Daughter wants to leave the church

[ConfusedLucy]

Has she had the opportunity to be involved with church? What sort of influences does she have in her life? Are her friends Catholic? To be honest its a tricky age and she is more likely to be influenced by people her age rather than her elders. I think prayer and try to set a good example and hope that it will pay off in the long term.

 

[matthewww]

Is she in your parish’s Youth Group or Catechism classes?
If not, why not?

She is taking catechism classes, about to be confirmed soon…

not in a youth group/any ministry in the church…we try to encourage her (2 sons are altar boys, and are active in the church) but she doesn’t like anything…she doesn’t want to join the youth group or their activities/retreats. She doesn’t like the people there and she doesn’t want to be involved in the church anymore

 

[phil_at_dayboro]

 

[matthewww]

If these are the issues she points to, have you spoken with her about them? What are her ideas?

she talked about these with her mom…wife said that she doesn’t agree with the view on contraception. doesn’t find it wrong if both the woman and man agree on it. finds nfp annoying because apparently it puts everything on the girl, and if the guy wants relations, he cannot because of his wife. plus she feels that people don’t understand because pregnancy can put a pause on the woman’s ambitions but it doesn’t for most men, etc. finds the idea of the marital debt (is that what it’s called?) ridiculous. she is against abortions and the pill though…i guess that’s something…

as for ssa, she has a close friend who is a lesbian. she is upset to see her not being able to find love…doesn’t understand why they are restricted from a relationship when they cannot help it.

for the guys thing…well it’s basically the same old story…male headship in families/church, how when she goes online to see the church’s view on women, it’s always about how women can give birth or outdated gender stereotypes, while for men it’s “leading, creating and so on”. she doesn’t enjoy being female in general, so i guess that is also a factor.

 

[pianistclare]

So, what ate you and her mother doing to educate her in what the church teaches? There’s a disconnect somewhere.
Who has more influence on her/ people in or outside your home?

This is a critical time in her growing up and maturity. Don’t throw in the towel. No time to wring your hands.

Teach her
talk to her.
Read theology of the Body together.

You’re her parents. You can turn her back to faith.

 

[ArielRussu]

she talked about these with her mom…wife said that she doesn’t agree with the view on contraception. doesn’t find it wrong if both the woman and man agree on it. finds nfp annoying because apparently it puts everything on the girl, and if the guy wants relations, he cannot because of his wife. plus she feels that people don’t understand because pregnancy can put a pause on the woman’s ambitions but it doesn’t for most men, etc. finds the idea of the marital debt (is that what it’s called?) ridiculous. she is against abortions and the pill though…i guess that’s something…

as for ssa, she has a close friend who is a lesbian. she is upset to see her not being able to find love…doesn’t understand why they are restricted from a relationship when they cannot help it.

for the guys thing…well it’s basically the same old story…male headship in families/church, how when she goes online to see the church’s view on women, it’s always about how women can give birth or outdated gender stereotypes, while for men it’s “leading, creating and so on”. she doesn’t enjoy being female in general, so i guess that is also a factor.

About sums up why I left the church. Except that contraception should only occur within marriage and premarital sex is wrong and I view homosexuality and ransgender as mental illnesses.

Bottom line is you can’t force her to change, and you can’t force her or make her believe what you and your wife do. If she’s like I was and am, she is asking questions and searching for truth. She’s also trying to figure out what she believes and is questioning everything she has been taught, which means she’s being opened minded and thinking and asking the big questions helps people grow. Yes, you’ll say, but that’s in the Catholic Church, because that’s what you believe but after much prayer and reading and question asking, I’ve found that to not be so. So, either your daughter will turn around to follow the Catholic faith like you and your wife do or she won’t. But force your views on her and you’ll more than likely find you’ve pushed her further away from the Catholic faith, which is obviously the opposite of what you want.

 

[Rau]

she talked about these with her mom…wife said that she doesn’t agree with the view on contraception. doesn’t find it wrong if both the woman and man agree on it. finds nfp annoying because apparently it puts everything on the girl, and if the guy wants relations, he cannot because of his wife. plus she feels that people don’t understand because pregnancy can put a pause on the woman’s ambitions but it doesn’t for most men, etc. finds the idea of the marital debt (is that what it’s called?) ridiculous. she is against abortions and the pill though…i guess that’s something…

Sounds like you and your wife are not on the same page then, which would make it difficult to provide any guidance. I’m a bit surprised a 15yo girl would be thinking so much about this subject.

as for ssa, she has a close friend who is a lesbian. she is upset to see her not being able to find love…doesn’t understand why they are restricted from a relationship when they cannot help it.

