Concrete ways to promote marriage and family in young people

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Soletluna

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What can we ALL do to help promote marriage and family in young people? maybe some suggestions:

For married people:
  • Work on your OWN marriage and prioritize Jesus. This alone is a great witness to young people. Show them the good, and the bad, and how Jesus helps to make that marriage survive.
  • Be a good example.
For non-married adults:
  • Be chaste. Respect marriage and families in others. Prioritize Jesus.
  • Extra resources with time and money? Help out your own family - the elderly, watch the your nephews/nieces/cousins and give their parents a break. Help other people’s families.
  • For those who employ - pay a just wage that is able to support families
  • Be a good example.
For parents of young adults:
  • Continue being there for them. Prioritize Jesus.
  • Flag the obstacles holding back your child’s ability to marry (if that seems to be their vocation) - emotional immaturity? financial? (maybe help with making payments on a new house, paying off their student debt, helping with down payment)
  • encourage good relationships and talk about marriage; don’t be afraid to show disapproval with relationships that go against Church teachings - do this because you love them and want the best for them, not to order them around
  • be a good example
For everyone:
  • become part of the solution, not the problem
  • avoid the secular media at all costs! We are not of the world!!! Turn off the tv for a year if you have to. Fix your life, then help others. Prioritize Jesus.
Other suggestions on things we can do to help out families?
 
You need some real economic alternatives to conventional workplaces. Real home economy that integrated modern technology to provide distributed home-centered income possibilities (not MLM scams or clickbait schemes) would help quite a bit. That one is much more complicated to figure out though.

The things you mentioned can mostly be done right now, but how to get people to be uncomfortable and do them is another question entirely.
 
Great points, I like Prioritize Jesus.

One point is that after trying to initially bring someone to the faith or an article of our wonderful faith… We may have to lay off and let God. We cant force people to do anything. If God gives us the opportunity we can gently nudge again.
 
G’day,

Young people are like a sounding board,some absorbed what your saying,
With others it just bounces off,wasting your time,
If there willing to listen , then your in with a shot
 
Ditto, great thoughts, Soletluna. I would also add there is a stigma of sorts among single people that Catholics are somehow sexually “wrong,” be it with regard to contraception, or premarital sex, or whatever. With such a vast percentage of married Catholics practicing contraception, this has proven devastating to many singles who try to practice Church teaching. They have become perceived as so far on the fringe and abnormal, which may be technically true, but should be the opposite.

Other singles who “shack up” have also devastated the pursuits of single devout Catholics. It is so commonplace to “shack up” first, that the single person who will not is, again, perceived as abnormal. I know a number of other singles who remain single while their “shack up” peers by and large move in together and eventually marry - which is not a path to be followed as such.
 
I think.another thing that should.be done to help.families is for.happily married couples that have been together for.long.periods of.time to come out and tell their stories. We are constantly hearing only about the divorces and the people that are miserable.in marriage, partially due to the fact that unhappy people tend to be more.vocal, and we hear very little.about happy long-lasting marriage stories. We need more of those. If you have been married for a long time and are happy and proud please start being vocal about it. Younger people need to hear your story (besides that there is nothing.cuter than hearing a love story from a couple.that have been together for 30_40_50 years)
 
For married people:
  • talk about the worldly (non-spiritual but practical) benefits of marriage not attained through singlehood or cohabitation.
  • Don’t sugar coat the risks or possibility or pretend as if a failed marriage is an impossibility not worth considering. Casual observation while growing up says otherwise.
  • Discuss what you like about being married and why you think it was worth it to give up certain things from your single life.
 
ThePCWife said:
You need some real economic alternatives to conventional workplaces. Real home economy that integrated modern technology to provide distributed home-centered income possibilities (not MLM scams or clickbait schemes) would help quite a bit. That one is much more complicated to figure out though.

