school or non-school activities take away from peace of mind and true "free time" of kids. Everyone is trying to make over achieving kids. If they are too tired or weary to go to church, yet were raised as church goers, this is the first obvious thing to look at. What shifts in schedules can improve the use of time so that a child does not feel that church is a competing time and energy resource.

Second, start a dialogue with your child or teenager about their personal relationship with God. It's not just as simple as "accepting Jesus as their Savior." It's not like they sign a contract with Jesus and they are now "covered with God," and that church is part of that contract renewal each week! You ought to be teaching your children that they are in constant communion with God, and that God is their true guide through life.

It's easier for me to explain this in relationship to the Catholic Mass than Protestant and non-denominational praise and worship services, so bear with me while I mix metaphors and language from both church cultures.

Children need to understand that God is very hard for humans to hear on a personal basis. God is easily drowned out by the noise of the culture and everyday worries. People who teach scripture and Bible studies, for example, tend to over emphasize how easy God is to understand (it's all there in black and white). That is true, God's word is easy to understand because God's purpose is to make religion and belief in him as understandable to humans as possible. (That's one thing the Muslims have really right for them, as they recognize that their God wants to make it easy for them to worship, not complex and mysterious fraught with rules and strictures). So faiths that rely a lot on Bible study tend to neglect teaching children and teenagers to have a rich prayer life. Prayer is their means to have their personal conversation with God. You can use the obvious ubiquitous cell phone example.

God is like the person you can reach on your cell phone. God is always on the line, so God always hears what you are doing, even if you are not on the phone with him. So the one way listening is always "on." However, do not make your kids creeped out by this example. It's not like God is "watching" when they are in the bathroom, getting undressed, or doing something personal. Explain to them that it's like if they are in the room with sibling or college roommate and the other person turns the other way to give them visual privacy when they change their clothes, or have a personal phone conversation, etc. God is "always there" but God is not focused on the day to day details of a person's bodily functions or acts. So, to recap, tell your child that it is like they have their own cell phone connection with God, and that God is always "on the line" even if they are not actually making a call.

Church is where you learn the lingo that God speaks. Church is where you learn to understand what God is saying when you do pick up that phone and have a conversation with him. So it is like learning the texting abbrevations and the dialect of language that God uses to speak to you when you go to Church. Church ensures that you are learning how to listen to God, when he does speak to you, in a way you can understand what he is actually saying.

Explain that when they are little it is like they are given a toy phone to play with. Eventually they are given a phone that they can use for emergencies when they are out of sight of their parents. And then when they are older they get "big boy or big girl" phones with more features, and they have to learn how to use them. Their conversation with God is like that through their entire lives. Not because God's language changes, but because as they grow up the things they need to talk about to God, and listen to him in return, changes. Little kids have different concerns than big kids, teenagers from kids, young adults or college students from the rest, young single people from the rest, young couples from the rest, young families from the rest, and so forth throughout their lives. A fifteen year old does not need to text message God about his or her retirement plan, IRA or not? The things that each person needs the guidance from God regarding changes throughout their lives. And ongoing Church attendance keeps the person agile in "text" and "dialect" understanding so that they can hear God in return accurately when they do place the call.

This is one of my quarrels with "speaking in tongues" and "channeling the Holy Spirit" faiths. Much as they love God and I'm not one to criticize anyone who proclaims the authentic Jesus, as I pointed out in the scripture study example, confusing the rush of emotion with actual communication from the Holy Spirit is a serious hindering of authentic listening to God. It is like having big calluses on your feet and then wondering why they are no longer sensitive to the touch. Thinking that you are constantly screaming on speaker phone with the Holy Spirit drowns out the small and humble voice of God, and yes the Holy Spirit, when he actually does try to be heard. Thinking that the Holy Spirit just told you something about your neighbor's "bidness" is not hearing what God is saying. That's you getting caught up in having a big megaphone and listening to your own feedback.