I imagine your daughter’s reaction is one of compassion for her friend. But no-one is restricted from a relationship, only from a “sexual relationship”. Sex has a purpose, and it cannot be found in the relationship of two women, or two men.

for the guys thing…well it’s basically the same old story…male headship in families/church, how when she goes online to see the church’s view on women, it’s always about how women can give birth or outdated gender stereotypes, while for men it’s “leading, creating and so on”. she doesn’t enjoy being female in general, so i guess that is also a factor

I’m even more surprised to see a 15yo girl focussing on this subject. Male headship in families is not all that clearly modelled these days - how about your own? There is no catholic idea that women cannot lead (other than as priests) or create.

 

[pianistclare]

About sums up why I left the church. Except that contraception should only occur within marriage and premarital sex is wrong and I view homosexuality and ransgender as mental illnesses.

Bottom line is you can’t force her to change, and you can’t force her or make her believe what you and your wife do. If she’s like I was and am, she is asking questions and searching for truth. She’s also trying to figure out what she believes and is questioning everything she has been taught, which means she’s being opened minded and thinking and asking the big questions helps people grow. Yes, you’ll say, but that’s in the Catholic Church, because that’s what you believe but after much prayer and reading and question asking, I’ve found that to not be so. So, either your daughter will turn around to follow the Catholic faith like you and your wife do or she won’t. But force your views on her and you’ll more than likely find you’ve pushed her further away from the Catholic faith, which is obviously the opposite of what you want.

Sigh.
Forcing forcing forcing.

Whatever happened to parenting and keeping ones promises at Baptism to raising a child in the faith???

It’s a parent’s job.
Look, oi she had other risky behaviors one would step and help, talk it through, and redirect.
Why do people believe that they cannot undo what the secular world and the media have ingrained children?

Unsubscribing.

OP, be assured of our prayers.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

We have to be realistic with teens, the days in which parents could directly influence teens like in Little Women are over and sometimes all adults can do is model the right behaviour and hope to indirectly influence them. As people habe said you cant make her believe what you want her to believe.

Its pretty normal to start questioning things at this age and the Catholic church isn’t a comfortable place for everyone. I hope she comes back to the faith but you need to tread carefully.

 

[matthewww]

Sounds like you and your wife are not on the same page then, which would make it difficult to provide any guidance. I’m a bit surprised a 15yo girl would be thinking so much about this subject.

I imagine your daughter’s reaction is one of compassion for her friend. But no-one is restricted from a relationship, only from a “sexual relationship”. Sex has a purpose, and it cannot be found in the relationship of two women, or two men.

I’m even more surprised to see a 15yo girl focussing on this subject. Male headship in families is not all that clearly modelled these days - how about your own? There is no catholic idea that women cannot lead (other than as priests) or create.

I didn’t phrase it correctly. wife is on my side, I meant that my daughter told my wife all of this

I was surprised too, but my wife did say that it is actually very common for young girls to be disturbed by this…sure enough I did read a thread about a younger girl being offended over the male headship issue?

as for the ssa, i meant relationship as girlfriend+girlfriend/etc. It’s not like they are allowed to kiss and cuddle and do couple-y stuff as long they are chaste…to her that’s barbaric

I tried googling about gender roles in the church and I was surprised actually…almost every single site I went talked about women being amazing because they can give birth…they keep going on and on about the woman’s body and babies quite shocked over that…maybe I’m not following teachings correctly. I was raised up to believe that women are great because they are human. full stop. nothing is soo special about them, nothing is soo special about us men. We are all humans, apparently the church seems to be so fixated on this. Am I not understanding something?

Wife thought it would be a good idea to let DD watch the women’s session videos on Youtube (Steubenville)…I decided to watch a couple earlier…and yes…pregnancy was brought up. One speaker said something along the lines of “do you know why women are amazing/etc? because no matter how hard they try, men cannot be preggers” I think stuff like this might hit a nerve…maybe my daughter doesn’t want kids in the future or be a nun. She’s not really the nurturing type anyways…wife thinks that dd is upset because religion focuses on gender roles, and dd might feel overwhelmed and outraged by it.

wife will talk to her more, find out why. daughter gets angry whenever we bring it up though

 

[Lea101]

I didn’t phrase it correctly. wife is on my side, I meant that my daughter told my wife all of this