The things you mentioned can mostly be done right now, but how to get people to be uncomfortable and do them is another question entirely.
Click to expand...
Yes
 
HerCrazierHalf said:
For married people:
  • talk about the worldly (non-spiritual but practical) benefits of marriage not attained through singlehood or cohabitation.
  • Don’t sugar coat the risks or possibility or pretend as if a failed marriage is an impossibility not worth considering. Casual observation while growing up says otherwise.
  • Discuss what you like about being married and why you think it was worth it to give up certain things from your single life.
Click to expand...
A married couple that treats each other well is a powerful witness to the goodness of marriage.

I have seen far too many marriages where one denigrates the other.
 
Soletluna said:
  • avoid the secular media at all costs! We are not of the world!!! Turn off the tv for a year if you have to.
Click to expand...
Absolutely not. Secular media is designed to be unbiased, and an appreciation of the world, and an understanding of world issues is essential to development. As a 19 year old, I find your isolationist suggestions disgusting. I want my future children to be responsible citizens, to have purpose and conviction in the world. Hiding them from it is disgraceful, and that you do it in the name of habitual indoctrination is even more worrying. I notice you use the word vocation in your post - vocation means calling, and that specifically requires going out into the world for some purpose. You can’t determine a purpose in a world you make your children afraid of.

If you can’t articulate your beliefs in the face of criticism, then either they’re not compelling enough or you don’t understand them or the reasons you have them. If you want to promote the virtues of christian marriage, then when your child is exposed to a compelling argument from the secular media, address it with a compelling counter argument. Otherwise, at some point in their life, the fact that you hid them from other points of view will mean they have weak arguments to defend the beliefs you imparted, and as a result, those beliefs will quickly falter.

I doubt you’ll listen, but I hope someone who reads this thread will.
 
I think Naskor is right.

Most people I know, and I’m a millennial, are either married or would like to be married.

This goes across the board with every religion and with all atheists and agnostics.

People want to finish school, buy a house, get married and have children.

What they need is better pastoral care and they need to learn how to make a marriage work so it not only survives but thrives.

We need to be realistic on what marriage actually is. It isn’t two people who want to share their lives together. That isn’t marriage. It isn’t about love based on infatuation.

Marriage is self-sacrificing. It’s about your spouse and not about you. It’s about your children and not about you. It’s about your relationship with Christ and not about you.

They also need to understand that there are three people involved in a marriage. Husband, wife and God.

If they understand that marriage is self-sacrificing and always should involve God…then reality might set in on what a successful marriage is supposed to be.

We need to stop the divorce and re-marriage. We need to stop the selfishness.

We need to be realistic about expectations within a marriage. Children are an expectation and the goal…even if children never arrive. They should still be an expectation and goal of every marriage…whether you are blessed with them or not.

We need to understand that marriage doesn’t stop at the wedding but starts after it’s over.

The biggest problems for Catholic marriage that need to be addressed, IMHO, is that marriage is supposed to be self-sacrificing, finances need to be discussed and the couple needs to be on the same page, NFP needs to be addressed and not in a fairy tail-like explanation that claims it’s wonderful, blissful and can only help a marriage.

People need to go into marriage knowing it’s for the long haul…way longer then one can imagine…longer then what a vast majority of newly-engaged couples have been alive for.

They also need to know that all of those years are not going to be sunshine and roses. It’s going to be hard work.
 
Kelfa28 said:
I think Naskor is right.

Most people I know, and I’m a millennial, are either married or would like to be married.

This goes across the board with every religion and with all atheists and agnostics.

People want to finish school, buy a house, get married and have children.

What they need is better pastoral care and they need to learn how to make a marriage work so it not only survives but thrives.

We need to be realistic on what marriage actually is. It isn’t two people who want to share their lives together. That isn’t marriage. It isn’t about love based on infatuation.

Marriage is self-sacrificing. It’s about your spouse and not about you. It’s about your children and not about you. It’s about your relationship with Christ and not about you.

They also need to understand that there are three people involved in a marriage. Husband, wife and God.