So explain to your kids that sure, there will be months or years that you think the sermon in Church has nothing to do with your life, and you wonder why you are going. To use the example, what if the preacher or priest is homilizing about "IRA retirement plans" while you are just thinking about getting good grades to pass your exam and how you are going to spend your summer vacation and what's on your IPOD. But if you stick with being once a week "immersed" in God's language, even if the topic is not 'cool' or 'relevant,' someday when that topic IS of vital importance to you, you will know the texting and know the dialect so you can actually hear what God is saying to you. Explain to your kids that college is an example of that first huge test. Just when they most need to hear what God is saying is when they tend to drop out of attending Church.

Back to the topic of teaching your children that there is a difference between going to Mass, praise or worship service, etc and having a personal prayer life with God. Explain that Church is like a conference call, where everyone is listening to God at the same time to different degrees, about topics that may not be your choosing, but at least you stay proficient in God's lingo. When a child or young adult prays, however, this is their personal phone call to God. Now, don't make them think that they must put things a certain way or God does not understand. That's not true. Tell them God is like the universal speech translator in Star Trek or something, ha. God understands everything that humans say, mean to say, want to say, intends to say. But prayer is like that text message or verbal phone call that your child places to God where the child actually wants to hear the response. It is the response that Church and other worship services of authentic mainstream churches teaches the child and young adult to comprehend. This is what prayer is in its purest form.

Now, the response may be, and for the most part is often the comforting presence of God. That's a subtle thing that is easily missed. Media has made so much of thunderbolts and constant frenetic action that unless God is an action figure zorching someone, kids today don't actually hear him answering their prayers. Kids may be misled (and it's entirely human and natural to do so) into thinking that prayer is either a duty to perform to God or something to do when you need something, and expect either a yes or a no. That is totally to miss the point of prayer and again the cell phone analogy is a perfect example to use to instruct your kids.

Ask your kids this. Out of a typical one hour chat fest with a friend, what percentage of their time is talking to their friend because they "have to" or because they "need something from their friend that will be answered with yes or no?" Your kid will quickly see that they are not chatting with their friends because they "have to" (obligatory prayer) or "need something" (petitionary prayer). Your kid gabs and texts endlessly in order to "hang out" with their crew. Well, a rich prayer life is when a part of your life, even if it is just before bed (night time prayers) or first thing in the morning, or whenever you can, you "hang out with and gab with God." Most of the time God is just going to be "hanging with you" saying "I know what you mean." But once in a while there will be a crucial reply. You might be pondering an important life change, for example. And if you were gabbing with your friend, your friend might go, "Whoa, yeah, but what about this and that problem with what you are saying?" In prayer, God might send a queasiness, or a question, or the Holy Spirit might warm your heart in a certain direction, just as that friend would in a cell phone chat. The thing is that God is very quiet and subtle, and like the foot calluses, if one is all loud in one direction but not keeping up with the subtle and "big picture" lingo of God through Church services, one could very easily miss hearing God's reply in prayer.

So to wrap up, even though we could do a lot more with this analogy, explain to your children that Church is the way to continually "keep in the loop" of their personal dialogue with God, which will evolve during their lives, whether they see that clearly now at that stage in their lives, or not. Also encourage them to have even a minute of their life set aside to personal prayer and explain the broader purpose of prayer as I did here. Understand that a growing young adult may not find "just before bed" as easy a time for prayer as a child once did, for many reasons. Start to encourage your teenager to chose another time during the day for personal prayer and cultivate that before they join the work place or go to college. For example, you could teach your kids to set their alarm clock just one minute early each day and spend that minute saying the "Our Father," asking God to look over them during the day, and maybe a verse from Psalms. If you teach your child to do that while they are still at home, this is a glorious gift that anticipates that their lives will be changing and they can be flexible with their "God time."

I hope you find this helpful, and God bless all parents, and young people, who are making their way through these very difficult times.

