Questions parents ask about raising children


QUESTIONS

PARENTS ASK

ABOUT RAISING
CHILDREN

®tSf. R.





QUESTIONS

PARENTS ASK ABOUT
RAISING CHILDREN

by

Donald F. Miller, C.SS.R.

CONTENTS

What Is the Best Plan for Raising Children? 3

What Are the Rules for Being a Good Mother? 11

What Are the Rules for Being a Good Father? 18

How to Get Children to Obey 27

Should Children Be Spanked? 28

Should Children Be Paid for Chores ? 30

“All the Kids Are Doing It” 31

How Often Should Children Go to the Movies? 33

How Important Is a Splendid Home? 34

Co-operation of Parents in Correcting Children 36

What Are Late Hours for Teen-Agers?..— 37



Must Parents Teach Their Children? 39

Obligation of Catholic Schooling .40

Education at Home 42

The Parent-Teacher Relationship 43

Catholic Parents of Public School Children 45

Children and Holy Communion 46

Who Decides a Child’s Vocation? 48

When Should Company-Keeping Begin? 49

A Daughter’s Marriage to a Divorced Man 51

How to Give Sex Instructions 52

What to Tell a Child about the Birth of Babies 54

A Child’s Question about Birth Control 55

Should Babies Be Taken to Church? .... 56

Is Adoption Advisable in This Case? 58

Requirements for Baptismal Sponsors 59

May Divorced Persons Be Baptismal Sponsors? 61

The Fate of Unbaptized Children 63

Copyright 1959

LIGUORIAN PAMPHLETS
REDEMPTORIST FATHERS

Liguori, Missouri



Questions about Raising Children 3

What Is the Best Plan for Raising Children?
HOW TO RAISE children properly and successfully is a
question that absorbs the mind of every conscientious
mother and father. It would be fatuous to suggest that
the question can be answered briefly, or even at great

length, with anything like adequacy. Without too much
trouble one could list a thousand or more books dealing
with various phases of the answer. It is a topic that

requires continuous reflexion, study and prayer on the

part of parents.

However, a good deal of very important material may be
set down in a single article. Putting up a building is a
long and involved process; but the most important single

part of the process is the drawing up of a good blueprint

or plan. Raising children properly is a much more in-
volved and a much longer process; but again the most
important single factor in the process is the possession

of a good plan.

Many parents lack such a plan. They don’t know just
where they are trying to lead their children, or, if they
do have some vague ideas of what they want for their
children, they don’t know what are necessary means for
helping the children reach the goal. Others have the

wrong plan for their children; they are leading them
toward something that will make failures out of their
children.

The importance of planning and planning rightly for
the children one brings into the world cannot be stressed

too strongly. It is part of the responsibility of possessing

intelligence to set about all important tasks with a plan.

The human mind is capable of looking forward into the
future, of adjusting present decisions and actions to what



4 Questions about Raising Children

is expected in the future, and of carrying out any project
according to a design. The Creator, who makes children
almost completely dependent on their parents for the

direction their lives will take and the formation of their
characters, expects every mother and father to proceed
in the training and rearing of their children according to

a plan. And He Himself has revealed the principles on
which the right plan must be drawn up.

Here, then, will be presented the general outline of

objectives that Christian parents should have before them
as they supervise the growth and development of their

children. These are the things which they should be con-
stantly and consciously desirous of fulfilling in their chil-

dren. Without presumption it may be said that parents
who will make this simple outline of child-rearing goals
the absorbing concern of their minds and the inspiration

of all their efforts will make few, and none of them major,
mistakes, in the upbringing of their children. The “how”
will come easy to them, if they have the “whither” clear in
their minds.

1. The general and only absolutely necessary goal: to

rear a child so that it will want and work for and ulti-
mately win the happiness of heaven.

This is the supreme destiny for which God creates, with
the cooperation of parents, every human being born into
the world. This is the essence of the responsibility that

He imposes on parents when He makes a child dependent
on their authority, their guidance, their inspiration and

instruction for many years of its life. The parents must,
in union with God, want one thing more than anything
else for their child, to facilitate, by every means in their
power, its attainment of heaven.



Questions about Raising Children 5

This objective must be subject, in the minds of parents,
to two important considerations. The first is the fact
that parents cannot force the free wills of children who
have developed beyond the use of reason, to choose the

road to heaven, any more than God forces anyone into
heaven. The second consideration is the fact that there
is no power on earth more capable, by God’s own design,
of conditioning the free will of human beings for making
the choice of what leads to heaven, than that of parents
over their growing children. So great is this power that

it is an axiom that parents can make children what they
want them to be.

The consciousness of this general and necessary objective
of child-rearing can be intensified in parents by frequent

reflexion on two points. The first is that God directly and
immediately created the soul of their child; that without

the soul which He created, their child would not even
live; that what God wants for the soul, which is heaven,
must be of first importance to its parents. The second
point is that the soul of the child is immortal; it had a
beginning with God’s creation, but it will never have an

end. It becomes far more important to parents who are
conscious of the immortality of their child to help it be

happy in eternity than to attain any degree of success
or prosperity in the few years it will have in this world.

This first aim of parents preserves them from unreason-
able grief over handicaps God permits their children to
suffer in respect to prospects in this world. Sickness,

early death, lack of talent, even retarded mentality, heart-

wrenching though they are to parents, can never destroy

entirely the peace of parents who know that their children
were created primarily for heaven, and that these mis-

fortunes not only do not interfere with, but often make
more certain, the children’s attainment of that goal.



6 Questions about Raising Children

2. The general means to the necessary end of leading a
child toward heaven: forming it into a true Christian.

There is only one means of attaining heaven for all
human beings: it is J.esus Christ, the Son of God. In
their supreme desire for their child’s happiness in heaven,
therefore, parents will want it to be fashioned and formed
into a full participator in the merits of Christ which

offer salvation to all men.

Three things enter into the making of a good Christian,
and not one of them will be neglected by good parents.

The first is knowledge. Christ has to be known before
He can be accepted; and His teachings, His command-
ments, His directives, have to be known. Good parents
begin to make Christ known to their children at the
earliest possible age, first through habits of reverence

formed even before the child is capable of understanding

the reasons for them, and then, with the first dawning of
reason, by implanting the first ideas and motives that make
for faith and confidence in Christ and complete submission

to His will. This first introduction of a child to the knowl-

edge of Christ is never delegated to others by good parents

;

it is felt as their most highly prized privilege and accepted

as their greatest parental responsibility. Deepening and

broadening the knowledge of Christ in their child con-

tinues through all the years up to maturity.

The second is moral virtue or Christian integrity. Good
parents want their children to have acquired as many
Christian habits even before reaching the age of reason

as possible. This, they know, makes the practice of virtue
so much more easy when its foundations are later learned
and understood. They know that the first sanctions that
influence the conduct of a child are the favor or disfavor,



Questions about Raising Children 7

the reward or punishment, meted out by the parents.
They use this power that is theirs to instill the Christian
way of reacting to things, of dealing with others, of coping
with their own desires. And as soon as it can be dope,
they begin to inculcate the realization that Christ’s will

and Christ’s favor or disfavor, should be the measure of
all conduct.

The third is the sacramental life. Christian parents
train their children to look back on their baptism as the

greatest event in their lives, and forward to their first

Communion and confirmation, as events of tremendous
significance. These with the other sacraments, are spoken

of often to the children as the means whereby one lives
as a child of God. Parents who understand this themselves
and live a supernatural life through the sacraments, will

have little difficulty translating its meaning into terms
comprehensible to the growing child.

While working towards these objectives, parents remain

always mindful that their children have inherited, with

all human beings, the effects of original sin, and that a
mother and father are neither to be surprised nor dis-

couraged over the fact that they meet resistance to their
efforts at times, and that the children do not always

measure up to the high ideals and the beautiful plan they

have in mind for them. In view especially of this fact,
they remember that they cannot expect to make good
Christians out of their children by force, dictatorship or

excessive severity, the use of which would only cause later

reactions of rebellion. The one great medium of instruc-
tion and training that God has placed in the hands of
parents is love. When their love is evident in all that they
do for their children, even in administering punishment,

they will succeed in carrying out their plan. If they do

not work through love, or if their love is not clearly



8 Questions about Raising Children

manifested to the children, they will fail in whatever they

try to do.

3. The subordinate goal of child-rearing : a happy and
successful earthly life for the child.

This goal is called subordinate because it must be strictly
secondary to and dependent on those outlined above. The
failure of many parents, both to prepare their children
rightly for their adult lives and to find satisfaction for

themselves in what they have done for their children,
must be traced to the fact that they have made these
subordinate goals primary in rearing the children. They
want their children to be rich or successful or happily
married, as if these were the only ends worth living for.
They learn only by experience that they are empty and
worthless goals except in subordination to the true and

ultimate purposes for which every human being is made.

But so long as the first and necessary ends of life are
given foremost consideration in child-rearing, parents

should plan to prepare their children for happy and suc-
cessful temporal lives. But even here they will have clear
ideas of what the words “happy” and “successful” mean.
These ideas of Christian parents will differ greatly from

those of many secularistic parents of today.

The word “happy” to them will not mean that they are
to think, or to permit their children to think, that any-

thing near perfect happiness can be attained in this world.

Perfect happiness is only to be found in heaven, and wise

parents will early establish this conviction in the mind of
their child. But relative happiness can be attained on
earth, and it is best represented by the word “peace.”
Peace means harmony of order between things and parts
of things. The right order that makes for peace in human



Questions about Raising Children 9

lives is threefold: between a man and God; between a
man and his fellow-men; and between the various parts
or powers of his own being. Parents who want their
children to be as happy as possible ceaselessly try to build
their happiness on this three-fold foundation: the humble
recognition of God’s authority and submission to His will;

justice and charity toward all their fellow-men; and con-

trol, through reason, free will, and God’s grace, of all

their appetites and desires.

The word “successful” is not, for wise parents, a syn-
onym for “rich” or “popular” or “famous” or “powerful.”
They teach their children to believe that the only true
success is that by which they will be enabled to render

the most service to their fellow-men. The money they
make, the friends they gain, the compensations they re-

ceive, will all be represented as the by-product of service

to others
;
the service itself will be represented as the only

real objective and the source of the most solid joys.