If they understand that marriage is self-sacrificing and always should involve God…then reality might set in on what a successful marriage is supposed to be.

We need to stop the divorce and re-marriage. We need to stop the selfishness.

We need to be realistic about expectations within a marriage. Children are an expectation and the goal…even if children never arrive. They should still be an expectation and goal of every marriage…whether you are blessed with them or not.

We need to understand that marriage doesn’t stop at the wedding but starts after it’s over.

The biggest problems for Catholic marriage that need to be addressed, IMHO, is that marriage is supposed to be self-sacrificing, finances need to be discussed and the couple needs to be on the same page, NFP needs to be addressed and not in a fairy tail-like explanation that claims it’s wonderful, blissful and can only help a marriage.

People need to go into marriage knowing it’s for the long haul…way longer then one can imagine…longer then what a vast majority of newly-engaged couples have been alive for.

They also need to know that all of those years are not going to be sunshine and roses. It’s going to be hard work.
Click to expand...
Right! 👍

I think there has been a real dip in social skills. Millenials get crud for that a lot, but let’s face it: our parents and grandparents were explicitly taught how to relate to each other, social cues were more understood, etc. I’m not saying everything was perfect back then, but there’s so much anxiety now over every interaction and “what does it mean.”

I’m sure I’ve told the story about a drunken friend of mine approaching me at a Christmas party and asking how my husband ended up married to me. He was (and is) handsome, bright, good career prospects, and one of the genuinely nicest people I know. But he only knew how to pick up girls for one night.

DH and I were by no means perfect. But we met through a mutual interest, were friends first, and early on when dating we knew that the other wanted marriage and kids. We didn’t give away everything at once, but as we got to know each other better we could be gradually more open.

(I think it’s no accident that DH’s parents are still married and so are mine. We had a model to work from right in our homes. A lot of our friends don’t.)
 
pensmama87 said:
Right! 👍

I think there has been a real dip in social skills. Millenials get crud for that a lot, but let’s face it: our parents and grandparents were explicitly taught how to relate to each other, social cues were more understood, etc. I’m not saying everything was perfect back then, but there’s so much anxiety now over every interaction and “what does it mean.”

I’m sure I’ve told the story about a drunken friend of mine approaching me at a Christmas party and asking how my husband ended up married to me. He was (and is) handsome, bright, good career prospects, and one of the genuinely nicest people I know. But he only knew how to pick up girls for one night.

DH and I were by no means perfect. But we met through a mutual interest, were friends first, and early on when dating we knew that the other wanted marriage and kids. We didn’t give away everything at once, but as we got to know each other better we could be gradually more open.

(I think it’s no accident that DH’s parents are still married and so are mine. We had a model to work from right in our homes. A lot of our friends don’t.)
Click to expand...
Just about all of my friends are married…from childhood and now. There is one exception and I do feel bad for her situation but it also involves a lot of self-inflicted harm over the years. I doubt she’ll ever get married.

My husband and I met on an online dating site back when online dating was becoming the big thing to do.

I was just disappointed at first because all I was seeing were profiles of guys who wanted to hook up and couldn’t imagine how a relationship should progress.

Then a guy messaged me. He was sweet and charming and had an interesting backstory to tell.
We decided to meet after couple of emails and the rest is history.

We didn’t start out as friends. We’ve only ever been a couple. We both wanted marriage and children.

My husband came from a very dysfunctional family of divorce and mental health issues. It’s kind of amazing he and his sister have done so well and are both stable and well-adjusted.

My husband’s only example of a stable marriage is his sister.

On the other hand…no one in my family ever gets divorced. They’ve all gotten married once and stayed married.
 
