How to tell my parents I want to go to March for Life?

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Background: I am a freshman in college and have been involved in the pro-life club on campus. My parents, both cultural Catholics, do not know about it. We never brought up right to life issues at home, so, I am not exactly sure how they feel. Well, I am not sure how my dad would feel, but, I am pretty sure my mom will think that I am a fanatic if I do pro-life activism (she is a very materialistic lady and she is mostly concerned with how she appears to others than what actually counts).

Anyway, my school is willing to foot half the bill to send five of us club members to the March for Life in DC and there are still spots open. March for Life is definitely something on my bucket list. I have been really struggling with school in college and I am nervous about missing two days of classes. However, the professors are generally cool with people being absent and having to make stuff up later if you tell them in advance. The main issue is that I cannot just go to DC for five days without my parents knowing and I would have to have some sort of an explanation. Now, I am my dad’s little princess and he would let me do and give me anything I want unless it was illegal or extremely unreasonable. I pretty sure he would insist on paying the other half of my expenses so I would not have to fundraise. The main issue is my mom. There is no way she would not disapprove and I already have a tense relationship with Mom. But, I really want to go.

Before anyone suggests anything, let me say this. Often people will advise on these forums to have a discussion with families, bring pro-life, Catholic, etc. materials to watch/read and learn together. I know people suggested that for the thread I made about whether I should accept the responsibility of pulling the plug on my mom (sorry I haven’t had time to reply to that thread BTW). The thing is there is a language barrier between my parents and I and I cannot express my ideas in their native tongue sophistically and they cannot comprehend more dense English (especially Mom). So, what I am thinking of is just telling my dad and have him say nothing to Mom. But, that would feel dishonest. But, Dad holds all of our passports and everything and does all the finances, so, I technically do not need her to know to be able to go to DC.

Anyway, I just want to ask the good people on CAF their thoughts.
 
Tell your dad. Let him deal with your mum. Sounds like a good plan. 👍

I see nothing inherently dishonest in that approach. If pressed, explain it as a school trip to DC. If pressed further for full details, you can then address the pro-life issue and deal with any fallout.
 
I would think they would be proud of you. I don’t see a problem here. 🤷
 
If you are still dependent on your parents, than I believe it’s only right to let them both know, I think trying to hide it from one of your parents or act secretively would be wrong. If they decide not to allow you to go, you can still work and pray against abortion.

God Bless You and your stand for life, being a voice for those who have none. I’m not sure how much this will help, but the following is an encyclical given by Pope Pius XI to Nazi Germany in 1937 before the outbreak of WWII in 1939 that I found very moving and encouraging even for our times.

ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI ON THE CHURCH AND THE GERMAN REICH - MIT BRENNENDER SORGE

Mit Brenneder Sorge (With Burning Concern)

And I would also like to share with you the following words of encouragement.

“Among the vulnerable for whom the church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this.
…Precisely because this involves the internal consistency of our message about the value of the human person, the church cannot be expected to change her position on this question… It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life…”
  • Pope Francis
“Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection. And every elderly person…even if he is ill or at the end of his days, bears the face of Christ. They cannot be discarded, as the ‘culture of waste’ suggests!”
  • Pope Francis
“Give us the grace… When the sacredness of life before birth is attacked, to stand up and proclaim that no one ever has the authority to destroy unborn life.”
  • St Pope John Paul II
“Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants.”
  • Mother Teresa
"Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights – for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture – is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition of all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination . . . "
  • St Pope John Paul II
*"You are called to stand up for life!..You are called to work and pray against abortion……….” *
  • St Pope John Paul II
*“The truth is the truth even if no one believes it and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it.” *
  • Fulton J Sheen
*“All of us must care for life, cherish life, with tenderness, warmth…to give life is to open (our) heart, and to care for life is to (give oneself) in tenderness and warmth for others, to have concern in my heart for others. Caring for life from the beginning to the end. What a simple thing, what a beautiful thing. So, go forth and don’t be discouraged. Care for life. It’s worth it.” *
  • Pope Francis
“Abortion is the Antichrist’s demonic parody of the Eucharist. That is why it uses the same holy words, “This is my body,” with the blasphemously opposite meaning.”
  • Peter Kreeft
Please continue to next post -
 
Extract from the book My Broken Christ Walks Over the Waters:
My Broken Christ Walks Over the Waters - loveandmercy.org/Eng-MBC-Reg.pdf
(Roman Catholic Imprimatur)

Ladies, you who promote abortion or abortions that seek to snatch from the Author and Lord of life His legitimate and sole rights… you who under the slogan that “a woman has the right to decide about her own body”, are concealing the “right” to kill, which will never be a right…

To you I say; please think seriously about what you are doing and get on your knees, pleading for God’s forgiveness and turning your lives around radically, because what awaits you on the other side is so horrible that you cannot even imagine. I say this because the pain you will suffer during your entire lives does not even amount to a thousand part of the pain that you will inflict on your own children while pulling then out of your wombs; and because the pain of a child during the most terrible of abortions will not amount to even a millionth of the eternal suffering to which you are being condemned by your own blindness. My mission on this journey through the earth is only one, to take as many souls as I can to Jesus.

Therefore, as a woman that I am, I am dedicating a few lines to you without the least intention of confronting you with ideas or arguments and without the least intention of hurting any of you. To the contrary, I only want to plead with you to reconsider what you are doing and stop your mad race towards the abyss and that of all those other naïve women whom you “generously help to get out of a problem”. I do not know how much a word of mine, so poor and sinful, can do to reach your hearts. Nor do I know which of you would be reached by these words of mine, but I do not worry about it because I know that the Lord will take care of that… What I do not want is that a sin of omission may befall me the day I find myself before the Throne of God to be judged.

Do not go launching campaigns to destroy the most marvelous thing that the Creator has made with His hands. Contemplate yourselves for five straight minutes in front of a mirror, and think of how much love He must have felt when you were being formed in the wombs of your mothers. So much so that He gave you a soul and intelligence, even if you cannot see one or the other. He gave you strength, courage, health and, perhaps, beauty… Think of how He has formed your hands finger by finger, all perfectly done. And He did it in the hope that you would take in them a rosary, a cross, a flower, a book, a sewing or any other productive tool… But never a murderous knife!

[Ladies] Please wake up! Look towards the light and flee from the darkness! May the blood of the innocent ones, which runs like a river, not wake you up in the middle of the night to drown you in nightmares… Friend, come down from your own altar. Please look; look in front of you. Jesus is on the opposite shore, stretching out His hand for you to take a leap and grab hold of it tightly. Please do not fear, and forgive those who may have hurt you so much… All of us make mistakes, and not just once but thousands of times, yet what is big and wonderful, what is courageous, is to acknowledge them and turn back from the mistaken road in order to take the correct one. Clarity will never come from the hand of those who murder! Flee from them! For even if they convince you of the contrary with their alleged help, they are only going to destroy you.
Click to expand...
I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh
 
Priorities: If you have been struggling in school, you may need to get your grades up. There is a march every year. If you go, definitely both parents should be told. I can appreciate your mom being concerned about you. Praying for what’s best for you to be done.
 
As strongly as I support the prolife cause, I think that your number one priority right now is college. If you are struggling academically, you should not be missing any classes.
 
Just tell them. Tell them that this enriches your faith, your stance in being pro-life and your comradery. Make sure how you tell them about your transportation and give them the itinerary. As parents, they have the right to know where their daughter will be – when and where – and who she will be with.

I don’t see how this can be anyway controversial since (A) you’re Catholic and (B) it’s not like you’re pro-choice advocating for the extermination of an “oops.”
 
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