Protesting with kids - advice?

[sanctamaria17]

I’ve been to enough clinic protests to know that I am not comfortable with it. I’m pro-life, volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center, defend my beliefs to friends and classmates (at a liberal campus) and am on the executive board of our pro-life club, but I just can’t do it. I can’t help but feel like I’m a hindrance more than a help. And it’s taxing. So no, I would not advocate bringing kids. If I had kids, I’d rather help them put together baskets of clothes, books, diapers, nursing supplies/bottles, and such for pregnancy care centers.

Let’s put it this way, I don’t feel the need to take kids to an execution to show them why it’s wrong. I don’t need to take them to a gang fight to show them why it’s wrong. I don’t need to show them a movie about human trafficking to show them why it’s wrong. I don’t need to show them a gun fight or knife fight to show them why it’s wrong. Why would I need to show them a picture of an abortion or take them to a clinic to show them why it’s wrong?

 

[Cat]

Here is a link to a documentary about the abortion mill in our city:

youtube.com/watch?v=W6TM_RhTnCQ

It’s only a few minutes long. Warning–do NOT let your children see this. And warning, it’s absolutely sickening. I wouldn’t watch this if you’re at work or in a place where you can’t cry freely.

I don’t know if your particular abortion mill is as awful as this, but I think that any place where mothers have their children torn out of their wombs and killed is an awful place.

One of priests in our city was a speaker at the 40 Days Initiative last spring. He has been a missionary to Mexico for several decades and is very experienced with spiritual warfare.

This priest stated that demons surround this abortion mill (the one in the video) and wage war against the people who come to protest.

For THAT reason, I would never bring a small child near the building in our city.

I believe that demons can and will attack our children.

I’m not sure that a demon can actually possess a baptized Christian (that’s another thread), but I know that demons can torment and oppress Christians, including children.

Children do not have the spiritual weaponry and knowledge to defend themselves from demons, who may very well disguise themselves as angels of light and deceive the child into trusting them.

I think we are testing God and making light of the forces of darkness to deliberately bring children into close promixity. There is no need for children to be there.

I wouldn’t take a chance. I would leave young children at home with caring Christians.

Another option would be for the young mother or father to stay away from such evil places, and instead, fight for pro-life causes with other methods, e.g., letter-writing, calling lawmakers, giving material goods to the local pregnancy life care center (now THAT’S a place I would take my young toddlers–a place filled with love of God!), and above all, praying.

There is a proper season for everything in life, and I personally do not believe that protesting at abortion clinics is “in season” for young parents with little ones. Wait a while.

Let us old fogies, with grown-up children, do that kind of dirty work of facing down demons. You all enjoy raising your little ones in the fear and joy of the Lord Jesus! When you are older and your children are grown, then join us.

Frankly, I am terrified to go to the local abortion mill and pray. I cling to my Rosary when I am praying there, and I plead that the Blood of Christ would cover me and protect me from any demonic attack.

 

[mizznicole]

Wow, lots of replies! The protest is part of 40 Days for Life - it is incredibly low-key and silent. You are not allowed to show abortion pictures at 40 life. But that said, my uncle who was a doctor showed me pictures of aborted children when I was young - maybe seven - and I believe it made me pro-life for life. That’s me.

DH was able to attend with me and so I felt safe. There were three of us praying the rosary. The most nefarious thing about the place is that the grounds are beautiful and peaceful - and all the workers coming out were young attractive women. Horrifying.

I won’t bring DS in the future, however. The protesting area is a sidewalk next to the highway. He was luckily sleeping the whole time. We left when he woke up.

BTW, I wouldn’t bring DS to a political rally but to me this is a moral issue, as grave as the civil rights protests of the 60s. It’s different in my mind.

 

[mizznicole]

I’ve been to enough clinic protests to know that I am not comfortable with it. I’m pro-life, volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center, defend my beliefs to friends and classmates (at a liberal campus) and am on the executive board of our pro-life club, but I just can’t do it. I can’t help but feel like I’m a hindrance more than a help. And it’s taxing. So no, I would not advocate bringing kids. If I had kids, I’d rather help them put together baskets of clothes, books, diapers, nursing supplies/bottles, and such for pregnancy care centers.

Let’s put it this way, I don’t feel the need to take kids to an execution to show them why it’s wrong. I don’t need to take them to a gang fight to show them why it’s wrong. I don’t need to show them a movie about human trafficking to show them why it’s wrong. I don’t need to show them a gun fight or knife fight to show them why it’s wrong. Why would I need to show them a picture of an abortion or take them to a clinic to show them why it’s wrong?

Well, to follow up on your questions - there’s no way you can tell what’s going on in this building. It looks like an office building. I drove by for 10 years without knowing. There is no sign advertising what they do. And there are no pictures of what’s going on either.

 

[mizznicole]

I’ve brought a nursing baby and toddler along with me for sidewalk counseling. Its a great age to take them. I think its a wonderful visual for a mother walking in, about to kill her own. She needs to see what she is about to kill.

We prayed while there, and our children prayed with us. When they tired, I had a blanket on the sidewalk for them to sit and have a snack. No violence or any such thing like that.

Older children are more cognizant of what is happening behind the doors and so I would hesitate an older child going. The mothers walking in with their partners or with their own mothers haunted me for months after the last time I was there. I watch 3 women walk in to abort their children, and could even see their “baby bump.” I still cry for the children that would be my son’s age today.

Thanks, that’s a balanced response.