Thus, if parents encourage the wishes of a child to

become a nurse or a doctor or a lawyer, it will be through

the motive that any of these professions will give it won-

derful opportunities to help others
;
never through the

primary motive that a profession will make them rich.
If their children take jobs in factories or offices or any
of the trades, the parents will encourage them to become
more and more proficient in whatever they do, to study
to advance themselves, primarily because the better the

work one can do, the greater are the personal satisfactions
that come from it. The rewards of more money for better
work need not be covered over or minimized; but they
should be represented as secondary, though all but infalli-

ble, results of putting more and more effort into the doing
of a good job.



10 Questions about Raising Children

Especially if their children show an inclination toward
becoming priests or religious, will parents encourage them
intelligently and warmly, knowing that in no vocation, can
they be surer of the happiness and success in service
described here. For in these vocations the danger of
living for money and worldly ambition, and of being thrown
out of right relationship to God or fellow-men, is at a
minimum. That is why good priests and good nuns are
the happiest people in the world.

These principles, we know, are anathema to many par-
ents. There are many who know of no motive to offer
their children for studying hard, aiming at a profession,

working diligently at a job, except the motive of making
more and more money. Such children join the ranks of

America’s teeming thousands of materialists, who even-
tually may acquire a large slice of material prosperity only
to find their hearts empty and unhappy and, in too many
cases, their souls irrevocably lost.

By following this blueprint, parents can people the
world with exemplary Christians, good citizens and great

leaders in society, in the professions, in business, in the

trades. To follow it in rearing a child, of course, a parent
must have already adopted it as the plan for his own life.
There are too many who have never heard of it. But
even for these, it is never too late to begin. Fortunately,

unlike old and useless buildings, lives can be made over.
Anybody can start following the blueprint presented here,
today.

>u



Questions about Raising Children 1 1

What Are the Rules for Being a Good
Mother?

MOTHERS are honored during the month of May, both
by the celebration of Mother’s Day, and by the universal

acceptance of the entire month as belonging to Mary, the
patron of mothers. To the truly humble of heart honors
received are always an incentive to sincere self-examina-

tion. Mothers should be no exception to this rule. For

all that they are endowed with strong instincts of self-
sacrifice in behalf of their children, and made beautiful by
the possession of the greatest natural love that human
beings can achieve, there are wide areas in which they can

make themselves unworthy of honor, either through ignor-
ance or selfishness or evil. Every good mother should want
to know whether she is failing in her trust in any way.

There are six subjects on which mothers of growing

children should be willing to examine themselves fre-

quently. They cover the whole range of their responsi-
bilities and duties toward their children. To fail in one
of them means to endanger, in some way, the character
or happiness of a child. Therefore a series of questions

under each heading is here presented to mothers, for the

purpose of helping them to recognize and eliminate any
faults or failings that may have entered into their train-
ing of their children. The mother who finds that she is
not guilty of even one of these common failings may be
counted a good mother indeed.

I. Correction

1. Do I correct my child in the heat of anger, using
violent and intemperate language obviously inspired by

passion and personal feeling?

2. Do I make no distinction in the severity of my cor-
rections, as between small and trivial faults and the more
important evils into which my children may fall?



12 Questions about Raising Children

3. Do I use physical punishment with excessive fre-
quency and unusual cruelty against my child, thus making
its fear of me far greater than its love?

4. Do I fail, because of inordinate love or soft-hearted-
ness or sloth, to punish my children when this is the
only means to teach them an important lesson?

5. Do I show favoritism toward one of my children over
the others, especially in the matter of correction and

punishment ?

6. Do I use fearsome threats and terrifying warnings
as a means to correct my children, forgetting that such
threats can leave deep scars on the character of a growing

child?

7. Do I ever so much as hint, to say nothing of actually
expressing to my children, that I am sorry that they
were born, not realizing that even though I do not mean
it, this can have a fearful psychological effect on a child?

8. Do I use any form of bad language in correcting my
children, even possibly cursing them and using the holy
names irreverently?

9. Do I ever, in the presence of my child, speak to
others of its faults or bad conduct as amusing or humor-

ous?

10. Have I defended my child against people who com-
plained about its actual faults or misconduct?

11. Have I tried to show my children, even in the midst
of correcting and punishing them, that I was solely inter-
ested in their welfare, and that I was motivated far more
by love than by anger?



Questions about Raising Children 13

II. Schooling

1. Have I made my children realize, without any chance
of doubt or discussion, that the only right schooling for

them is to be obtained in a Catholic school?

2. Do I back up the authority of the school by insisting
that my children must be obedient, respectful and well-
behaved, and warning that they will be punished at home
if they need punishment in school?

3. If my child complains about the treatment it receives
from teachers, do I take the child’s part at once and let

it know that I have no use for its teachers, thus encourag-
ing it in rebellion and misbehavior?

4. If problems arise from my child’s conduct at school,
do I consult with its teachers to learn their side of the

story and to find out whether I am failing to train the
child properly at home?

5. If the child has home work to do, do I insist that it
set aside a certain time and get the work done, or do I
permit it to do whatever it pleases?

6. Do I take an interest in my children’s progress at
school, congratulating and rewarding them for good reports
and trying to help them improve when the reports are
not good?

7. Do I permit my children to choose their own high
school, or do I let them know from the beginning that this
comes under parental authority and that there is to be
no choice other than a Catholic high school if such is at

all available?

8. If there seem to be reasons for sending my children
to a public or non-Catholic grade or high school, do I re-



14 Questions about Raising Children

member that such reasons should be submitted to the
judgment of my pastor?

III. Religions instruction

1. Do I take it upon myself to instruct my children in
the essential truths of religion and morality, beginning

with the simpler things almost as soon as they are able

to reason?

2. Do I say nothing about religion on the ground that
the children will be taught all they need to know about
that in church and school ?

3. Have I taken my children, when very young, into
a church, and explained to them the altar, the tabernacle,
the statues, the communion rail, the crib at Christmas,
etc.?

4. Have I myself taught my children, even before they
started to school, to make the Sign of the Cross, to recite
the Our Father and Hail Mary, and to say morning and
night prayers and prayers before and after meals each

day?

5. Have I explained over and over again the funda-
mental reason for which a child should obey the ten

commandments, viz., that this is God’s will, the first way
to love Him, and the means of avoiding hell and winning
heaven ?

6. Have I been alert to know when my child needed
instruction concerning sex, and prompt to supply it or to

see that it was supplied by a responsible person?

7. Have I trained my child to respect priests and Sisters,
or effected the opposite by frequent criticism and dis-

respectful language concerning those consecrated to God?



Questions about Raising Children 15

8. Have I begun as early as possible to teach my children
the importance of attending Mass every Sunday, of re-
ceiving the sacraments often, and of helping to support

their church?

9. When the children are studying the catechism, do I
ever go over the questions and answers with them?

IV. Recreation

1. Am I deeply conscious of my responsibility to know
where, how and with whom my children spend their
leisure hours?

2. Do I insist on meeting my children’s friends and
playmates by inviting them into my home, and on learning
something about their background and reputations?

3. Do I permit my child to leave the home for long
periods of time without asking where it is going, what are
its plans, and without asking for a report of what it was
doing after its return?

4. Do I make any effort to provide the means and in-
terests for my child to find its recreation about the home ?

5. Do I permit unlimited or excessive attendance at
movies, not realizing that the best authorities on what is
good for children state more frequent attendance at movies
than once in two weeks is dangerous and harmful to
children ?

6. Do I take the time and interest to see to it that my
children do not attend any dangerous or unsuitable movies ?

7. Do I encourage healthy, outdoor sports for my
children, such as swimming, baseball, ice-skating, etc.?



16 Questions about Raising Children8.

Do I try to instill into my children the importance of
good sportsmanship, and rebuke them seriously for any
display of bullying or selfishness or quarrelsomeness among
their companions?

V. Example

1. Do I realize the tremendous importance of my own
example as an influence on the characters of my children?

2. Do I use evil language, or tell suggestive or obscene
stories within the hearing of my children, even though I
would punish them for doing the same ?

3. Have the children ever seen me partially or totally
under the influence of liquor?

4. Have I ever bragged, in the hearing of the children,
about how I cheated someone, or took revenge, or lied or
stole ?

5. Have I neglected any serious religious obligations to
the scandal of my children?

6. Do my children ever hear me taking part in gossip
and detraction concerning absent persons?

7. Do I quarrel and argue heatedly with the children’s
father, either repeatedly or on occasion?

8. Do I show spitefulness, hatred, or sulkiness towards
others ?

9. Do I complain and grumble about the hardness of
my life, and let the children know that I am sorry that
I ever married?

10. Do I speak to the children about the faults of their
father, and thus lessen their affection and respect for him?



Questions about Raising Children 17

11. Do I practice strict modesty in appearance, dress and
actions before the children?

VI. Vocation

1. Am I convinced of the truth that God has a specific
vocation in store for each of my children, and that it is
my task to prepare them well for it, and not to interfere
with it when it becomes clear?

2. Have I permitted myself to become selfishly opposed
to the thought of my son or daughter being called to a
priestly or religious vocation?

3. Have I actually placed obstacles in the way of a son
or daughter who wanted to follow a higher vocation, or
refused my consent to it?

4. Have I trained my children, from their early high
school days, to the right ideas about company-keeping and

marriage ?

5. Have I permitted or encouraged puppy-love company-
keeping to my children in grade school or high school,
when they could have no idea of marrying within a reason-
able period of time, and when they could only run into
dangers against chastity and neglect the important years

of their education?

6. Have I instilled in my children, from early years, a
knowledge of the difficulties and dangers connected with

mixed marriages, and tried to make them want to keep
company with and marry none but a person of their own
faith ?

7. Have I objected to boy or girl-friends of my children
solely because I did not happen to like them, even though

there could be no valid objections apart from my dislike?



18 Questions about Raising Children

8. Have I tried to prevent any of my children from
marrying because I did not want to give up their com-
panionship and help?