Urgent that you understand humanity crisis

I, like all decent people, go crazy with grief and rage when I read yet another story about the horrible torture and murder of babies or children, often by their own parents or "care givers." Since all of you read the news you realize that we could fill a blog day and night every day with listing each incident. Here is another, just to set the context for what I need to explain to you in this post.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/blotter/entries/2008/06/09/parents_of_dead_georgetown_boy.html

snip

GEORGETOWN — The parents of a 21-month-old boy who died after welfare workers placed him back in the parents’ custody have been charged with injury to a child, police said Monday.
Christopher Barcenas died May 30 at Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin after he suffered a fractured skull, according to investigators.
Officers arrested Sergio Barcenas, Jr., 22, and Elizabeth Arellano, 21, Sunday night. Both were in the Williamson County Jail on Monday. Bond for Sergio Barcenas was set at $250,000.Arellano was being held on a $150,000 bond.
Injury to a child is a first-degree felony punishable by five years to life in prison and a fine up to $10,000.
State child protection officials had taken the boy and two siblings from the parents in February 2007, but returned them to the custody of Barcenas and Arellano in December 2007 after the couple had undergone counseling, according to court records.

Here is what you need to understand. This is a trend. It is not example after example of people with "bad parenting skills," "in need of counseling," "they were abused as children," "has anger management issues," "was impaired," "was under stress," or "has a mental disorder." The public at large tends to rationalize this unmistakable tidal wave of depravity and inhumanity as being "just another sad case caused by xyz" or "these things have always happened, we are just reporting them more now."

This is not true. What is true is that humans have declined in their humanity as a whole, and are descending into some sort of inhuman monsters. I know this is unpleasant to hear, but no one will change this unless people start getting real.

Let's start with science and biology. Despite what people think there is not a "maternal," "paternal" or "nurturing" instinct in humans. There is that instinct in animals. Animals have varying degrees of instinctive nurturing, ranging from very little to huge according to the species. The way they express nurturing is in the care of the young and in the way mates (for those animals who mate for life) react to the loss of their mate. So one could call that "love" or "affection," but it is not love in the sense that only humans have it. That's not a knock on animals. What I'm explaining is that animals don't know they are "feeling" nurturing, affection or love. Animals, even the smartest of them, have genuine emotions but they are not aware that they have something called emotions. That is because they are not self aware in that sense. Here is an example so you can be comfortable understanding what I am saying and agree with me before we continue talking about humans. Animals don't have a "bad day" and then have a deliberate change in mood (withholding affection, for example). Only humans are aware not only that they are have feelings and capacity (or not) for love, affection and nurturing but also are aware that they can manipulate those feelings. Animals do not manipulate their feelings toward their young, for example. The smallest nestling may not get enough food but it's not because the parents "decide" to favor the others. The neglect of a nestling comes about because of physical, not mental or emotional, processing.

So humans are born aware that they have feelings, but they are not born with the instinct to nurture. In other words, animals who have offspring will, in general, have pre-programming in their genes and instincts to immediately nurture their young to the extent that their species tends to their offspring at all, or until what age or stage of development. (There are exceptions where a parent may reject an offspring, but since that is a self destructive anomaly those genes are not transmitted in the reject offspring since they do not survive to adulthood).

Humans and animals have a complete opposite orientation, therefore. Animals have instinct which provides nearly one hundred percent reliable nurturing and affection, with feelings felt but feelings not being conscious and manipulable. Humans do not have an instinct to nurturing and affection, but they have the capacity and the deep need to both do so and to receive it. Because humans are conscious of their own feelings, and thus fully self aware, they need to learn how to love, how to be affectionate, and how to nurture.

Happy families seem to have members who refute what I just said, since they seem to have kids and parents who instinctively nurture and love. But that's just because they are all in harmony from the very beginning about their mutual exposure to love and nurturing. In other words, they do it all right from the very start. So the "classroom" of learning to nurture and love is always positive and always giving from the very start, as the baby is born. Babies are born needing love, nurturing and contact, and they receive it immediately and fully from their parents. Likewise the parents receive joy and gratification from their love of their babies and throughout as they grow into children. Normal well adjusted families seem "instinctive" but that is just because they have a perfected feedback loop of love and nurturing.

Now, here is the problem. The "classroom" of love and nurturing give and take has been totally dirtied and disrupted by the societal issues that have developed in the past forty years or so. First of all, single parents cannot feel the love of giving birth without it being tainted by stress from the very beginning. One reason marriage and the core family is by definition a man and a woman who marry is that it creates as stress free an infrastructure for the having of children as possible. Every single parent I know spends a lot of their time bitching about how hard it is to be a single parent. Duh. Single parents are under stress during pregnancy, say nothing of when the child actually arrives. This is a stress different from the natural stress of becoming a parent. It is an additional stress and the baby feels it. The baby does not have two caregivers who both provide and model affection giving and receiving. The baby has to share, or not receive at all, this give and take in competition with the single parent's availability. So the perfect classroom of the father and mother in the feedback loop with the baby from day one is disrupted by definition in single parent households. This is not a judgment; it is a fact that people need to recognize and stop smothering with lies about the nobility of single parenthood.