 

[Rascalking]

Its not my intention to attack… I am just confused by your response. Are you saying that instead of teaching truth to our children, we should teach them nothing and let them learn on their own? (note… I am not saying that a young child needs to know the gruesome details of abortion, but teaching children to pray for mothers and their un-born babies should not be problematic for anyone.)

Thanks for the preface, “It’s not my intention to attack” . Sometimes people get very passionate about these issues!

Telling a young child to pray for the unborn is, of, course, fine. I would recommend that hole heartedly. What I would not recommend is letting them know the repulsive details of what killing babies entails. I firmly believe that childhood should be kept innocent.

Kids do not need to be props at political events. When preaching at children, they might rebel and take the wrong side, then, they shouldn’t be forced to go to an event they don’t believe in.

 

[s4angel]

My oldest two children saw a picture of an aborted baby when they were very young. Yes they cried and I explained to them what it was and why. They are now very pro-life. I took them with me last spring (All five of them) on the right to life march. During the march someone started shouting at us about how men were subjegating woman and some other nasty stuff I can’t repeat here, my kids kind of looked at them and then asked me what that was all about so I explained it so they could understand.

I have never taken them to an abortion clinic to protest as I am scared of the violence that sometimes happens there. I had thought that this year I would take the oldest ones but my heart said no. I have been a mom long enough to listen to that voice. I guess what I am trying to say is that I think it realy depends on how you realy feel about it and what your heart is telling you in regards to whether you take your child or not. A moms intuition is given to her by god so listen to it.

 

[DOShea]

I don’t have kids, but there is no way I would take anyone lower than fifteen. Several reasons, but the two most important (in my mind)

1-The pictures some pro-life people show are so disgusting and repulsive I, as a 29 year old man, get sick viewing them. They only repulse people and get them angry. They don’t work as a deterrent.

Not all protests include these. In fact, I haven’t seen one in almost two years of local protests. Makes me wonder if the same people who object on the grounds of shock value would be so quick to dash across the living room and turn off CSI if a toddler came into the room, or be so diligent about equally shocking words and lyrics?

2-A child can’t make their own moral choices. Look at it this way-If you grew up with left leaning parents, would you like it if they took you, as a child, to a pro-choice rally?

Children at that age can’t make sound moral choices (yet). They do make moral choices when they pull the cookie out of another toddler’s hand or slap them in their underdeveloped sense of distributing justice. Part of the parent’s job is to help them learn how to formulate good morals, and the best way is to show them by doing so yourself.

I have 3 children, all grown now, and all but one of them have been to public prayer demonstrations including outside clinics. Kids love entertainment, and to take them away from the TV to go do something you think is much more important lays a very good foundation for those times in the future when you are going to demand they do things they don’t want to do.

I would take them, and if I had it to do all over again I would have taken them more often. They are not, for the most part, violence prone at all. If there have been problems with violence recently, then maybe reconsider, but if not, especially if there is a police presence, you’ll be fine. The advice you got about making sure they don’t run off is really important because these clinics and the people who run them do not play.

 

[CountrySinger]

My apartment complex is behind a planned parenthood, so I see a lot that goes on there. There was a prayer rally yesterday, and the police got involved. There was a a mother with two babies in a stroller, and the stroller got knocked over, causing the babies to get hurt. I think the group that protests there is hard core. I will walk by and they will harass me with pictures of aborted babies and pictures of babies in utero (which freak me out). I can’t stand to walk by there if there are people standing there (and I’m a pro-life Catholic). Too bad the bus stop is right by there.

 

[Rascalking]

Not all protests include these. In fact, I haven’t seen one in almost two years of local protests. Makes me wonder if the same people who object on the grounds of shock value would be so quick to dash across the living room and turn off CSI if a toddler came into the room, or be so diligent about equally shocking words and lyrics?

.

As a matter of fact, I don’t watch CSI , cringe at repulsive lyrics, and think that our soicety has become much too crass.

Cheers.

 

[purplesunshine]

My oldest two children saw a picture of an aborted baby when they were very young. Yes they cried and I explained to them what it was and why. They are now very pro-life. I took them with me last spring (All five of them) on the right to life march. During the march someone started shouting at us about how men were subjegating woman and some other nasty stuff I can’t repeat here, my kids kind of looked at them and then asked me what that was all about so I explained it so they could understand.

No offense s4angel, but you are not your children. If you’re over 30 you cannot understand what its like to see a murdered baby when you’re not much more than a baby yourself. For those of us in our 20’s we’ve seen these things growing up. It is very real to us and I don’t know 1 person who saw those pictures as a young child who dosn’t wish they’d been older.

Not all protests include these. In fact, I haven’t seen one in almost two years of local protests. Makes me wonder if the same people who object on the grounds of shock value would be so quick to dash across the living room and turn off CSI if a toddler came into the room, or be so diligent about equally shocking words and lyrics?

No not all do, but many do. Walking into a situation uninformed or under informed, is silly. And I don’t own a TV, nor do I listen to much music. That I do is true soda-shoppe oldies, old time irish music, instrumental music and Christian music.

The only other issue I have with kids protesting is that ages 5-11 children’s brains are doing HUGE work on their consciences. Sensitive children may develop an life-long underlying feeling of guilt beucase their protests and prayers were “not good enough”. These are the type of children who hold on to the feelings that its “their fault” the dog died or “their fault” their sibling did such and such when to everyone else its not. It would be better of children of those ages to work towards a goal (packing care packages at a crisis center, even stuffing envelopes) than in protests.