9. Have I shown jealousy of the husbands or wives of
my sons and daughters, criticized and complained about
them to the latter, or made demands on my children that
were inconsistent with their duties to their partners?

10. Have I ever given a word of advice to a married
son or daughter that could be interpreted as encourage-

ment to commit sin?

What Are the Rules for Being a Good
Father?

ONE OF the bad features of modern civilization is the fact
that the work by which most fathers support their families
is done outside their homes. For some this is hard and
gruelling work, leaving them little energy and strength
for the task of being a good father. For others, such as

those who travel to make a living, or whose work calls
them away from home for long periods of time, the job
of helping their wives to raise their children becomes the

most incidental of side issues. For all present day fathers,

there is a tendency to divide the work of home-mak-
ing and children-raising into separate compartments: the

father brings in the money and that is just about all; the
mother is expected to manage the home and to care for
and raise the children practically alone.

No matter what excuses may be made by or for fathers
who take little part in the administration of their homes
and the raising of their families, it must be said boldly
and frankly that this is an abuse, an evil, a curse, and

a cause of many of the weaknesses and failures in modern
homes. For many fathers, there is no excuse; they have
used their jobs as a cloak for sloth and laziness in regard



Questions about Raising Children 19

to their duties at home. For others, where there seems
to be some excuse, there is an obligation to find a way to
get around the excuses instead of permitting them to stand
in the way of their active participation in the important
tasks of a home.

The obligation of a father in his home may be listed
under six heads, each one of which offers good material

for the consideration of any prospective father, and for

the self-examination of any actual father.

I. Provider

Of course, the first obligation of a father is that of
providing the economic necessities of his family. Even
in regard to this function of a father, there is a wide

range of abuses that tend to weaken the foundations of a
home. These abuses often are practiced by fathers who
consider themselves wonderful providers for their families

;

indeed, we are not even considering, in this connection,
fathers who won’t work, who move from job to job with
constant insecurity, or who make it necessary for their
wives to work in order to feed and clothe their children.

However, there is a whole list of abuses that seem to be
approved in many circles because they are practiced so
widely and so smugly taken for granted by many fathers.

1) There is the father who never reveals anything about
his actual income to his wife, and never permits her to

have a word to say about money matters. There are
many wives who have not the slightest idea as to whether
their husbands earn $50 a week or $500 a week. This
is a secret carefully guarded and kept from them. As
a result they have no idea how to buy for the present
or to plan for the future. A wife and mother has a right
to know exactly how much her husband is earning, and



20 Questions about Raising Children

should be taken into his counsels on the economic planning

for the home.

2) There is the father who doles out a certain amount
of money to his wife every week, usually a just barely
adequate sum, on which she is to provide necessities for

the home, for herself and for the children. It is surpris-

ing how many fathers think this a decent and equitable
way of running their homes. Their wives are like un-
salaried servants. It is possible to hire people to do the

necessary buying for one’s home, and such people usually

have to be paid a salary. Some men marry a wife and
then expect her to act the part of a hired servant, but

they give her nothing over and above what is required
for necessities. A wife should be a sharer of her husband’s
income, not a servant held to account for every penny

she spends.

3) There is the father who spends freely and lavishly
on his own amusements but who says he cannot afford
recreation money for his wife and children. He is the man
who thinks that because he earns the money, he is the only
one who has a right to spend it freely and to enjoy it,
and that his wife should be happy if he pays the essential
bills and lets her buy the basic necessities. A conscientious
husband knows that his wife has a right to spend just
as much of his money for her personal pleasure as he
does for his own. The ideal thing is that both share in
whatever pleasures money can buy.

The foundation for a happy home is the elimination of
such abuses and the making of a full and equal partner-
ship out of the relation of husband and wife.



Questions about Raising Children 21

II. Teacher

A father and mother, combined, are the first and most
important teachers of their children. Neither may resign
or evade this function if their children are to be properly

raised. Every other teacher is in some way subject to
the teaching authority of the mother and father over

their children, and may be called a delegate of that
authority.

Many fathers have completely abandoned their duty as
teachers of their children. Even in so many explicit words
they say that they are leaving all that to the mothers and

to the school. They cannot be bothered. They are too
tired when they come home from work to concern them-
selves with what the children are learning or should learn.
Or they spend as little time at home and around the
children as possible.

Nature will take revenge on the father who will have
little or nothing to do with the training and upbringing

of his children. That is because nature has provided a

set-up in which a father, with a minimum of effort, can
have a profound influence on the characters of his children.

It is nature’s arrangement that every normal child admires

and looks up to its father; it has made the child ready
to accept almost anything from the example and teaching
of its father.

Therefore every father, no matter how limited his time
or how wearing his work, should make some definite effort
to teach his children. He can teach simple and funda-
mental lessons of morality. He can, once in a while at
least, go over a catechism lesson with his children, or

over other lessons they are learning in school. He can
teach his boys the elements of the virtue of purity and



22 Questions about Raising Children

his girls modesty and refinement. He can teach them
little tricks of certain trades he may be familiar with, or
even how to play certain games. This is one of his jobs,
and neither the mother nor the school can substitute for
what he is designed to do.

Some fathers use only one means to teach their children,
and that is to scold and abuse them for their faults and
mistakes, especially faults that interfere with their peace

and selfish comfort. Or they lay down such severe rules
of conduct, and punish infractions so violently, that their

children are stunted rather than helped in their growth.

Correction is a part of the teaching function, but it is of

absolutely no value unless it be accompanied by positive

effort to make a child intelligent and good.

III. Court of Appeal

Because the mother is with the children most of the

time while the father is away at work, she should be able
to enlist his cooperation in training them by using him
at least as “a court of appeal.” In cases that require

special punishment, she should know that the lesson can
be most effectively brought home to the erring child by
leaving it for the father to administer. In doubtful mat-

ters she should be able to count on his showing an interest

in the problem, and in exercising his judgment to assist
her own. The father himself should be ready to act as
such “a court of appeal,” either to administer a proper

punishment or to decide an issue that perplexes his wife.

Some fathers do not want or permit their wives to leave
any unfinished business of the home for them. They isolate
themselves entirely from the business of training the
children. “Oh, ask your mother,” is the only response

they ever give when a child asks them for a permission.
They don’t want to hear anything about the children’s



Questions about Raising Children 23

faults and mistakes, will take no part in correcting or

punishing them, and are only ready to complain about the

mother when their child’s faults become notorious. In
other words they leave a job that nature intended for

two persons in the hands of the mother alone and then
blame her if it is not done perfectly. The fact that a
father must be away from the home and children much of
the time is no excuse for his abdicating all authority over

them.

At the same time a good father will not permit himself
to become a dictator or tyrant over his children. He has
no right to make all decisions and to administer all cor-
rections and punishments without considering the mother’s

views at all. Nor should he ever contradict the mother’s
decisions without first consulting her. That would be to
make her job an impossible one. Tyrannical fathers (not
few in number) usually find that by early adolescence their

children have no love left for them at all.

IV. Companion

It is not difficult for a man whose work keeps him active
in the business or professional world to reach a point where
he has little or no desire for the companionship of children,

even his own. He has his adult associates and friends; he
has his work to think about even when he is at home ; he
has the papers, magazines and books to read, and so he

comes to feel that he should not be expected to “waste his

time’’ with the children. “Don’t Disturb Daddy” is the
slogan around his home, and that means “Don’t let Daddy
see or hear you around.”

Children might just as well be orphans, if their fathers
never have time to spend with them. Such children are
orphans, for all the good a father will be to them when
they need him. It is through companionship that a father



24 Questions about Raising Children

gains the confidence of his children, proves that he loves

them, and opens the way for their asking his advice when
they are in need. Every father should play games with
his children; should take them to places of amusement;
should take walks and rides with them. Only thus will

he earn the kind of love that even the worst of fathers

would like his children to have for him.

V. Substitute

One of the most neglected of all the duties of fatherhood,
arising from the separation of the duties of husband and
wife, is that of sometimes substituting for the wife in

taking care of the children. There are fathers who will
spend any amount of money to provide nurses, companions
and baby-sitters for their children, when the mother needs
or wants to get away for a little while, but who will never
assume the obligation themselves. There are others who
will not spend anything to have anybody stay with the

children at any time, but who expect the mother to be
with them at all times. The thought never strikes them
that at least now and then the mother should be permitted
and encouraged to spend a free evening, or to have a

vacation. They themselves have plenty of leisure and a
hundred different ways to spend it; but their wives are
expected to be on the job at all times.

The problem columns of the daily newspapers are filled
with stories of mothers whose husbands never think of

suggesting or permitting that they leave their home for
a bit of relaxation now and then. Such men are blindly
thoughtless and selfish.

It is in substituting at times for the mother in caring

for the children that a father has the opportunity of

fulfilling many of his other duties towards them. If he
permits their mother to go to a show or visit friends or



Questions about Raising Children 25

to attend church services of an evening, while he stays

home with the children, he is bound to become a good
companion, a good teacher, a good adviser, for his children.

He thus accomplishes two good things with one stroke : he
gives his wife needed relaxation, and he draws closer and

closer to his children.

VI. Adviser

As head of the family, the father has the obligation to
guide his children toward manhood and womanhood, and

to stand by as an experienced adviser when important
decisions are to be made. He should know, of course, that
he has no right to decide absolutely and finally what his

children shall do with their lives. It is not for him to
determine whether a son or daughter should marry, or

enter the religious life, nor even whether they should

adopt one career over another. Every human being must
select his own vocation, with light and help from God;
every human being must, in the final analysis, adopt a
line of work that is in accord with his tendencies and
capabilities, and not with those of his father.

But in making all such important decisions, every young
man and young woman should be able to look to a father
for good and sound advice. Sometimes such advice will

prevent an inexperienced youth from making a bad mis-
take. For example, a girl may have fallen in love with a
man whom any experienced person could certainly judge
unfitted for the tasks of husband and father. The girl’s
father should be the experienced person capable of con-

vincing her of the folly of marrying such a man. When a
son or daughter shows a leaning toward the priesthood

or religious life, it is the father’s task only to present the

difficulties and rewards, the obligations and privileges of

the vocation, in such a way as to make the final decision
intelligent and wise.