Second, this society is too sexualized. It would never have occurred to anyone who was a parent fifty years ago to look at their nude baby and think of anything except whether poo or pee is going to come out before one gets a diaper ready. It is a terrible thing to say but not only are babies at risk from their "mother's boyfriends" viewing them as a warm sex toy, but parents have to exercise monumental and virtuous mind control themselves in this day and age. Every adult is enticed to view sexual orifices of every age person, and that's a horrible fact that people better wake up to recognizing. It would never occur to a parent to "finger" their child or pose them for pictures on the Internet, but now one has to repel those intrusive thoughts and suggestions with as much vigor as if one was combating Satan himself (who is not the cause of this problem). Yes, there have always been occasional perverts and incestuous family members throughout human history. But the pressure was never ON them to be that way as it is now. Further, even they would not beat an infant or abuse a baby because parents at the very least needed breadwinners and heirs, working by their side in the fields, being proud of their only "riches," a son or daughter. So people who abused children were genuine maniacs, awful and few. In terrible battles in ancient history some armies slaughtered infants, spitting them on swords to wound and terrorize the populace. But it would never occur to even the worse berserker to rape a baby and post the video on the Internet.

Third, there is a disconnect between people today and reality. We all know why that is, since people live in a life that is increasingly divorced from living off the land and being realistic about what one needs in life and what one does not. It started with TV, when parents would put babies and small children in front of the TV set as the "babysitter." Babies do not have brains that understand rapid motions and fake images. From the very beginning for the past forty years humans have raised children to be exposed to artificial events and beings before they are able to discern between fiction and reality. The past two generations of humans have been exposed to something other than reality in too high doses far too soon. This has horribly disrupted the feedback loop of the nurturing and love "classroom." One quick child psychology explanation to make this plainer. Baby's "job" for the first two years of life is simply to learn that he or she is a living being who is separate from but dependent upon loving and trustworthy parents. There is huge amounts of academic literature on this. The classic breakthrough in learning is when baby learns that if the parent leaves the room that he or she will come back. Now, as the baby's brain is learning that, can you imagine how even "harmless" cartoons disrupt this learning? Madly dashing bright color objects that the baby cannot even comprehend flash in front of his or her eyes, in and out of view in seconds, with thousands of images doing incomprehensible things per hour. You have to be insane to let a baby even glimpse TV for the first two years of its life. But now babies, and their erstwhile parents and "caregivers" immerse themselves and their young children in TV, video games, and other fragmented and highly over stimulating artificial activities. These all siphon off time and genuine slow progress toward true depths of human nurturing and love. And everyone wonders why every child is ADD or borderline or whatever?

When humans stopped being agricultural or small merchant oriented children were deprived of their natural classroom of life and the comforts that come with it. There is nothing more healing than the outdoors, especially when it is a routine part of a family's life. It also provides children with a better understanding of life and loss, as they learn about where food comes from and help with tending a garden or the home, for example. But what do kids see now? Ho's and pimps shooting it up in the street to rap videos. And when someone dies, just shut off the TV, and they will pop back up in the reruns. The violence of the culture is unbelievable. Now I am no wuss; I'm not running around saying kids should not play cops and robbers with toy guns. Sheesh, I wish we could go back to that. And I'm no leftist who wants to ban kids from playing soldier. But that's the whole point: it was play in the playground with friends. It wasn't a constant overstimulated freak show and orgy of violence that is artificial (and real in a bad way) presented over the TV, video games, and back yards of dangerous neighborhoods every day. Kids learned about the world in the "old days" in a much more realistic and gentler context. They saw and understood life all around them, often on a farm or small town, and when tragedy occurred it was an accident or illness, or the occasional "bad apple" criminal who impacted their family or neighborhood. But they could absorb that and become wiser because it was in the context of a reliable and constantly self validating positive world view and family context. In a nutshell, kids are exposed to a barrage of the anti-love and anti-nurturing messages from the earliest ages. Remember, humans do not have an "instinct;" they have to learn in the feedback loop love and nurturing. And that includes "manly" nurturing from a protective and providing dad. Not mom's boyfriend who is smoking weed and trying to figure out if he can poke the child.