I was surprised too, but my wife did say that it is actually very common for young girls to be disturbed by this…sure enough I did read a thread about a younger girl being offended over the male headship issue?

as for the ssa, i meant relationship as girlfriend+girlfriend/etc. It’s not like they are allowed to kiss and cuddle and do couple-y stuff as long they are chaste…to her that’s barbaric

I tried googling about gender roles in the church and I was surprised actually…almost every single site I went talked about women being amazing because they can give birth…they keep going on and on about the woman’s body and babies quite shocked over that…maybe I’m not following teachings correctly. I was raised up to believe that women are great because they are human. full stop. nothing is soo special about them, nothing is soo special about us men. We are all humans, apparently the church seems to be so fixated on this. Am I not understanding something?

Wife thought it would be a good idea to let DD watch the women’s session videos on Youtube (Steubenville)…I decided to watch a couple earlier…and yes…pregnancy was brought up. One speaker said something along the lines of “do you know why women are amazing/etc? because no matter how hard they try, men cannot be preggers” I think stuff like this might hit a nerve…maybe my daughter doesn’t want kids in the future or be a nun. She’s not really the nurturing type anyways…wife thinks that dd is upset because religion focuses on gender roles, and dd might feel overwhelmed and outraged by it.

wife will talk to her more, find out why. daughter gets angry whenever we bring it up though

I’m having the same issues as well-not leaving, but being irritated to the point of tears. It has affected me for a loooong time (ever since i heard the reading, and then it grew after reading the bible, blogs etc). can’t even pray properly anymore.

And yes, I think I know which speaker you are talking about. She is a sweet lady with a nice sense of humour…talks well and I am sure she meant well…but I guess that people tend to assume we are all fertile, we all want to get married and have cute babies? Enjoyed the rest of the talk though-when she wasn’t talking about women and babies. Most of these talks mention stuff like that and it sometimes don’t settle well with teenage girls. For starters, most of them are not keen on kids, they don’t even know if they can have them (periods aren’t all that) and they have an anger against sexism in society. sometimes topics like that brings that anger up. Even if it could be misplaced.

and she is 15…right? 15 is not that young…15 year olds do have really, really strong opinions and can be quite mature (in the sense that they care about issues like this).

wish I could help, but I’m in the same situation tbh. I don’t know how she can be convinced, because I wasn’t…and I have read the theology of the body and JP’s letter to women. I am in the minority though. That could help her?? Maybe?? I know a lot of people loooove TOB and their lives changed

 

[Just_Lurking]

Your daughter may be interested in “Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future” (see here) by Gary Macy, William T. Ditewig, and Phyllis Zagano.

Dr. Zagano is currently on a papal commission studying the historical issue of deaconesses.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

I don’t know if I can have kids and this sort of attitude that a womans only role is to have babies really makes me feel I have nothing to offer the church as a woman. Its not an easy feeling.

 

[pensmama87]

I don’t know if I can have kids and this sort of attitude that a womans only role is to have babies really makes me feel I have nothing to offer the church as a woman. Its not an easy feeling.

What of the many, many women saints who were not mothers?

I actually think the Church does a better job than many other Christian groups because we don’t and have never expected that all good Christians grow up, get married, and have kids. There’s different vocations, different spiritualities, different roles for all of us to play. Many Catholics who don’t know their faith well don’t see that and think that what they see in the pew at Mass is it.

 

[Rau]

I didn’t phrase it correctly. wife is on my side, I meant that my daughter told my wife all of this

I was surprised too, but my wife did say that it is actually very common for young girls to be disturbed by this…sure enough I did read a thread about a younger girl being offended over the male headship issue?

as for the ssa, i meant relationship as girlfriend+girlfriend/etc. It’s not like they are allowed to kiss and cuddle and do couple-y stuff as long they are chaste…to her that’s barbaric

I tried googling about gender roles in the church and I was surprised actually…almost every single site I went talked about women being amazing because they can give birth…they keep going on and on about the woman’s body and babies quite shocked over that…maybe I’m not following teachings correctly. I was raised up to believe that women are great because they are human. full stop. nothing is soo special about them, nothing is soo special about us men. We are all humans, apparently the church seems to be so fixated on this. Am I not understanding something?