26 Questions about Raising Children

In these important matters he must remember, however,
that he is only the adviser. He may never dictate a course
that he prefers, nor forbid a choice of vocation or career

that does not appeal to him.

Above all, he will find out, when it comes to advising
one of his children in the choice of a career or vocation,

whether he has been a good father or not through the

years. If he has been a good father, his advice will be

considered and appreciated and used for good. If he has

not, his children will neither present their problems to

him nor consider his advice when he deigns to give it to
them.



Questions about Raising Children 27

How to Get Children to Obey
Problem: We have three children—the oldest one not

yet six years old. We have been hearing so many com-
plaints from parents of older children on the score that
their children do not obey, are hard to manage, are ob-

stinate and irreverent, that we are afraid to see our own
children grow older than they are. What can we do to
make sure that they will not turn out to be unmanageable
later on?

Solution : It is surely not too early to begin thinking

gravely about the attitude you want your children to have
toward you through all their adolescent years, and to

take steps to insure it. In fact, we hope you have been
doing plenty about it already.

The secret of the proper training and upbringing of
children is this: From earliest childhood onward, demand
obedience, but always be sure to give more love, more
interest, more care than you demand. The important thing
is to impress upon the mind of the growing child that,
no matter how often you may have to demand hard things
in obedience, your love and interest and generosity far

outmeasure the hardship of obedience. If you demand
obedience while at the same time the child is not acquiring
a deep impression of your constant love and concern, the

day will come when it will feel perfectly free to hurt you
by disobedience. If you do not demand obedience, thinking
that to let the child do almost entirely as it pleases is the

best proof of love, you will rue that some day when you
will have on your hands a spoiled and selfish son or

daughter. The principal mistakes of fathers and mothers
are either not demanding enough obedience from infancy
on or in demanding obedience while not giving the un-
formed mind of the child sufficient proof of unselfish love
and concern.



28 Questions about Raising Children

A still shorter directive might be this: Win the con-
fidence of the child, without sacrificing obedience, and it
will never break your heart. That sounds easy in words,
but it requires a lot of doing. Selfish parents cannot

do it; gadabout parents seldom accomplish it; frivolous,
worldly-minded, sophisticated parents are almost incapable

of it. But parents who adjust their attitude toward their
children to the changes in the latters’ age, parents who
make themselves the companions of their children at any
age, parents who give all their knowledge and experience
to their children as the latter are capable of receiving it,

never fail.

Should Children Be Spanked?

Problem : My husband and I disagree on what seems to
me to be a very important part in the training of our
children. He does not believe in any sort of physical
punishment whatsoever. He maintains that the best child
psychologists hold that the most effective punishment is

that of taking privileges away from a child. While I
agree that this is effective in many things, I still believe
that there are times when a moderate spanking is called
for, to be given usually by me, and on rare occasions and

for more serious things, by the father. Who is right?

Solution: A dabbler in domestic difficulties must watch
his words when speaking on this matter, because it is
so easy to be misinterpreted. However, without fear of

the fulminations of the “best child psychologists,” I am
ready to state categorically that the elimination of all

physical punishment from the training of a child is not a
good thing.

Let it be added immediately that the administration of

physical punishment can be and sometimes is a bad thing.
If this method of correction is used either 1) too often, or



Questions about Raising Children 29

2) to the accompaniment of evident anger and ill-temper,

or 3) to an extent that is the equivalent of cruelty, it very

probably will not only not effect true correction in a child,

but may awaken inhibitions and psychological quirks that
will last a lifetime. Some parents take up the rod un-
reasonably often and in unreasonable anger with resulting

cruelty; then when the child grows into adolescence and
youth they wonder why it is totally lacking in confidence
in them or love for them.

Excluding such extremes in the matter, we believe that
there is a place for bodily punishment, in the form of
spanking and the like, in the rearing of a child. It should

be reserved for more serious faults, accompanied by suffi-
cient explanation to make the child realize that its purpose
is to make memorable the lesson that is being taught, and
should hurt without harming. It should also be put across

that it is a very unpleasant thing for the parent, and that

the necessity of administering it in no wise diminishes the

parent’s love for the child. We have said that its use
should be reserved for more serious faults, which would
include persistent small faults which nothing else has

seemed sufficient to cure. And on very rare occasions,
in the case of very serious faults committed by boys,
punishment should be reserved to the father as being

something so unusual that it cannot but impress the mind
of the child forever. All this comes back to the axiom
that all modern child psychology has not disproved : “Spare
the rod and spoil the child.”

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30 Questions about Raising Children

Should Children Be Paid for Chores?
Problem : “We have had quite a discussion with some

of our friends about the question of paying our children

for chores they do for the family. There are not many
chores that the children can be asked to do in our family,

and, with all the activities in connection with their schools,

their scouts, their sports, etc. there is not much time left
for' them to do chores. They wash and dry the dishes
now and then; they baby-sit for us; they cut lawns in
summer. For such jobs we give them anywhere from 25
cents to a dollar. Some parents argue that they should
do these things for nothing. Has this question ever been
discussed by experts ?”

Solution : Experts provide the principles on which a

problem like this can be settled. The most appropriate
principle is that children should be taught from earliest
childhood to take some active part in the work of keeping
up a home and running a family. Their contribution may
be small, but it should be looked upon as important. In

their own home, and under the motivation of family love,
they can best learn to share responsibility, to make sacri-
fices, and to love to do things for others. This training

will have a profound influence on their adult lives.

It would seem to be part of this principle that children

should be trained to do things in and for the home out
of love, and not on the basis of a kind of wage-contract.

The best work that is done in the world is done for love.
Parents who have made it a practice to pay their children
for chores done will not be able easily to change their

system. In fact, they will find, when they try to change
it, what a mistake they have made. Children who have
been brought up to expect a stipend for washing dishes

or for baby-sitting will not learn quickly to do it cheer-

fully for love.



Questions about Raising Children 31

This is not to say that children should never taste the

sweets of a material reward for things that they do. But
instead of being a specific amount of money expected,
and eventually demanded, for a specific task done, it should

be unexpected gifts at various intervals, preferably on

occasions like birthdays, holidays, etc. Better still is the

practice of having family outings or treats in recognition

of chores done for the family by the children. Thus the
work that is done as a part of the family is rewarded
through the whole family’s enjoyment. There are too

many people in the world who count the value of every-
thing in terms of money. Many of them learned this as
children.

“All the Kids Are Doing It!”
Problem: We have five children, the two eldest of high

school age. The most difficult of all our problems is that
of answering the children’s argument, over something we
refuse to permit, that “all the other kids do it”; or that

“other mothers and fathers let their children do so and

so; why can’t we?” In scores of issues the argument is
flung at us: if we insist that they be home from a party
at a given time, if we forbid them to go to dubious places
of amusement, if we ask them to help around the house,
other people’s children are made a proof of our unfairness.
Have you any suggestions?

Solution : This problem has been presented to us in many
forms by many different parents. It cannot be doubted
that it creates one of the major difficulties of serious-
minded parents in the upbringing of their children. And
it is safe to say that the rapid spread of irresponsibility

among children is due in large part to the fact that
parents are too easily swayed by the argument: “Others
are permitted to do this; why can’t we?” Sometimes the



32 Questions about Raising Children

example of only one child in a neighborhood, whose parents
do not care whether it ends in a reform school or not,

leads other more well-intentioned parents to give their
children more rope. They do not need much, figuratively
speaking, to hang themselves.

Our first suggestion, to meet this situation, would be
that parents make a part of their instructions to their
children from the earliest age, the fact that they live in

a country that is predominantly pagan; that even many
Catholics are poor Catholics; that many of the things
that are done both by parents and children are dangerous

and foolish; that sincere Catholics have an obligation of

being different than the majority. This kind of instruction

can be developed into a healthy sense of responsibility; so

that the children gradually come to feel that they are
helping others when they stand up against their bad
example or dangerous liberties. Without a background of

such instruction, begun very early, it is difficult to carry

out a consistent program of discipline and watchfulness
without frequent rebellion.

The second suggestion is that parents try harder and
harder to make themselves sufficient motive for the chil-
dren’s obedience, even when they are asked to do things
that few other parents ask. Parents are often to blame
for the rebelliousness of their children; they give little

of themselves, of their time, interest, practical love, and

then complain that the children don’t seem to want to
obey. Parents worth loving seldom have too much trouble
with disobedience.

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Questions about Raising Children 33

How Often Should Children Go
to the Movies?

Problem: My husband doesn’t like it that I permit our
older children (8, 10 and 12 years old) to go to the movies

quite frequently. I have been permitting them to go at
least once, and most of the time, twice a week. All the

neighbors’ children seem to be under no restrictions in
this regard, which makes it difficult for me to refuse mine.
Moreover I must admit that it provides me with a bk of
welcome relief to have the children spend two or three

hours at a time someplace where I do not have to worry
about them. My husband says that the movies are bad
for the children. What do you think?

Solution : Your husband is on the side of the angels
this time, and also on the side of the experts who have
made studies of the effect of frequent attendance at the
movies on small children. It is agreed by practically all

of these latter that a steady diet of movie entertainment

for growing children gives them a false view of the
realities of life, is harmful both to their eyes and to their

undeveloped emotional natures, deprives them of oppor-
tunities for far more salutary and self-improving outdoor
activities, and sometimes plants in their minds suggestions

of evil and even teaches them ways and means of carrying
it out. All these dangers are intensified by the regularity

with which you permit your children to go to the movies,

because it is all but impossible for parents to make sure
that their children will see only the better, or at least the

harmless, movies if they permit them to go regularly once
or twice a week.

This is not, however, a problem that can be dealt with

on a negative basis alone. It is probable that for all your

husband’s aversion to the movies as regular entertainment

for the children, he has failed to apply positive principles



34 Questions about Raising Children

of correct child-raising that would eliminate much of the
appeal that the movies have. And you yourself, with your
love of “two or three hours of relief from the children” are
clearly thinking of yourself more than of the children’s
needs. It is possible for parents to give their children so

great an interest in games, outdoor activities, sports,

hobbies, useful and creative habits, that the movies will

compete very little for their time and interest. This takes

time, which many parents are not willing to give today, but
it saves worry and heartache in later years. The movies
should be left as an extraordinary source of recreation, and

every movie the children are permitted to see should be

carefully checked and looked into beforehand.

