Unforunately, this is for your parents’ to handle. As an oldest child myself, stepping back and letting my parents’ be the parents’ was really difficult. I was constantly critiqueing their change in standards when it came to my youngest siblings. For instance, my parents firmly established a rule that we weren’t allowed to date till we were 16. I started dating at 17 and then stopped at 19 for an indefinite number of years. My brother after me had trouble getting the courage to ask girls out and didn’t go out on his first date till he was about 23.
What I had noticed was that when I did start dating, my mother’s interest in my dating life was more than just being a moral guide. I was like her personal romance story. She wanted to read emails I received from guys more motivated out of a similiar desire to watch shows like “the Bachelor” or watching “Romantic comedies.” When I stopped dating, she opened a Catholic singles account for me and began emailing me pretending to be me so that she could encourage romance in my life. When I put my foot down, my 12 year old sister was suddenly permitted to have boyfriends. She insisted that they were really just friendships. One time, my sister was up in her room with a boy with the door locked and the music playing loudly. I immediately went to my mother. My mom insisted that they didn’t have hormones yet and that I needed to stop being the third parent. I thus went to my Dad. My Dad put a stop to things, but I was definitely seen as the bad guy.
While I was away at college, I simply prayed for my sister every day. This was especially true as she prepared for confirmation. Around this time, my sister started dating a Christian guy who was committed to abstaining. It didn’t last long and a couple times she got played by a couple of guys, but it was like God put influences in her life that caused her to make a firmer commitment to chastity. She gained a reputation in high school that she was a girl who simply wouldn’t have sex with her boyfriends. A lot of the boys thought she was a tease. Guys stopped asking her out. I know that hurt her, but it gave her the freedom, I think, to develop her relationship with God. It challenged her to stick to her convictions.
After she watched “10 things I hate about you” she started realizing to some degree that while I was annoying, I was looking out for her. As she started entering her 20’s she, we slowly developed a better relationship. She ended up marrying a friend of mine, and did successfully wait for marriage. We’re very close.
When she moved into her apartment after marrying, she found a Christmas gift I had given her when she was preparing for her confirmation. I had basically made a packet of Christian teen activities, articles (mostly I found online). I also wrote a list of things I loved about her. When I had given her the gift, she scoffed, thought it was preachy and tossed it aside. She started looking at it at an adult and called me up to thank me. She told me that she hadn’t realized at all how well I knew her and how highly I thought of her. She told me she wished she had looked at it more seriously before.
I suppose its little things like that which can help, but don’t expect an immediate impact. It also won’t work all the time. My youngest brother has completely rejected the faith, got involved in drugs and moved in with a girlfriend. He’s now marrying a woman who is not mentally stable. His fiance’ has resented me for requesting she respect my space and because she takes my attempts to avoid listening to her gossip as rejection. She ended up accusing me of not apologising for something that happened two years ago at Christmas. I’ve apologized several times, but she insisted I tell everyone what a horrible unrighteous person I was. When I refused and asked her to stop, she then began lying about things I had said or done. I got very upset and left. She then went home crying to my brother and then apparently lied to him saying I had attacked her. I ended up getting several phone calls and emails. My brother told me he’s hated me his whole life and that I’m the reason he’s not Catholic because obviously my faith has made me a horrible self righteous individual.
However hard it is to see my brother do this, on a positive side, its made my mother realize to some capacity that her own parenting choices with the youngest harmed them. She says she wishes she could go back ten years and change a lot of her decisions. So in some ways, I suppose God is working there too. I pray my brother will someday come to a conversion of his own.
Life is difficult. You’ve got to carry your cross and be more of a witness than a preacher. Whatever you say or do, you have to strive to be guided by God in prayer. then you’ll know better when to speak up and when to keep your mouth shut.
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