Wife thought it would be a good idea to let DD watch the women’s session videos on Youtube (Steubenville)…I decided to watch a couple earlier…and yes…pregnancy was brought up. One speaker said something along the lines of “do you know why women are amazing/etc? because no matter how hard they try, men cannot be preggers” I think stuff like this might hit a nerve…maybe my daughter doesn’t want kids in the future or be a nun. She’s not really the nurturing type anyways…wife thinks that dd is upset because religion focuses on gender roles, and dd might feel overwhelmed and outraged by it.

wife will talk to her more, find out why. daughter gets angry whenever we bring it up though

Religion (Catholic) does not “focus” on gender roles. Biology is what it is though. The fixation is not with the Church - perhaps it is with you? There would appear to me more going on here than meets the eye.

Perhaps present links to the material that you find troubling.

 

[ArielRussu]

I actually think the Church does a better job than many other Christian groups because we don’t and have never expected that all good Christians grow up, get married, and have kids. There’s different vocations, different spiritualities, different roles for all of us to play. Many Catholics who don’t know their faith well don’t see that and think that what they see in the pew at Mass is it.

I disagree. Maybe for the men this stands true, but for a woman, who until recently history in most of the world was her husbands property who had to be subservient to her husband, she had only two choices “get married or become a nun/give your life to a husband or to God”, there was no in between. If a woman dared to break that mold people thought something was wrong with her. It was a disgrace to a family for a woman to be unwed, but not for a man. Not to mention women were second class citizens and often relied on a husband to financially support her and those who either lost there husband or didn’t have one often struggled in second rate jobs in order to pay the bills. There’s a reason why prostitution is called the worlds oldest profession. A lot of women would resort to selling there bodies, in order to put food on the table for both themselves and any kids.

 

[pensmama87]

I disagree. Maybe for the men this stands true, but for a woman, who until recently history in most of the world was her husbands property who had to be subservient to her husband, she had only two choices “get married or become a nun/give your life to a husband or to God”, there was no in between. If a woman dared to break that mold people thought something was wrong with her. It was a disgrace to a family for a woman to be unwed, but not for a man. Not to mention women were second class citizens and often relied on a husband to financially support her and those who either lost there husband or didn’t have one often struggled in second rate jobs in order to pay the bills. There’s a reason why prostitution is called the worlds oldest profession. A lot of women would resort to selling there bodies, in order to put food on the table for both themselves and any kids.

This is not an accurate view of history.

The Middle Ages, and the so-called “Dark Ages,” when the Church arguably had the most political power they’ve ever held in history, were very different than early modern/Renaissance and post-Reformation Europe, and that includes a lot about how women lived and operated in society. I’d really encourage you to learn about that. It is not nearly as simple as you make it out to be.

And without writing a thesis paper right here that’s about all I can say.

 

[Rau]

I disagree. Maybe for the men this stands true, but for a woman, who until recently history in most of the world was her husbands property who had to be subservient to her husband, she had only two choices “get married or become a nun/give your life to a husband or to God”, there was no in between. If a woman dared to break that mold people thought something was wrong with her. It was a disgrace to a family for a woman to be unwed, but not for a man. Not to mention women were second class citizens and often relied on a husband to financially support her and those who either lost there husband or didn’t have one often struggled in second rate jobs in order to pay the bills. There’s a reason why prostitution is called the worlds oldest profession. A lot of women would resort to selling there bodies, in order to put food on the table for both themselves and any kids.

Since the girl in question was born in 2001, we don’t need to be overly concerned about how life for women was, or was not, in prior centuries. That does not appear to be on the mind of the OP (and the 15 yo) but rather the present is.

 

[Anglewannabe]

I was surprised too, but my wife did say that it is actually very common for young girls to be disturbed by this…sure enough I did read a thread about a younger girl being offended over the male headship issue?

This is the problem. First, if you are surprised, it makes me wonder how much you really know your daughter. And to a 15 year old girl, here opinion is so common sense it hurts tremendously that her dad is shocked of her opinion.

Whenever I read threads like this, I just feel like banging my head against the wall. We were all teenagers once and we should not be shocked to see the next generation try to figure out who they are like we did. Also, when there is open communication, as much as the teenagers still go off track, it really shouldn’t be a shock. And lastly, what modelling did she get? Does she see you build a relationship with God? Or does she only see you attend church on Sunday? When she questions the church as a child, did you encourage her to take her questions to God in prayer?

Honestly, at this point all you really can do is walk the talk and if she has questions, point her to the Catholic Churches teaching and let her make her own choice

Angie

 

[Rau]

…And to a 15 year old girl, here opinion is so common sense…

While some of her opinions are understandable, compassion for the person experiencing SSA for example, I don’t think I’d go so far as to say they are all “common sense”. But you make several other good points.