Forced Family Prayer Pros vs. Cons

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Requiring children to pray is not bad. Forcing them to kneel for an hour without being able to lean against furniture to relieve pain in knees and back is extreme.

That’s where the issue lies with what you post.

God Bless.
 
PJM said:
Way to GO mom!
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Yes, way to go. If you want your child to associate prayer with physical pain. And to consider you an abuser because of your unreasonable, age-inappropriate requirements.

Otherwise, no.
 
What you are describing sounds an awful lot like how my dad was raised. Of the 5 brothers 3 of them left the faith. It left such a negative impact on my dad that he hated the rosary and we never once were actually taught it, said it as a family or any family prayer other than grace at meals.

I’m sorry you had that experience. I’m constantly reexamining myself because my dad and his brothers are what happens if you push too hard, too inauthentically or too age inappropriately, but I want my kids to pray with us, see us praying and not wrassle with their own faith authenticity like I did as a kid. I want that for them more than anything in the world.
 
Forced? Would you have felt the same way had you started before you were old enough to complain?

This reminds me of serving as a kid. We used to complain about having to kneel on the marble steps as servers and the priest more or less responded that “Christ had to carry His cross to His death and you can’t kneel for 15 minutes on a marble step?” Thank God for that priest.
 
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How could I possibly know how I would have felt if I’d been raised Catholic since birth? For what it’s worth, I didn’t complain right away, or often. What would’ve been the point, when the complaints were always dismissed?

Your antidote seems like a logical fallacy that might work on a child, but could be used to justify almost anything.
 
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We’re talking about truth in faith here, not just anything.
Matthew 19:14: But Jesus said, Let the little ones come to me, and do not keep them away: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
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Your mother certainly was not out to harm or abuse you. She was trying to do the best for you in the limited way she knew how. Perhaps we could have all been done better by growing up.
 
DignumEtJustum said:
This reminds me of serving as a kid. We used to complain about having to kneel on the marble steps as servers and the priest more or less responded that “Christ had to carry His cross to His death and you can’t kneel for 15 minutes on a marble step?” Thank God for that priest.
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This wasn’t 15 minutes.
 
@starfish11:
It may be your mother went about it wrong. Telling a child “It doesn’t hurt that bad”; not letting you lean on furniture to relieve discomfort --these things suggest she was doing it wrong.
That being said:

Were you ‘forced’ to attend school?
Were you ‘forced’ to eat healthy, nourishing meals?
Were you ‘forced’ to be vaccinated?
If you got sick were you ‘forced’ to visit a doctor, and perhaps ‘forced’ to take medicine?

Parents have a duty to raise their children, and to teach them right from wrong. If your mother’s teaching methods were needlessly harsh and rigid, that does not mean what she tried to teach was wrong.

Prayer is important. It helps set us right with God.
Please, don’t let your mother’s mistakes turn you against the truth.

@Chris.Topher:
Chris.Topher said:
I’m sincerely disgusted that you would call boredom as child abuse. Grow up.
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She did not say only boring. She said also painful.
I suspect you’re making the same mistake her mother did, by trivializing her complaint.

@pensmama87:
pensmama87 said:
This sticks out to me. Did your parents also kneel? Did you build endurance and strength over time? Did you ever address this with them (or they with you) at another time?
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Starfish11 said she complained to her mother about the pain and her mother denied that it was painful. “It doesn’t hurt that much”.
 
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Maximilian75 said:
Legally, child abuse occurs when a parent inflicts a punishment on a child, the visible results of which (bruises, welts, scratches) can be seen 24 hours later.
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Maximilian75 said:
Are there long-lasting physical consequences?
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Legally, you may well be right. But if starfish11 was in pain and saw what was being done as daily punishment, we ought not to trivialize that by quoting legal definitions.

And I would suggest that ‘I spent years planning how to run away from home as soon as I could’ counts as a real consequence, even if she wasn’t sporting visible bruises.

‘I hate what she did and I don’t pray now’ is a real consequence also.
 
Zaccheus said:
Starfish11 said she complained to her mother about the pain and her mother denied that it was painful. “It doesn’t hurt that much”.
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That’s why I specified “at another time.” I can tell you that my children complain all the time in the moment to get out of doing something. It can be difficult sometimes to figure out what’s a legitimate complaint and what’s just griping because kids are kids.

But, at other times, when it’s not contentious, I do explain why we do things as a family and invite their (name removed by moderator)ut, although they still know that what dad and I say, goes.

The prayer was not the problem here, and the communication patterns of this family were not healthy or typical among Catholic families.
 
DignumEtJustum said:
Your mother certainly was not out to harm or abuse you. She was trying to do the best for you in the limited way she knew how. Perhaps we could have all been done better by growing up.
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I’m not sure that always helps a whole lot.
Hidden as slightly off topic
I can’t help but remember my own mother. She would give long lectures whenever I had some perceived wrong, usually starting with what I was accused of but almost always turning into a litany of how I had been a bad child since I was a toddler. When I cried, she became angry and told me I had better stop the crocodile tears right away because they wouldn’t work on her, and I would get punished for attempting to manipulate her.

It was hard to explain to people, for a while, because I’d just say “my mother lectured me for a long time” or “my mother punished me for crying,” and those don’t really capture what happened. It took me a very long time to figure out how to explain coherently what the issues were,in a way that would make

Did she mean well? Perhaps. I don’t get the sense that she intended to harm me. But I do get the sense that she had a temper that was not under control, and that what was going on ended up being her venting her anger on me under the guise of discipline. I somewhat expect that is the more common case - not that the parent means to harm the child, but that their failure to deal with their own issues ends in them being taken out on the child. In either case I find the lack of intent to be little comfort.
 
Yes this is the catholic way I was taught in catholic school.
Its unpleasant. Un forfilling and painful
Jesus said his yoke was light and Easer than what was taught in his time
 
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@Allegra
@TheLittleLady

and anyone who did not understand my point,

in the last hour there has been a chatter posting on the forum in crisis, any and all advice over the 4 or 5 threads created , was having a hugely negative impact. Suicide was being put on the table.

We have a duty of care to look at and identify red flags, or comments that are NQR. And then run with strict company policy, as they say.

please pray for thid person
 
DignumEtJustum said:
“Christ had to carry His cross to His death and you can’t kneel for 15 minutes on a marble step?”
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We walked to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways and we liked it!

Christ was God incarnate. He knew the suffering he would endure, willingly accepted it because he knew that this pain, suffering and death would redeem mankind.

A kid who is experiencing pain does not have that sort of ability to “know the future” and see how a mortification brings benefit. Heck, when a kid’s body is still forming, the knees contain growth plates and those can be damaged.

Small kneeling pads are not somehow wrong.

orbiscatholicussecundus.blogspot.com

Catholic Culture: Cushion for Communion Rail

Rome.
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https://www.christiansupply.com/product/337705/Altar-Server-Kneeler-Cloth/Kneeler-Pad/-
 
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Jesus did not want to endure the suffering he went through. He asked his Father to take the cup from him and he sweated blood as he prayed about it but he did what the Father wanted just as the OP did what her mother wanted.
The difference is the results. Jesus’s freely chosen pain brought our redemption while the OPs pain pulled him away from his mother. Maybe it is a matter of whether or not in the end it was forced or chosen.
 
Good thing I don’t like sympathy. Empathy is fantastic. Sympathy is not something I want. I do empathize with the OP as I would hope anyone who has had to do something they see no purpose in does.
 
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The prayers were too long, and the posture was painful. I believe it was abuse. Now what to do with that information? Probably tell your mother and try to forgive her.
 
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