Well, for one thing, based on comment I’ve heard and seen in real life as well as here on CAF, we need to stop discouraging people from marriage. So many times a person is worried about not finding someone that we hear/see comments saying “God is calling you to be single”, or comments about how people are obsessed with marriage to the point of making it idolatry, or that they need to stop looking and accept permanent singlehood before God will miraculously drop your spouse into your driveway when you least expect it. Instead, vocational discernment should begin with two things:
  1. The quote in Genesis where God said “It is not good for the man to be alone”; and
  2. CCC 1603, where is tates that the vocation to marriage is written into our very nature and also states that it comes from the hand of God.
In other words, we need to start viewing marriage as the “default vocation” until we discern otherwise, and that discernment should emphasize two things:
  1. What am I eligible for under canon law?
  2. What can I handle? (The first concern should be “Can I handle lifelong celibacy?”).
And from there we can go on.
Kelfa28 said:
I think Naskor is right.

Most people I know, and I’m a millennial, are either married or would like to be married.

This goes across the board with every religion and with all atheists and agnostics.

People want to finish school, buy a house, get married and have children.

What they need is better pastoral care and they need to learn how to make a marriage work so it not only survives but thrives.

We need to be realistic on what marriage actually is. It isn’t two people who want to share their lives together. That isn’t marriage. It isn’t about love based on infatuation.

Marriage is self-sacrificing. It’s about your spouse and not about you. It’s about your children and not about you. It’s about your relationship with Christ and not about you.

They also need to understand that there are three people involved in a marriage. Husband, wife and God.

If they understand that marriage is self-sacrificing and always should involve God…then reality might set in on what a successful marriage is supposed to be.

We need to stop the divorce and re-marriage. We need to stop the selfishness.

We need to be realistic about expectations within a marriage. Children are an expectation and the goal…even if children never arrive. They should still be an expectation and goal of every marriage…whether you are blessed with them or not.

We need to understand that marriage doesn’t stop at the wedding but starts after it’s over.

The biggest problems for Catholic marriage that need to be addressed, IMHO, is that marriage is supposed to be self-sacrificing, finances need to be discussed and the couple needs to be on the same page, NFP needs to be addressed and not in a fairy tail-like explanation that claims it’s wonderful, blissful and can only help a marriage.

People need to go into marriage knowing it’s for the long haul…way longer then one can imagine…longer then what a vast majority of newly-engaged couples have been alive for.

They also need to know that all of those years are not going to be sunshine and roses. It’s going to be hard work.
Click to expand...
I agree, and to continue,I think instead of watering down on Church teaching on marriage like many were hoping for in the synod, we need to “double down” on it, even if it makes us sound less tolerant.

Other concrete things:
  1. Hold more National Catholic Singles Conferences or use those as models for conferences across the nation every year in each diocese.
  2. More socializing among married people in the parishes. The parish school can be a tool for that for parents to create support groups among themselves. This can even help establish “accountability partners” (to borrow a concept used by some evangelical groups).
 
Norseman82 said:
Well, for one thing, based on comment I’ve heard and seen in real life as well as here on CAF, we need to stop discouraging people from marriage. So many times a person is worried about not finding someone that we hear/see comments saying “God is calling you to be single”, or comments about how people are obsessed with marriage to the point of making it idolatry, or that they need to stop looking and accept permanent singlehood before God will miraculously drop your spouse into your driveway when you least expect it. Instead, vocational discernment should begin with two things:
  1. The quote in Genesis where God said “It is not good for the man to be alone”; and
  2. CCC 1603, where is tates that the vocation to marriage is written into our very nature and also states that it comes from the hand of God.
In other words, we need to start viewing marriage as the “default vocation” until we discern otherwise, and that discernment should emphasize two things:
Click to expand...
Exactly this. God humans the desire for marriage so that we wound not be contempt with being single. He wants us to act on that desire. Unfortunately it seems like the Church is having young people waste the best years of their life discerning vocations other than marriage. And when they finally do discern the marriage life for themselves no one in the Church seems to believe them or support them. Not to mention they then find themselves missing 10+ years of experience with the opposite gender.

I bet that if we took half the resources we waste trying to guilt young men into the priesthood and spent them on helping singles find love and get married, we wouldn’t even have a priesthood “crisis” because God would finally have enough young families for future priests to be born in to.
 
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