How Important Is a Splendid Home?
Problem: My biggest sin is pride over my children and

a feeling of bitter resentment because I cannot give them
the things they deserve. They have good looks, culture,
personality, and a great respect for God. But our home
is humble and they will not ask their friends here because

we do not have the money to entertain. In this world
people are not judged by their characters but by their

position in society and their contacts with people. For

that reason I feel that all my labors are wasted and my
children’s lives spoiled.

Solution: You do well in admitting that pride is your
besetting sin, but you do not so well in analyzing it and

combatting it.

It is obvious from your letter that somewhere you have
picked up a very erroneous view of what is important in
life, and the sad part of it is that you have passed on

this wrong notion to your children. That you have such
a wrong notion is evident from your words: “In this world



Questions about Raising Children 35

people are not judged by their characters but by their

position in society, etc.” It may be true that some people
in the world judge others only by their influence and con-

tacts in society, but the judgment of such people is not
worth a snap of one’s fingers. Anybody whose opinion is
worth anything at all judges others by their character

and goodness because that is the only way that God judges
them. If it were not for this there would be nothing

decent or noble left in the world.

That you have passed on your erroneous notion of what
is important in life to your children is evident from the
fact that they are too proud to invite friends into their

home because it is humble. I suspect that it is you who
have impressed on them the “humbleness” of their home
and the importance of putting up a rich-looking front to

their friends; ordinary young people, rightly trained in
the true values of life, are never ashamed of their homes.

I suggest that you ponder seriously the following truths,

and try to inculcate them into your children’s hearts.

1) People who look down on those whose home is humble
and who can put up little show of social prominence are
not worthy of the friendship of decent families. 2) Despite

all the social climbing ambitions of some foolish Americans,
the most important things in life will always be character,
love of honest work, humility, loyalty, friendliness and
love. 3) Those who love God and serve Him and try to
become saints will never be ashamed of poverty, will al-
ways have friends whom they will not hesitate to bring
to their home, and will not be left uncared for by God.

Such are they who will be truly great Americans.

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36 Questions about Raising Children

Co-operation of Parents in Correcting

Children

Complaint: My wife has a different idea than I have
about the way in which our children should be raised. I
believe in old-fashioned discipline, in making them obey
“or else.” She lets them get by with things, takes their
part when I rebuke them, and in general, seems to me to
be spoiling them. Is there anything that can be done to

correct this situation?

Solution: The question of the upbringing of children is
one that calls for intelligence, tact and cooperation on the

part of both mother and father. We believe that this is
one department of married life in which there should be a

definite plan agreed upon by the parents as soon as the

time for training a child has arrived, and then adhered to

throughout. Too often there is no plan, but all discipline

is left to the moods of the moment, with permanent harm
to the child.

The purpose of a plan is not only to provide certain
guiding principles of conduct for the mother and father,

but also to effect a compromise between their differences

of temperament in so far as these affect the child. Thus
a father may be temperamentally inclined to over-strict-
ness and a mother to over-indulgence, or vice versa. In
talking things over they will find this out about each

other and each will be able to make some compromise that
will tend to establish a middle way between extremes.

Where there has been no plan and therefore no fusing
of temperaments in this matter, there will always be
disagreements. In general it may be said that the father
must guard himself against an attitude that may arise
solely from the circumstance of his being seldom at home



Questions about Raising Children 37

with the children during the day. When he does come
home he is often tired or touchy or worried. This will
lead him to expect too much; if the children are noisy,

or argumentative with one another (as children always

are), or not prompt to concur with his wishes, he is

liable to accuse his wife of neglecting their training. This

does not necessarily follow; the father is acting on feeling

rather than on knowledge.

When the mother actually does pamper the children, the
father should not start an argument in the presence of

the children but should await a favorable opportunity to

talk things over. There is no greater harm than that
which comes from giving the children evidence of divided

authority.

What Are Late Hours for Teen-Agers?
Problem: How long should teen-agers be permitted to

stay out at night? Are parents justified in setting a time
—say 12 o’clock—at which they must be home? Would
it not be a serious sin of disobedience if, contrary to an

express order, they stayed out an hour or two beyond the
time they should be at home? These are questions we’ve
been discussing among ourselves without much light being
shed on them.

Solution : They are all good questions, and important
ones. They signify the fact that somebody is thinking
about these problems which, in this era of excessive free-

dom for young people and positive neglect on the part of
many parents, gives rise to hope for the future.

How long should teen-agers be permitted to stay out at
night? Parents certainly have the right to set a deadline
in this regard, and together with the right, something of
an obligation. In exercising the right and fulfilling the



38 Questions about Raising Children

obligation, they must use prudence and wisdom. For
example, early teen-agers, i.e., from 13 to 16, should be
dealt with firmly and inflexibly in this regard. A time
should be set and insisted on from the beginning of their
going out evenings for entertainment. There should be

no shilly-shallying or vagueness or indecision on the part

of the parents
;
if fidelity is insisted on from the beginning,

few difficulties will arise. It is parents who follow no set
principles or norms from the beginning who meet with
rebellion when they try to enforce a rule. With older
teen-agers, i.e., 16-20, parents become a bit more flexible.
For example, when they are attending a party or social
affair that is well-chaperoned, they can be given a little

leeway about the time for leaving the party, with strict

orders, however, that they must come straight home when
they do leave.

There is an old-fashioned habit still practiced by some
parents that can be recommended to all, despite the fact
that it is often considered unnecessary and foolish by their

own children. It is that of staying up at home and waiting
for their children’s return. Yes, there are plenty of

objections available to it, such as the loss of sleep involved,

etc., but all the objections are outweighed by its psycho-

logical and real value. Too few parents realize how often
their children are led into their first sins by reason of the

double fact that nobody cares what they are doing when
they come home from a party and that a quiet house with
everybody in bed and sleeping makes a wonderful ren-
dezvous for violent temptation. Many a young person gets
home from a date at 12, according to orders, and then right
at home succumbs to serious sin.

If parents have seriously insisted on a deadline to be

made by their teen-agers in returning home from dates
and parties, certainly the latter would be guilty of a grave



Questions about Raising Children 39

sin of disobedience if they were to disregard it. The

great dangers involved make this a matter on which
parents can bind seriously in obedience. We repeat, how-
ever, that prudence must be exercised; not the excessive
and inconsiderate severity that would do more harm than
good.

Must Parents Teach Their Children?
Problem: I have had an argument with my neighbor.

She, a mother like myself, maintains that I am bound to
teach catechism to my children. I maintain that I am not
well enough equipped to do that properly; that this is a

task for experts, like the Sisters and priests in school.

Moreover, I claim that our duty as Catholic parents is

fulfilled by the fact that we support our Catholic schools,
on top of the public school system, just in order that the

children may learn their catechism from good teachers.
Am I not right?

Solution : Alas, I am afraid that you are wrong, so wrong
that there is going to be a vast difference between your

children and the children of your neighbor. You are right
in this, that the children do need expert teachers of

catechism in the course of their education—that means
teachers who will make the study of catechism permeate
all the other studies of a growing child. That is reason

enough for every sacrifice that can be made in behalf of
Catholic schools. However all this is only supplementary
to what should be done at home. The first lessons should
be learned at home, because the strongest and most lasting
impressions are made on the heart of a child when it learns
things from parents whom it loves. The finest schools and
teachers in the world cannot make a single lesson seem
as important to a child as when that lesson comes as the
natural manifestation of a parent’s love.



40 Questions about Raising Children

You say you are not equipped to teach catechism ade-
quately to your children. Perhaps you are not equipped

to give all the fine points, as they will be given in school.

But if you are a Catholic, surely you know why you are
such; you know the fundamental truths of your faith,
about original sin, and the birth and death of Christ on
the cross, and the meaning of the Sacraments, and the
judgment that is to come for all. All these things you
can inculcate, beginning with the first curious questionings

of your children when their reason begins to dawn.

It is hard to understand how any genuine Catholic
parent can be content to leave all religious instruction of

children to the school. A genuine Catholic (I am not
speaking of the indifferent, lax, worldly-minded, wait-

till-I’m-dying sort of Catholic) esteems his faith as the

greatest privilege ever bestowed on him. It would seem

to me that such a Catholic would instinctively determine
that no one else but himself would hand on that privilege

to his children. If he doesn’t, it is hard to be sure that

the children will ever truly esteem it as the privilege it

really is.

Obligation of Catholic Schooling
Problem : Several months ago you stated in an article

that “it was a mortal sin for Catholic parents not to
send their children to a Catholic school if they are able to

do so.” Would you please answer the following questions:

1) In the study of my religion I never heard of this law.
Is it a local law in Missouri? 2) What rights do Catholic
parents have about removing their children from Catholic

schools for reasons which they feel to be legitimate, e.g.,

when they have been able to get no cooperation from the
teacher or principal? What about Catholic schools that
have incompetent lay teachers, with whom a child cannot
get along?



Questions about Raising Children 41

Solution : The law forbidding Catholics to send their
children to any but Catholic schools, when such are avail-
able, is by no means a local law, but a universal law of

the Catholic Church and is No. 1374 in Canon Law. It

reads: “Catholic children shall not attend non-Catholic

schools, neutral schools, or mixed schools, that is, schools

that are also open to non-Catholics. Only the local ordinary

(bishop) is competent to determine, in accordance with

the norm of the instructions of the Holy See, in what
circumstances and with what safeguards to overcome the
danger of perversion, attendance at such schools may be
tolerated.” Canon 1372 also deals with this matter when
it states: “All the faithful are to be so reared from child-

hood that not only shall nothing be offered them opposed
to the Catholic faith or moral propriety, but also that

religious and moral training shall be given the most im-

portant place.”

This command of the universal law of the Church was
spelled out still more clearly for American Catholics by
the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, which stated that

“Catholic parents, who have the right and the obligation
under the natural and the divine law to insure for their

children a Catholic education, cannot be permitted to pro-

vide a merely secular education for them.” Therefore the

Council commanded parents “to protect their children from
such education by sending them to parochial schools.”
All Catholic moralists have interpreted the words of Canon
Law and of the Third Council of Baltimore to bind Catholic
parents to send their children to Catholic schools, when
they can do so, under pain of mortal sin.