Fourth, too many children are raised without God as a "real person" in their lives from their earliest age. You can take the God out of a child but you can't put the God back into the adult. Here is what I mean. God serves different purposes through a human's life. God serves one purpose for a baby and small child, and a different one to the young adult. If you deny your child knowledge of God and trust in God, they miss out totally on the service that God gives to the child completely, because you did not let God "be there" for the child. Even if the child grows to an adult and finds God on his or her own, the years of the childhood are genuinely lost, for no adult can relive their childhood years, obviously. Knowing about God from when the child is very young is essential for two reasons. One is that God is part of what I explained above, which is the trust that someone who loves you is REALLY there even if you cannot see them. Children learn that when dad goes to work, or mom leaves the room, that they will be back. At the SAME time they learn that they are never really alone, because God is there, even though they never see God. I grew up in the generation that understood that. Even the dumbest parent raised their kids to know about God and pray to him as soon as they could put their hands together. This is so the child is helped to understand trust and love in both the human and spiritual forms. The second reason that God is important for a young child is that God has an influence on the formation of their character. Children understand choices at a very early age. When they also understand God's "viewpoint" and God's teachings about choices, children do take this into account. If a child grows up and rejects God they still have the benefit of having the years where they would take God's teachings into account when they made behavior choices. They NEVER lose the benefit of that, even if they become very indifferent to God later, because when they were young it was another moral yardstick that helped a child with impulse control and with making wise choices. If you let your kid grow up Godless you are robbing them of so much in life that I cannot begin to describe it except to say that it is one of the great failings of being a parent or a "caregiver." Like I said, God serves a different role throughout a person's life, so even if your child grows up and turns to God as an adult, you deprived God of the chance to be part of the stability and foundation of your child's learning to love and be loved, nurture and be nurtured, make wise choices or not so good choices when they are young and being formed by life. So there is monumental missed opportunity and negativism in children's upbringing since the 1960's when "cool" asshole parents decided not to raise their children with conventional love and knowledge of God. God can work many wonders and be the fine companion to your child if he or she turns to God as an adult, of course. But the basic programming of your child in his or her total humanitarian birthright was cheated and shortchanged by a parent who omitted God from their child's life or worse, forced their children into anti-God activities.

A fifth problem is the unbelievable societal rage and nihilism that exists as a whole and in many individual people. Who can beat a three month old baby boy to death while torturing him sodomizing him with an object until his anus is torn? Where does that come from? I listed some of the places that rage comes from a few paragraphs earlier. However, that is not the entire picture. In many ways humans have become much better than they were. They don't run around in lynch mobs, for example, although there are always terrible exceptions. And people have become tolerant of diversity and other people to a remarkable extent. However, being tolerant is not one's purpose in life. People need to have a purpose in life that is meaningful, so we cannot measure the success of families and societies by how tolerant they are, or by their wealth, or by their "generosity." People evolved through millions of years to be high energy survivors in demanding living conditions. It is only recently that a huge segment of the world's population does not have to "fight for their next meal." Humans are programmed through evolution to be high energy hunters and gatherers, builders of homes and fighters of obstacles. When people lose their purpose in life, or have it taken from them, this high energy exists in the form of sublimated predator rage. Again, I'm not talking all "peacenik" here. Actually, I'm explaining that all people have a robustness and aggressiveness that is not only a survival trait but it is highly desirable and necessary. The problem is that the society has become so fractured that there is no organized way to harness this inbuilt productivity potential and need to be "someone with a purpose." When humans see this potential in little boys they scream "AD/HD" and give them drugs! Humans are killing themselves. The very instincts and energy that enabled you to create and maintain, for a while, six thousand years of civilization is now being wasted, denied, misdirected and drugged out of yourselves. What remains is smouldering and self destructive rage. Women have time and energy on their hands but instead of having babies or improving society, they "climb the corporate ladder" and have abortions. Men have time and energy on their hands but instead of expanding their providing of fatherly skills to the larger community they retreat to a fantasy world with video games and porn. I'm drawing a characterization here, but one that is applicable to millions of people, so don't dismiss it so quickly.

