For an excellent explanation of how conscience works, read this post from Leila Miller (in which she borrows from J. Budziszewski's thoughts).
We are living in a time dominated by the avenging conscience.
The remedy isn't to outsource conscience but to liberate it the way Our Lord Jesus Christ did, by speaking of repentance. Now there's a word you don't hear much these days...
Leila Miller ends her post thusly:
Men may keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil. That road goes down and down. —G.K. Chesterton
Praise God for the gift of the avenging conscience. For to be pursued by the Five Furies, even to the very edge of the pit of hell itself, is a severe mercy given by a loving God Who will use drastic means to call us back to Himself.
Excellent post!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI would love if you wrote more about the latency period in childhood or where to read more about it. I borrowed the Leila Miller Trent horn book and it seemed to just say it exists. My husband and I intuit that we should be protecting their innocence now but 1. Lots of the people we are around tell their kids about divorce etc when they are little (5!!) because they want to be the ones who tell them and 2. Our oldest is 7, seems to be entering the age of reason and I don’t know when to start telling her things. Our older two (7&5) found out about divorce because they finally put together that my husband had three sets of grandparents and asked about it. They asked his sister who did not give great answers but of course we were there, and even if we weren’t they would have come right back to us to ask at this age. Anyway would love more guidance.
The latency period is something that you can figure out about if you just remember how you were between the ages of about 6 and 12. You just ran and jumped and read and cried and slept... you didn't want to think about "interior" things...
ReplyDeleteIf a child of that age asks a question ("where to babies come from, why do you have 3 sets of grandparents" -- ask them what they mean or what is making them ask this question ("did someone say something?") and then answer simply. He is saying "where did I come from" and the answer is that Daddy and I got married and God sent you to us. Maybe someone said something that's puzzling him, so questioning can bring that out. "Don't worry about all that -- it's true that God made men and women to have babies by their bodies coming together; they love each other so much and then a baby comes" is the answer a 7 yo wants, not a biology lesson. In any case, experience shows that even giving the scientific answer doesn't do much... a few years later they have the same misconceptions as ever! So don't go there until they are older.
If they ask about the 3 grandmothers, and you realize you have to say something, say "sadly people think you can end a marriage and start a new one -- this is something that God says we should not do and Daddy and I would always do what God says."
The real question is "Would you and dad do this?" So you MUST give the truthful answer that it goes against God's law and you would not do it.
Of course, this leads to serious questions for you. Should you treat all these "grandparents" the same way that you would treat legitimate ones?
The answer is no. So the children should not call the stepmother "grandma" ... we really have to pray about this and make hard choices, because children internalize our contradictions.
Normalizing all these stepparents has led to normalizing gay marriage.
Answer the question that is REALLY being asked and then let the child subside. Don't give extra info because he is too young to absorb it without harm.
In Leila Miller's book she makes this clear. Teens can have a deeper discussion because they are more aware of the interior issues. With younger children, all that happens is that we normalize perversions, which tears down their intuitions about right and wrong.
In the latency period (this is the psychological term but we'll use it), habits are being formed on the question of "liking and disliking what he ought"...
I did write about this in this post in a different context but it's still applicable, I think: http://likemotherlikedaughter.org/2009/09/ask-auntie-leila-how-do-i-educate-my/
If we realize that the child needs to be formed in this way, to like and dislike what he ought, before he can withstand the onslaught of the world and its ways, I think it clarifies the discussion.
People are wrong about "informing" children of all the ills out there. It's the parents' duty to shield the child!
Thank you for your thorough reply and the connection between protecting their innocence and teaching them to like and dislike what they ought.
DeleteMy five year old put the question an easy way to give the truth and reassure her of our own family “how can people get unmarried?”
“They can’t but some people think they can” was the answer.
How to treat the step-great grandparents is provoking. We mostly see my mother in laws mom and her “husband,” and they call him “Big Pa” like my own husband did as a child- he called his actual grandfather “grandpa” and his grandmother “granny deem” and then affectionate names for their spouses. I have thought it would draw more attention to the situation if my children did something different- indeed, they didn’t put it together for a long time. (Also, granny deem is the innocent party- left by her husband for another woman.)
Any reading material on this to give to friends? I think the only people we are around who really believe in this is my brother and sister-in-law (probably my parents too, but they don’t have little kids!). Maybe one friend. But the others all want to tell their children so they don’t hear it from somewhere else! Homeschooled kids.
I really do think that Leila Miller's book is the go-to: Made This Way.
DeleteAlso I have written this article: https://www.crisismagazine.com/2016/sex-education-family-friendly
It's not super long and it is to the point.