The second question of our inquirer is answered by the
second part of Canon 1374 as quoted above. Only the local
ordinary is competent to decide when an exception to the
law is to be made. Of course parents who have no access



42 Questions about Raising Children

to a Catholic school are not bound by the law. Those who
are within reach of a parochial school but who feel that
they have reasons for not sending their child there, or
for taking their child out of the Catholic school, must
submit their reasons to their pastor, who in many dioceses
is delegated to act in the bishop’s name. If he seems to
be lacking in understanding, they may have recourse to
the chancery office, or the bishop himself.

Education at Home
It is a well-known principle of Catholic teaching that the

first right and responsibility of educating children rests

on the parents and must be exercised in the home. Some-
times the question is asked: “Since the school does so

much in the way of educating children, what is left for
the home to do?” The answer is that the school can do
little or nothing for a child unless the following things

are done in the home.

1. There must be conscious realization on the part of
parents that the example of their lives is the first

exercise of their obligation of educating their children.

If they are quarrelsome, profane, immoral in speech,

irreligious and pagan in word and deed, they are forming

their children’s characters in the same mold. If they
are kind, self-sacrificing, religious, prayerful, and morally

upright, they are laying the foundations of a solid educa-

tion for their children.

2. There must be positive exercise of their teaching
authority in the matter of implanting in their children’s

minds the basic elements of religious truth. The parents
should personally teach, as soon as their child can grasp

it even partially, the first lesson of the catechism: “Who
made me?” “Why did God make me?” etc.; the facts



Questions about Raising Children 43

of the fall and the redemption; and the stories of Jesus

and Mary.

3. The parents are responsible for directly teaching
their children what is right and wrong and for giving
them the proper religious motives for doing what is
right and avoiding what is wrong. It is from parents
that children should first learn that swearing and lying

and stealing and disobedience and anger and revenge

are wrong. It is from parents that they should learn

that these things are wrong primarily because they
offend God and must be punished by Him.

Over and above these things, there are many others that
parents may teach their children. But these are the
essentials. A child is severely and sometimes hopelessly
handicapped if it starts out in the best school in the land

without having been taught such things by its mother

and father.

The Parent-Teacher Relationship
Problem: Our oldest child is having a great deal of

trouble with his teacher at school. She punishes him so
frequently and gives him such low marks for conduct that
we feel he is being made a scapegoat for other children’s
faults, and that the teacher in charge of his classroom

has taken a dislike to him. In such a case would it not be

wise to take him out of this school (a Catholic school with
Sisters in charge) and to send him to a public school?

Solution: From what you tell me, I think it would be
exceedingly unwise, and even wrong, to take your boy out
of the Catholic school without further and serious investi-
gation. Here are some of the points you may have over-
looked entirely in judging the teacher’s attitude toward
your boy.



44 Questions about Raising Children

First of all, you may have multiplied the teacher’s prob-
lems with your boy by blindly accepting his interpretation
of the teacher’s attitude toward him, by taking his part
when he was punished, and by making derogatory remarks
about his teacher in his presence. Children are clever

enough to know when they can get by with things because
there is someone who will always take their part. Many
parents have been responsible for the fact that their
children have adopted habits of misbehaviour by defending
them, or at least taking their part, when punishment was
meted out. Try the old trick of telling your boy that if
he is punished at school, he will be punished again at home,

and see if that doesn’t make a difference.

You say nothing in your letter of having consulted with
your boy’s teacher as to the reason for his frequent punish-

ment. It is certainly unfair to a school and its teachers

to judge them solely on the basis of what you hear from
your own child. Be humble enough to accept the possibility
that your child may be a mischief-maker

;
be sincere

enough in your desire to help the child, to call on his

teacher and principal and learn their side of the story.

You may find out things that will shock you, and at the
same time show you where you have been failing to give
your child the right attitude toward obedience and good

conduct at home.

In rare cases it does become evident, after consultation

and investigation, that a teacher is at fault, either because

she is lacking in understanding of a particular child, or

because she is a victim of nerves and unfitted for the class-

room, or because she has taken a dislike to a certain

child. In such cases Catholic parents can and should have

recourse to the pastor, who has full authority over his
school, laying the case before him and enlisting his advice
and aid. In no case should a Catholic child be taken out



Questions about Raising Children 45

of a Catholic school without consultation with the pastor

and without his permission.

Catholic Parents of Public School Children

It is well known that there are millions of Catholic
children in the United States who cannot attend a Catholic
school because there is none attached to their parish or

in their neighborhood. Parents of such children have a

very special and serious obligation to make up for the lack
of religious instruction in the school the children must
attend. The obligation takes these forms:

1. They must use their parental authority to see to it
that the children regularly attend the catechism classes

arranged by their pastor, and the vacation school of

religion if one is held in the parish during the summer
months. It is beyond all doubt that parents who cal-
lously and continually neglect to send their children to

catechism classes are guilty of a serious sin of neglect

toward their children’s religious education.

2. They must use their parental interest and love to
talk frequently to their children at home about the
important truths of their religion, to go over catechism

lessons with them, and to encourage in them the habit
of receiving the sacraments often and worthily. All

parents, even those with children in Catholic schools, are

bound in some measure by this duty. However, it is
especially binding on those whose children hear nothing
about their religion in school.

3. They must try to build up in their children’s minds
a strong and intelligent conviction of the truth of their
Catholic religion to offset the danger of their gradually

coming to accept the heresy that “it doesn’t matter what
you believe, or to what religion you belong.” At the



46 Questions about Raising Children

same time they must inculcate in their children a deep
respect for the religious convictions of others, and un-

failing charity toward all their neighbors, no matter

what their religious beliefs.

By these means, parents who cannot escape sending
their children to secular schools will do as much as they
can to carry out their obligation of providing a good

religious training for them. At the same time they should
never give up the conviction that nothing can fully take

the place of a Catholic school education, nor the desire

to be able to provide one for their own children.

Children and Holy Communion
Problem: I seem to be working at cross purposes with

the Sisters in school. They are everlastingly urging my
children (they are eight and ten) to receive Communion
frequently. I do not let them receive frequently for two
reasons, first, because I don’t want them to look on it as
a routine matter, as they almost certainly will if they go

whenever they attend Mass ; secondly, because I want them
to realize that they must be worthy to receive Communion.
Therefore if they are disobedient to me, or if they quarrel

with one another, I tell them they may not receive Com-
munion until they go to confession. I feel that I know the
children better than the Sisters do and that I should be

the judge in this matter.

Solution: I am afraid that you have imbibed a couple of
false notions somewhere along the line, which are influenc-
ing your whole attitude toward this matter. First of all,

Our Lord Himself was conscious of the danger of the spirit
of routine infecting those who would receive Communion
often, and He knew that this would apply not only to
children but to adults as well. He nevertheless gave us
His Body and Blood under the form of bread, even of daily



Questions about Raising Children 47

bread, that despite the sense of routine, we might still re-
ceive Him often. Furthermore you are forgetting that Pope
Pius X, in urging daily Communion for both adults and
children, answered the objection that this might encourage
a spirit of routine by saying that Communion is effi-
caciously and fruitfully received so long as one receives

in the state of sanctifying grace and with a good intention.

He said that it is the desire of Christ and the will of the
Church and the need of the faithful that all receive as
often as they can, even though they are not always filled

with fervent and soul-stirring emotions. Personally, I

think that the danger of routine of which you speak in

regard to the children would be greatly minimized if you

would give as much thought and instruction to the task of
making the children realize the great privilege of Com-
munion as you have evidently given to keeping them away
from it.

For your second objection you have even less solid

ground on which to stand. You have no right to make
venial sin (obviously the kind of sins you attribute to the

children) a barrier to Holy Communion when the Church
herself explicitly teaches that venial sin should not keep

one from receiving this powerful Sacrament, yes even that
Holy Communion will be a help to the overcoming of venial
sin. You are even hurting the children when you teach
them the false doctrine that a small disobedience or a
momentary quarrel makes them unworthy to receive. They
will grow up to be always afraid of frequent Communion.
True, you should by no means teach them to disregard or
make light of venial sins; you may tell them how sad
it is for children who receive Communion often not to
overcome even slight temptations; you should insist that

they make an act of contrition for small sins before they
receive; but you should not go farther than the Church
and Our Lord Himself and insist that a venial sin makes



48 Questions about Raising Children

one unworthy to receive Communion without confession.
Again, if you would use the time and energy you have
used in the past to keep the children from Communion
in explaining the right attitude in which they should
receive, you would make this Sacrament a powerful means
of sanctity in their lives.

Who Decides a Child’s Vocation?
Problem: I am not a wife or husband, but I have a

problem that has to do with mothers. I am 26 years old.
I studied for six years to be a priest and then, at the

advice of my confessor and director, I left the seminary.
My mother has never reconciled herself to my leaving, nor
to the priests who advised it. She continually accuses me
of some secret scandalous action that is supposed to have
turned me away from the priesthood. She shows outright
ill-will toward the girl I am going to marry. Her whole
attitude to me is very bitter. Would I do wrong if I were
to see my mother but rarely, in order to avoid the un-
pleasantness that always arises when we are together?

Solution

:

There is need of symapthy and patience to-
ward such a mother, because of the possibility that her
frustrated desire to have a son a priest may have grown
into a mental fixation that not even a psychiatrist could

cure. In any case a 26 year old man whose mother
continually berates him and opposes his impending mar-
riage would be justified in reducing his visits with her to

a minimum consistent with elementary charity. He should
pray for her the more, however, because she badly needs

prayers.

The sad state to which this mother has come will be
avoided by other mothers if they will keep themselves

mindful, from the time their children are born, that not
their will but God’s will must decide their vocations.



Questions about Raising Children 49

Good Christian mothers may pray that one or more of
their children may be given a vocation to the priesthood
or the religious life, but they would do a grave wrong if
they tried to push or force a child into such a vocation.