Look at traditional communities such as the Quakers. When they built their own homes they go on to build their neighbor's homes and their barns. They put their energy and vigor and zeal for life to work on a daily basis. They don't let it fester and get strange inside of them. If little boys have a lot of energy they run around in vigorous play, work in the fields, or help the adults, not sit behind a desk hour after hour trying to be docile humanoids. (Who then have to imagine they are superheroes on the Internet while watching porn). People are biologically evolved to be energetic and active, and to have a purpose in life (and that purpose is modest, not grandiose and inflated imaginings of intersteller combat). When people become purposeless yet at the same time fanticize about unreal scenarios based on sublimated rage, they end up taking a baby into a bathroom and torturing her to death. Women run around thinking it's a great idea to cut the baby from another mother's womb because "they want a baby." A Japanese man who is not socially on top of his game gets "tired of life" and runs over people before stabbing them to death. Men cruise looking for younger and younger boys and girls to pose with on the Internet. Slavery, which was defeated in this country, comes back as sex "industry" where hundreds of thousands of children, not adults, but children are enslaved to provide kicks for adults. Trust me, a hundred years ago these jackasses would never even thought of molesting a child because they'd be too tired at the end of the day working in the field, being cannon fodder in some army, or working for pennies in a factory to think of anything but being grateful for getting home to their wife and kids. Excess energy without purpose is turning many humans into raging monsters. Denying that humans have genuine gender differences (male and female) and that boys have certain skills and energy levels while girls have different ones is insane and counter productive. There were no porn addicts back when men and boys were busy with other things related to real life. Women didn't have multiple abortions and pop anti-depressives back when they kept busy, whether at home or on a job. (I'm not saying Ozzie and Harriet for everyone here).

To summarize, all of the things I listed above have created a blackened ruin with pitfalls everywhere that everyone is stuck living in and trying to do the right thing. But with the increase fakeness of society people have forgotten what any idiot knew about raising children a mere fifty years ago (with a few freak notable exceptions). It is important to understand that culture and society must support families and the ability to nurture and love their children so that children learn what they do not have instinctively, for only the animals have instinctive knowledge to raise their young with the correct amount of bonding. Humans need to be taught it by word and example, and most of all by experience. It deeply scares me how depraved and negative the "classroom" of humanity has become, and I don't mean teaching kids to worry about the polar bears. The challenge of single parenting would have been enough to create a societal crisis that is quite severe. Abortion as birth control has also broken the spirit and humanity of much of society. But when you place those problems within the context of the rage filled, unreal "reality show" of this society, it is alarming to the maximum. When decent adults have to fight to retain "custody of their eyes" to view even infants in an decent way, it's unbelievable how far humans have already fallen from where they were and where they could have been. I know first hand that there seems to be nothing too awful that someone will not think of it and do it to someone else and better yet, find a way to make money and commoditize it. Trust me, even Satan has been cringing for years now; this is all humanity's doing.

I only hope and pray that this generation of young people, who I have spent much time speaking in the direction of (since they don't respond to me yet, sigh) will be the vanguard to recognize what is really going on and defy the morbid laisse faire of their parents and society and change it again for the better. I hope this helps, especially the part about the need to be proactive in the creation of the fully emotional and thinking baby and human, since there seems to be the assumption that instinct is there, when it most assuredly is not (as all previous societies knew, which was why there was such family and faith based enculturation). Far from being narrow minded and oppressive, previous generations were providing the best and safest cradles for all infants and children as best they could and as they had learned was necessary to their full development.

The Chinese example of my idea

As you should know the Chinese government limits couples to one child and will require and force abortions for couples who desire a second child. At the same time there are orphanages with children who have no hope of being adopted, especially if they are disabled or special needs. Gays also know that the Chinese will not allow adoption by gay couples.

