Son wants to wear chapel veil

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Tell him plainly veils are for women.

boys and men show their piety differently…they take their hats off when they enter the presence of Our Lord.

Have his father show him how to genuflect like a man.
 
I think this is a really good solution, having a six year old boy myself.
 
I’ll just summarize the three options I see being talked about here:
  1. Stop veiling. The “fun, new thing” goes away and it’s no longer an issue.
  2. Keep veiling and insisting your son does not. You double down, but your son likely will not understand why he cannot participate in this. I wouldn’t recommend doing this as I think it’s important to foster positive experiences of Mass rather than negative experiences.
  3. Find some other special item for your son to wear to Mass. I like the idea of a special suit or tie. You can impress upon him that he now has his own special piece of clothing he wears to show respect to God. Be forewarned, though, that it’s possible he may accept nothing less than exact imitation of head covering. So then, you either have to get him a hat, or go back to option #1.
 
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If he was my kid he wouldn’t be wearing no veil to mass…he’d learn that pretty quickly…he’d also learn pretty quickly that pulling his sweater over his head in mass has consequences if he was told not to…if all that failed then the following week he’d be going to mass wearing a veil…AND…a dress…6 years old is not to young to instruct and discipline if they are being a little ****…spare the rod and spoil the child is what the Bible teaches…I’m a guy so maybe my comments sound a tad harsh to most of the posters who appear to be female…so what does his father say about all this
 
It became officially acceptable by Church law to not veil in 1983. But that doesn’t mean it’s better, as St. Thomas Aquinas has said.

@janesansible Let him wear something he really likes, like a new outfit. Maybe that will divert his attention.
 
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He is an insister type of kid. So, maybe I will put off veiling for now until he understand when I tell him that some women wear veils to Church and that’s that. Thank you, all for the comments.
 
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I wish dad came to mass too but he is not Catholic (yet 😉 so unfortunately, I do not have that male model at mass.
 
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misstherese said:
It became officially acceptable by Church law to not veil in 1983.
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That’s about head covering. “Veiling” is a modernist invention because people don’t understand the significance and assign more meaning to wearing a veil. I used to wear my mom’s manilla; I was further inspired to do so after reading a post/article on a Catholic site. I think it was titled Why I Veil and it was a personal form of piety. I’m not unfamiliar with the reasons why but while someone mentioned upthread that some might not undetstand the reasons for “veiling” I posit that they don’t either.
 
Peebo said:
If he was my kid he wouldn’t be wearing no veil to mass…he’d learn that pretty quickly…he’d also learn pretty quickly that pulling his sweater over his head in mass has consequences if he was told not to…if all that failed then the following week he’d be going to mass wearing a veil…AND…a dress…6 years old is not to young to instruct and discipline if they are being a little ****…spare the rod and spoil the child is what the Bible teaches…I’m a guy so maybe my comments sound a tad harsh to most of the posters who appear to be female…so what does his father say about all this
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May God bless you and keep you far away from my sons.
 
Peebo said:
If he was my kid he wouldn’t be wearing no veil to mass…he’d learn that pretty quickly…he’d also learn pretty quickly that pulling his sweater over his head in mass has consequences if he was told not to…if all that failed then the following week he’d be going to mass wearing a veil…AND…a dress…6 years old is not to young to instruct and discipline if they are being a little ****…spare the rod and spoil the child is what the Bible teaches…I’m a guy so maybe my comments sound a tad harsh to most of the posters who appear to be female…so what does his father say about all this
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:roll_eyes:

Yeah…shaming a kid into behavior allllllllllways works.

NOT.

And you’d better be careful about putting boys in dresses…many find them very comfortable given the set up of male genetalia. Why pants for men and dresses for women is beyond me…it seems that comfort wise, pants are far more suitable to the female anatonmy whereas dresses would be more appropriate for men.
 
HumblePilgrim said:
I wish dad came to mass too but he is not Catholic (yet 😉 so unfortunately, I do not have that male model at mass.
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Ahhhh, so your husband is a male model? That explains a lot! 😉 🤣

(Hopefully not the kind that wears veils…) 😮
 
I think it depends on how thick the veil is. I would say the thicker the veil, the better. St. Padre Pio allowed veils in his church, (in fact, the sign posted on his church door mentioned that women must wear veils) so that’s what I go by.
 
janesansible said:
He still says he wants to wear a veil too. How best can I explain this to him?
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If it was my son, I wouldn’t have a problem with him veiling if he wanted to. I would try to avoid sweater stretching by providing him with an actual head covering.
 
Peebo said:
then the following week he’d be going to mass wearing a veil…AND…a dress…
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There might be unintended consequences to that. He might like wearing the dress, some boys do and they aren’t gay or transgender; and if he is humiliated, wearing dresses, etc. might be fetishized when he’s older. There are a lot of parenting landmines but many can be avoided with thoughtful, not harsh, parenting.
 
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This might be the single worse theoretical parenting response I’ve ever read online. That’s how you end up with a son that wears ladies underwear.
 
Well, typically women in years past would cover their heads in opaque material and wear them out in public, not just in church. I believe the Church Fathers said that it must be opaque. It was actually a sin that a woman would take off her head covering in public. St. Thomas Aquinas notes that it would not be a sin if a woman would not wear a head covering in public, if that is not the usual custom. But such a custom, he says, is not praiseworthy. Now this is just talking about headcovering in public…I don’t know for sure his stance on church veiling.

This info actually came from another thread on wearing a veil in church. Try typing it in to the search thingy and maybe it’ll pop up
 
misstherese said:
Well, typically women in years past would cover their heads in opaque material and wear them out in public, not just in church. I believe the Church Fathers said that it must be opaque. It was actually a sin that a woman would take off her head covering in public. St. Thomas Aquinas notes that it would not be a sin if a woman would not wear a head covering in public, if that is not the usual custom. But such a custom, he says, is not praiseworthy. Now this is just talking about headcovering in public…I don’t know for sure his stance on church veiling.
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Speaking as a historian, I don´t know theological sources about not wearing sheer veils, customs varied much from era to era and from region to region - because of cultural, not catholic reasons. So, about which time and place are you talking about?
Speaking as a granddaughter from a catholic french lady living in an conservative village in the 1930s and 40s, she told me more than once they wore sheer lace chapel veils - or at least a handkerchiev on their hads when entering a church unplanned.
 
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That’s about as much I know haha. Researching it, things get a bit hazy as far as dates. I personally don’t see an issue with the more sheer veils, as long as they actually cover and are not totally transparent. I was told by another poster that the Church Fathers required opaque headcoverings. Not sure why they required them to be opaque.
 
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