It is equally wrong for them to show signs of bitterness
when a child has tried and failed to reach the goal of
the priesthood or religious life. It is not a part of either

the rights or duties of a mother to oppose her own will
to the decisions of her children’s spiritual directors. Voca-

tion is a matter that must be decided on the basis of a
child’s own conscience, free will, inclinations and abilities,
and not on the wishes of the child’s mother.

When Should Steady Company-Keeping
Begin?

Problem: I am an old fashioned mother who believes
that boys and girls should not keep company until they
are old enough to begin thinking about marriage. There-

fore I have made a rule for my own children that they
should not have steady “dates” until they are seventeen

at least, which seems young enough to me. But I seem to
be all alone in this. The children are everlastingly quoting
the example of other boys and girls who are allowed to
go steady at 15, 14 and in some cases even 12, I am even
ridiculed sometimes by other mothers and fathers who say
it is good for the children to get acquainted with one

another early. Am I all wrong?
Answer : You are one of the wisest parents who have

written to us since we began this series of articles on the
problems of husbands and wives. The formation of and
connivance at puppy-love affairs is one of the most danger-
ous and detrimental things that parents can engage in. Its

dangers are twofold: first, that adolescents, just awakening
to the meaning of passion in themselves, and surrounded



50 Questions about Raising Children

by hordes of unprincipled and undirected adolescents who
already believe that the passions are there to be exploited,

will be in great danger of falling into sin—the kind of
sin that seldom starts without continuing, that engenders

habits that become stronger with the years while the
character grows progressively weaker and more debased.
The second danger is that all the money and interest and
energy spent on the education of the adolescents will be

so much waste, if they are to squander their opportunities
and divide their attention by concentration on company-
keeping, puppy-love-making, and abortive courtship. No
sane and moral minded parent has ever given an adequate
refutation of the principle that regular company-keeping

is only lawful for those who can reasonably think of
marriage within a reasonable time. Certainly high-school

students are excluded from those who can reasonably think
of marriage within a reasonable time.

It is of course, a difficult thing for children, who see
numerous examples of the violation of this principle around
them, to understand why their parents are so strict with
them. However, parents can offset this difficulty

1) by earning a loyalty from their children through

close association, self-sacrifice and understanding, that will

make them obey their parents against the whole world, if
necessary

; and

2) by the studied effort to fill so completely their

adolescent children’s lives with interests and hobbies that

it will be small loss to them not to have “dates.”



Questions about Raising Children 51

A Daughter’s Marriage to a Divorced Man
Problem : We have a daughter in her twenties who, to

our intense sorrow and shame, is insisting on going

through a marriage ceremony with a divorced man. We
have done everything in our power to prevent this, but

it has all been in vain. Now we want to know what our
duty is, first in regard to attending the ceremony and

wedding breakfast, and secondly, in dealing with our

daughter after her bad marriage. Must we stay away
from the ceremony and breakfast, and are we to sever
all social relations with her as long as she lives with

this man?

Solution : It is difficult to think of any reason that could
justify a Catholic mother and father in attending a mock
marriage celebration of this kind. Their daughter is

committing a grave sin and one that effectively bars her

from communication with the faithful in the true Church.
In ordinary cases, there would be great scandal if the

mother or father or both attended the wedding, thus
giving the impression that they do not consider it sinful

or invalid. The same reasoning holds for the wedding
breakfast. Furthermore, the presence of her mother and
father at such a ceremony or celebration would almost sure-
ly make the daughter feel less conscience-stricken for her
sin, and more content to remain in her sinful state. There-
fore a truly Catholic mother and father would not think
of lending their presence to such a tragic occasion.

As to how they should act toward their daughter after
the invalid marriage, circumstances will have to decide.
This principle certainly must be observed: that they may
never by word or action appear to condone the daughter’s
sin, nor her remaining in the state of sin. Beyond that,
it is their task to adopt a course of action which in their



52 Questions about Raising Children

honest judgment will most effectively lead to the girl’s
repentance and reform. If it seems to them that by stay-
ing away from her entirely they can more quickly and
effectively bring her to her senses, then that course should

be adopted. If it seems that by retaining some contact,
by holding or winning her confidence and by kindness and
sympathy they may lead her back to God, then that course
should be pursued. The important thing is that they
never take her situation for granted as one that nothing-

can be done about, and that they nevt-r give the impres-

sion, either to the girl or to their relatives and friends,

that they approve of the evil. Their daughter’s soul is at

stake; they must by prayer and every other means in
their power, try to save it from the awful state it has
chosen.

How to Give Sex Instructions
Secular magazines and periodicals have been interesting

themselves more and more in the problem of when and
how instruction in matters of sex should be given to
young people. As in most topics that have a moral angle,
there is much confusion of thought, not to say impractical
and harmful philosophy current on the subject. Here are

two Catholic principles to be borne in mind:

1. Public non-religious discussions of sex matters for

indiscriminate groups of boys and girls in class room
or other gathering places do more harm than good.
There are two main reasons: 1) because this subject
needs a religious background if a boy or girl is to acquire

not only knowledge of it but a binding sense of moral

responsibility as well. The most dangerous fallacy in
the world is that which assumes that scientific knowl-

edge of sex matters will prevent tampering or experi-

menting with sex; 2) because such public discussions

go far to remove the sense of privacy and modesty



Questions about Raising Children 53

from sex matters which nature has designed as one of
the most powerful protectors of youth. When that is
broken down by making the subject as commonplace as
arithmetic, sin can easily become commonplace and
uninhibited too.

2. The primary obligation of supervising sex instruction
belongs to the parents. It is for them to judge when a
boy or girl needs it or will profit by it; it is for them
to bind up the subject with religious principle; it is

for them to add practical guidance and advice in accord-
ance with the particular environment of their children.

If they feel incapable of discharging this duty, they

may delegate it to another—pastor, confessor, teacher

—

but they should insist that the instruction be given not

publicly or in common with others, but personally and
privately, and with the moral and religious angles

always dominating.

These two rules are sufficient to save most boys and

girls from the danger of false notions given them by
others, and the equal danger of being led by their own
ignorance into sinful ways. Nowadays above all Catholic
parents should take their obligations seriously. There are

a thousand ways in which children can become misinformed
and misled in this all-important matter.



54 Questions about Raising Children

What to Tell a Child about the Birth
of Babies

Problem : Our oldest child is a boy of eight and I am
about to have another baby. We are wondering whether
we should tell the eight-year-old boy how the new baby
will come into the world, and if so, how we should tell
him. We have told him that he is to have another baby
brother or sister and he has asked how we know that and
who is to bring the baby. Could you give us any advice in
this matter?

Solution: A boy of eight will usually be well satisfied
with a few simple, straightforward truths in a matter of
this kind. There is no need to resort to “stork stories”

or to attribute the new baby to the generosity of the
doctor, as is so often done. It is easiest and most effective

just to tell the child that God always entrusts a new
baby to the body of the mother, where it begins as a
very tiny thing and grows until it is big enough to be
born. Thus you have an opportunity to explain the
reason for the mother going to the hospital or taking

to her bed when the time of birth arrives. It can also
be explained in brief that a mother has to suffer some-
thing for the great privilege of having a child, and that

therefore the oldest boy must be as good and kind and
helpful as possible while she is recovering from that
suffering. Ordinarily this much will satisfy an eight-
year-old child.

It sometimes happens that the curiosity of a child goes

somewhat further and he asks how it is that God selects
certain persons to become mothers. This offers an oc-
casion for a first general instruction on the meaning of
marriage. It is enough to say that when two people
marry God gives them means of becoming a mother and
father, but that it is always God who creates the soul



Questions about Raising Children 55

of a new baby. If these general truths are told the
child with an air of finality, it will be rare that he will

push the discussion to greater lengths. It will help, too,

if there are younger brothers and sisters, to tell the

oldest one that you are telling him a secret that the
others are not to know till they grow older. The fact
of being taken into exclusive confidence will overshadow

any lingering curiosity and make him satisfied with the
general answers given.

A Child’s Question about Birth Control
Problem: “How should parents answer a child who

asks the question: ‘What is the meaning of birth con-
trol?’

”

Solution: The way of answering this question should
depend entirely on the age of the child and the knowledge

of sex it has already received. For children under 12,
who have shown no need of detailed instruction about
sex previously in their lives, the question may be answered
in a truthful but general way somewhat as follows:

“Birth-control is a sin committed by parents when they
deliberately and selfishly refuse to let God send them
children.” This can be further explained as follows: “God
made the state of marriage as a means for bringing
children into the world and continuing the human race.
Sometimes God Himself sees fit not to send any children
to a married couple, through no fault of their own; for
that reason, you should never think or say that married

people are committing the sin of birth-control because

they do not happen to have children. But in other cases,
God wants to send them children, and the husband and wife
refuse to accept them. It is such people who are guilty
of the sin that is called birth-control.”



56 Questions about Raising Children

Such an explanation will usually be sufficient for a
young, normal child, who as yet is in no way preoccupied
with details about sex. If, in a rare case, further ques-

tions are asked by the very young, a parent may tell
the child that all this will be explained in due time, and
can so express this postponement that the child will feel

honored with a great confidence rather than moved to
unwholesome curiosity.

For children in their teens, the above question can be

one of the spontaneous and God-given occasions for a

valuable little instruction on marriage and its obligations.

Few teen-agers, in these days of open discussion in maga-
zines, newspapers, etc., are without some knowledge of
the subject, but there are none who do not need to have
their ideas corrected, amplified to a certain degree, and,

above all, transformed into principles and convictions by

their parents. Obviously, parents themselves need to be

both well-informed and faithful to conjugal chastity to

do a good job of handing on the right attitudes and

convictions to their children. The spread and continuation
of many of the sins against sex may be put down to
the inability and unwillingness of parents to transmit

the true ideals to their children.

Should Babies Be Taken to Church?
Problem : Should we or should we not take small children

or babies to church with us on Sunday? Some pastors
are very impatient with young mothers when their babies
create a disturbance in church. But sometimes we can-
not get to Mass or to other services ourselves unless we
take the babies along. Is it better to stay home than to
take the baby when this cannot be avoided?