I would like to see organization of funding an internal adoption agency where parents who truly desire a second child but who are forbidden by the government from having one naturally be allowed to adopt and receive financial support for that child. This is win-win. If an couple who already have a child wish to adopt a second child they should be encouraged to adopt and receive a financial incentive for the child's support. Most people, despite the booming economy, are still extremely poor, as the government admits, as they work on job creation and other solutions. Why could we not create a way to finance the adoption of children into properly vetted and loving families? This would be especially true for special needs children. Each couple that receives the money to care for a special needs child is changing the society's attitude and prejudices toward the disabled while at the same time growing a real family.

Gays have tremendous influence and access to resources (again, excuse my positive stereotyping). While adopting from China does not solve a prospective gay parent's fundamental objective of finding a child to adopt, I would think that the tender hearts of such gay advocates would be moved by seeing that Chinese impoverished couples are denied second children while special needs and abandoned children languish in orphanages, often without the necessary love, care and treatment. Why not apply your energy to this type of initiative in addition to your primary purpose of having a child? You can grow garden of life in your own patch in addition to helping others to do so on theirs.

Clarity about gay parenting

God is first and foremost about life. God IS life and the bias in all actions toward life and fruitfulness. A bias away from life and being anti-life is a trend line away from God and away from, ultimately, humanity as a whole. Therefore I have absolutely no problem with gays who have a genuine desire to have a child and provide that child with a loving, appropriate upbringing and family life.

Here is the theology. Catholics are entirely within their right to not want to endorse homosexuality, which is forbidden in the Bible, by refusing to allow children within their adoption agencies to be adopted by homosexuals. Gay prospective parents should have a generosity of heart and not try to force the Church to go against its legitimate doctrine through "equal rights" arguments. A gay who persecutes the Church regarding adoption rights is demonstrating a black mark against their parental heart and motivations.

Having said that, please note there is nothing in the Bible about homosexuals not being parents. Notice that the relevant passages forbid the homosexual acts, but certainly do not forbid a homosexual having a child. God always biases toward life. Honor thy father and thy mother is pertinent to both heterosexual AND homosexual parents, assuming they are good pious people who deserve to be honored. So Bible thumpers who state that God is against homosexuals being parents are flat wrong. In ancient times a man or woman who tended toward homosexuality would in all likelihood be ordered by the priest to go home and have relations with their straight spouse and have children anyway. This is because priests corrected perceive that the uniting bond among humanity must be a bias toward having children and toward life in all its fruitfulness.

I have a friend who is gay, and I've not had a chance to see him for a long time, too long in my opinion. While we've never discussed it I think he would be a wonderful father and would like to see him be a father one day. My preference would be for him to do it the natural way with a woman friend. But anyway, I think of him often and how happy he would be as a father.

I caution gays to not approach having children as though it's a technically complex project because as I pointed out about forcing adoption against a Church's legitimate beliefs, a complicated and cold test tube approach is a distancing from the naturalness of parenthood that is unfortunate. I'm most pleased when I read about a gay man, for example, having a baby with a woman friend of his because this is the closest to the natural way that I wish on all people, straight or gay, who pursue parenthood. You see, it's a testimony to the gay parent if he has a friend who would participate in parenthood with him, rather than be a monetary, political or scientific colleague in the generating of an offspring. See how cold those words are compared to "deciding to have a baby with a friend?" While infertility treatments are a blessing for many heterosexual couples who have problems conceiving, the laboratory should be avoided wherever possible when that is an option rather than the only solution. Again, I am counseling you all in my role as an "uber parent" and spiritual director that if you want to be a parent, walking as close to the path of natural parenthood is the way that is the most fulfilling and satisfying.

I hope this helps. I love gays who love life and children, with pure hearts and minds, and who wish to be parents. Please do not, however, ruin the parental experience by persecuting Catholic agencies who have enough problems without having to be martyred by gay politics. People and governments who persecute Catholic adoption agencies are showing a cold heart that is dubious both for parental goodness and in the eyes of God.

Do search out the most natural way of actually bearing a child wherever you can. A gay prospective parent who has a friend who would actually take the risk and make the commitment of bearing a natural child is a credit to pro life and good parenting.