For reasons that I am not going to discuss explicitly, I have been contemplating our culture’s hostility towards children. We live in a culture that views children largely as a nuisance or accessory. Unfortunately this view has pervaded the culture including within the Catholic Church and other Christian communities. My husband and I have been asked multiple times if we will try for a boy since we have a girl, after all, children are like salt and pepper shakers. The irony of that question is that those types of things are in no one’s control unless they use the horrific evil of sex selection abortion. In my mind, the perfect family is the one God gives us through our openness and discernment of His will.
My husband and I realized that we view the world differently and through a thoroughly faithful Catholic lens when we had our daughter. Our parish offers daycare during Mass, something which we are greatly opposed to. We used it a couple of times when my husband was recovering from a severe migraine, but our daughter does not miss Mass. She is a baptized member of the Mystical Body and she needs to learn how to sit still and pray the Liturgy. That also means she does not run around in the narthex if she starts acting up during Mass. Our daughter also accompanies us to church functions. I have had run-ins with people who didn’t like it and I made clear that our daughter comes with us unless it was a professional event that required babysitting. She’s a member of the Church and an equal member of our family. My husband and I will not relegate our child to the corner.
What disturbs me about this trend is there is a great desire to push children to the fringes. It is to view the outbursts or cries of a child with disdain, rather than as a reality that comes with the growing of a human being. It is to separate our children from our family unit within the Church. The Church should be the celebrator of life and support the Culture of Life. That means children whether a family has one or 12 is a great gift. It is more souls for Christ and we should be joyful to see children present. It is a sign of a living parish, not a dying one, and it is our sign to the world that human beings are a great gift who have been given a unique dignity by God.
I think the throw away culture is greatly hurting our children. They sense that we are pushing them to the side, using them as an accessory, or blaming them for some perceived loss of independence. They know when they are not welcome, trust me, they know. It is no wonder that children are lonely, depressed, hurting, and at times, violent. Our culture has taught them that they are a bother, not a great gift. They are repeatedly told, especially through the evil of abortion, that their lives were merely a matter of their mother’s choice, not out of love. Whether explicit or implicit, the children of our culture know that they missed death narrowly as 1/6th of their generation has been murdered. They also know when their parents spend little time with them due to their other engagements or they allow their children to be too busy for family time, or to be glued to their cell phones. They also know it when people complain about them.
Our culture is becoming disconnected from its children. Pope Francis has warned about the attacks on the young and the old alike. I see what it is doing and I have been the recipient of such ideals, whether intentional or not. It is deeply hurtful to watch and it is painful to experience in my own child. We are drifting more and more away from the real meaning of marriage and family. Marriage is no longer grounded in an understanding of children and sanctification of spouses. It is now about a disordered notion of love and often children are absent from the realm of possibility. It is about me and not living out God’s great call for marriage and family.
This view of the world is greatly anti-Catholic. Children and families are a great sign to the world of the love and beauty of the Blessed Trinity. As Catholics we cannot get sucked into this type of thinking and try to charitably (tough I know, but necessary), but with conviction, live out the Catholic worldview of the family. There are times when it will be counter-cultural and other people will not understand, but we view children as a treasure of the Church and there may be times that we have to remind others in the pews of that fact when our child talks a bit too much at Mass. We should also be encouraging others to bring their children to Mass instead of daycare. Daycare is actually a rarity in the Catholic Church for that very reason. Children are baptized members of the Church and they belong at Mass offering the Holy Sacrifice with Christ the High Priest. They are united with us in the one body that is in Christ by power of the Holy Spirit. Let’s encourage one another to be courageous even if people grumble about our children. Children are a joyful noise in the Church and it was Christ Himself who said for the little children to come to Him. Who are we to stop our children from being in His Presence? Who are we to separate them from our family unit when it truly matters?
Swimming the Depths 