Solution : That this question has been seriously con-

sidered is evident in the fact that most new Catholic



Questions about Raising Children 57

churches being built today have what is sometimes called
“a crying room,” i.e., a place behind glass in the rear

of the church where mothers with babies can hear Mass
without fear that the crying of the babies will disturb

priest or parishioners. In bigger churches the room is
even equipped with a loud-speaker so that the mother

can hear the sermon.

This is a wonderful solution to the above problem,

but does not help mothers whose parish churches have no

such room. For them, circumstances must be deciding
factors in this matter.

First of all, as to obligations: mothers who have very
small babies or children who they know will be restless
and noisy and unmanageable in church, and who on
certain Sundays have no one to stay at home with the
children while they go to Mass, are excused from the
serious obligation of attending Mass on those Sundays.
However, they have an obligation to try ordinarily to see

that there will be somebody who can stay with the babies
while they go to Mass. With the best of will, though,
occasions can arise when this cannot be arranged.

If a mother has found by experience that she can take,

say, a child under two or three to church, with little

danger that the child will disturb others, her conscience

would tell her that this is surely the thing to do when
there is no one to stay at home with the child. If on a
rare occasion the child does become noisy, she can retire
with it to the vestibule. In country parishes, where there
may be only one Mass on Sunday, we have often seen
mothers and fathers with a whole string of children from
seven down to a babe in arms at Mass, with scarcely a
sound out of any of them. Some parents seem to know
how to train children, even the youngest, to behave in



58 Questions about Raising Children

church. They and the children will certainly be blessed
greatly by God for their family worship of Him.

If a mother does come to church with a small child,
and in the middle of the sermon it begins to wail loudly,
she should not wait for a reminder from the priest, but
should at once take it to the vestibule. It is not prudent

or charitable to let the child’s loud crying compete with

the words of the speaker and for the attention of the

congregation.

Is Adoption Advisable in This Case?
Problem: Is it wrong to adopt a child when you are

still physically able to have children of your own? My
husband is forty-one and I am thirty-eight. We have
two boys, six and two years old. I would like another

baby; my husband is in agreement to a point. He thinks
it would be better to adopt a baby, about two years old,

than to have one of our own. His reasons are: 1) My
last pregnancy was complicated, and he wants to avoid
a repetition of that. 2) We would be sure of having a
girl this time. 3) We would avoid the worry and care of
a newly-born baby. 4) We are too old to have a third
child of our own. . . I personally want my own baby
rather than an adopted one. What do you think?

Solution: The vast weight of moral and spiritual prin-
ciples all tend to advise you to take no thought of adopt-

ing a baby while it is still possible for you to have one

of your own. Your husband’s arguments are not cogent,
and they are outweighed by some important considera-
tions.

First of all you cannot decide you are not going to have

a baby of your own without great risk of sin. If there
is any thought in either of your minds that you would



Questions about Raising Children 59

prevent conception by any sinful form of birth-control,

you would by that very fact enter upon a course of sin

that would vitiate the apparent good work of adopting

a child. If your intention were to avoid parenthood by

abstaining permanently from the use of your marriage

privileges, which abstinence is not evil if it is mutually

undertaken for a spiritual motive, you might be expecting

too much of yourselves and might fall quite often into
the sin of contraception. If you intended to avoid parent-

hood by the use of rhythm, with the approval of your

confessor, you would have no absolute assurance that you

would not have another baby, and would also be taking a

chance, over a long period of time, of falling into sin.

Your husband needs to be reminded of the fact that,
while to his way of thinking and feeling, it does not
much matter whether a child being raised in his home is
his own or another’s, it does make a great difference to
the mother who has the immediate and constant care of
the child. It is very callous and even cruel of a husband

to disregard these feelings. Of course a husband has
some reason for concern if his wife had great difficulty
carrying her previous child, and has a right to see that

this is taken into consideration by consultation with good,

Catholic doctors. But a small or doubtful danger of com-
plications should give way to both the desire to avoid
sin and the natural desire for one’s own children.

Requirements for Baptismal Sponsors
Problem: I am expecting my fourth child in a couple

of months. I have already written to two of my relatives,
who now live in a distant city but expect to move back
here before my child will be born, asking them to be
the new baby’s sponsors in baptism. I had thought they
were good Catholics, but I just recently learned from
the mother of one of them that they have not made their



60 Questions about Raising Children

Easter duty, nor do they go to Mass or receive the sacra-
ments. Under those circumstances would it be right for
me to have them as sponsors for the baby? If not, how
can I get out of it now without hurting their feelings?
What are the duties of baptismal sponsors these days?

Solution : The Canon Law of the Church requires that
sponsors of a child in baptism have the intention of

assuming the office and the duties of a sponsor. It also

defines the office of a sponsor as that of taking a “per-

petual” spiritual interest in the one for whom he was
sponsor, and endeavoring, as opportunity presents itself,

to help that one carry out the solemn promises of baptism,

which, in the case of a baby, are pronounced by the

sponsors in its stead. Practically speaking, this means
that a baptismal sponsor should pray especially for his

spiritual child
;
keep in touch with the child as it grows to

manhood by spiritual remembrances or gifts on anni-
versaries or f'eastdays; and be ready to utilize any op-
portunity for giving spiritual encouragement or help when
it is needed.

Clearly, then, a non-practicing Catholic can have little

capacity for or interest in doing even these simple things

that are included in the office of a sponsor. Therefore

Catholic parents would defeat the very purpose of sponsor-

ship if they invited lapsed Catholics to stand up for their

children.

Sometimes, however, the occasion of a baptism can be

used to bring slipping Catholics back to their duties.

For example, in the case presented here, the mother

should talk to the couple whom she has asked to be
sponsors about what this office means, and why she wants
only good Catholics as the sponsors of her children. This

may be sufficient to bring them back to the sacraments



Questions about Raising Children 61

and start them on the right path again. But if they
show no interest in giving up their neglect of Mass and
the sacraments, it should not be too difficult or painful

to tell them why it would not be right for them to assume
the sponsor’s role.

May Divorced Persons Be Baptismal
Sponsors?

Problem : Does the Catholic Church permit a divorcee

or a woman who is waiting for her divorce to become final
to be sponsor for a child’s baptism? One priest told me
that if such a person did not have permission from the

Church to get a divorce, she could not be a baptismal

sponsor. But a neighbor of mine quoted another priest

as saying that there was no rule of the Catholic Church
forbidding a divorcee to be a sponsor in baptism. Which
is the right answer ?

Solution

:

As in so many cases like this, both answers
are correct if they are understood rightly. The law of
the Church forbids Catholics to select as a sponsor for
their child anyone who has committed a grave public
offense against the law of God or of the Church, such as
would make ordinary Catholics consider them unworthy
to be a sponsor in baptism. The law does not specifically
exclude divorcees from being baptismal sponsors because
such persons may or may not be guilty of a grave public
offense.

All informed Catholics know that it is a serious sin for
any Catholic to institute proceedings for obtaining a civil
divorce without first obtaining the permission of their

bishop. If the family, friends and neighbors of a Catholic

divorcee all know that she sought the divorce without
asking her parish priest to obtain the necessary permis-

sion of the bishop, or that she did so when the permission
had actually been refused, she could rightly be considered



62 Questions about Raising Children

to have committed a great public offense, one that could

be interpreted to make her unworthy to be a baptismal
sponsor. However, even in this case, if the woman repented
of her sin, made a good confession, and tried to repair her
wrong-doing as her confessor advised, she would make
herself eligible for being a baptismal sponsor.

All informed Catholics also know that the Church, through
the bishop of a diocese, sometimes grants permission to

Catholic wives or husbands to institute civil divorce pro-

ceedings when there is obviously no hope of a reconcilation
between them and their partners, and when there is a
grave reason for seeking the economic or legal protection

that a divorce may give. A Catholic who has obtained
such a permission incurs no moral guilt and no justified

public stigma by actually seeking the divorce. (Of course

such a permission never includes the right to attempt a

second marriage while the partner is still alive.) But

such a person, if she possesses all the other required

qualifications, may be a sponsor for baptism.

Thus the first priest in our correspondent’s problem

was considering the case in which a divorcee had notori-

ously sought a divorce without the permission of her

bishop and who had not repented of her sin. The second
priest was considering the case of a divorcee who had
permission to seek a divorce, or who had made a good
confession and amends for having sought a divorce with-

out permission. Thus explained, both priests gave right

answers.

n——ii



Questions about Raising Children 63

The Fate of Unbaptized Children

Problem: Does it seem just on the part of God that He
should deprive of heaven and the beatific vision a child

who, through its parents’ fault and not its own, or through

nobody’s fault, died without baptism? I am a convert,
and before I became a Catholic, I lost one of my babies
who had never been baptized. It hurts me to think of
that child being punished forever.

Solutioyi : The first thing you must do is to put out of
your mind the thought that the child is being punished
forever. It is Catholic teaching that unbaptized infants

are not punished, but are granted a happiness in full

accord with their natural faculties and capacity.

As to the justice of God, it is not impugned by the
fact that He does not admit unbaptized souls to the
beatific vision, because the beatific vision is an extraor-

dinary and completely gratuitous gift of God, in no way
a right or just due for human beings, for the bestowing
of which God can set down whatever conditions He sees
wise and good. And even from our finite and limited
viewpoint it is not difficult to see good reasons why God
made baptism, the condition for attaining heaven, de-
pendent, in the case of children without the use of reason,

on the interest and zeal of the mother and father or

guardians. God made man to His own image and like-
ness; in so doing, He delegated many God-like functions
to human beings. He gave them their responsibilities of
charity in its many forms. To the same parents to
whom He gave the tremendous power of procreation, and
the delegation of His own authority over their children,
He gave the responsibility for the spiritual welfare of
those children till they come of age and can choose for
themselves. The fact that children are dependent on



64 Questions about Raising Children

their parents in this regard is one more sign of the
unspeakable dignity and God-like nobility with which God
clothed human beings.

Furthermore, God signified the union and solidarity of
the human family by permitting the sin of the first par-
ents, Adam and Eve, to involve the whole race; that same
unity and interdependence is carried out in His making
children dependent on their parents for baptism.

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May 18, 1959

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