"If you go to a church that sends the kids away during worship, politely decline. Keep your children in decent behavior, of course, but don’t banish them to a kids’ room. A culture that won’t even keep kids around when assembling before God won’t want kids around anywhere else, either."
This is huge. I had a talk with my mother a few years ago, and it was clear she had no idea what they were teaching us all those years we were growing up in the Sunday school classes. No idea what was going on in the Church youth groups.
And how can an adult? It's just like a public school - once you give away authority of your child's upbringing, you become reliant upon others to report what is going on. They're not always incentivized to tell you everything, or know what you'd want to hear, or remember (if you're asking the child).
If you aren't sure what they're teaching your kids at church, and if you don't know a little about the person teaching the class, you're probably being a little remiss as a parent. Also, isn't part of a child growing up in the faith the experience of learning, not only that we do this as a family, but also that there are other people that we do this with? It seams that a healthy church experience for growing children will include both some age-appropriate teaching and experiences AND a chance to worship with the family in the larger community.
I presume youth groups teach a kid-friendly version of the Bible and hand out candies, like the Shell Club or Sunday schools. The adult churches have people sing hymns that aren't in the Bible, instead of talking about how Bible lessons can be applied to modern society (as opposed to problems children face).
I know that there were plenty of shenanigans going on in the various Churches I attended as a youth between the youth once they hit junior high. I would assume they’ve gotten worse.
I would assume the teachings have gotten worse. From what I see in the new and talking to people, it appears that way.
I was saying the teachings in the youth and adult churches are bad: what happened to taking things seriously? Communalist groups like the Amish, Jesus Freaks, and Mormon sects, are serious, and even Christian militias take things seriously. I have checked 1950s books on Christianity which already support liberal Christianity (also called neo-Christianity, originating in the Victorian period and divided into Sunday School and Cafeteria Christianity).
The liberal Christianity of those books and denominations appears to be Cafeteria Christianity, or arbitrarily choosing what parts of the New Testament (and by extension, the moral laws of the Old Testament: the dietary and cleanliness laws being abrogated), to believe in. It differs from Cafeteria Christianity since it interprets archaeological evidence through a skeptical lens, when there are explanations which support the Biblical accounts.
As a skeptic myself who opposes pseudoscience, I think that we can still assume the benefit of the doubt for the Biblical accounts, as it does not necessarily mean all things have a supernatural or preternatural explanation.
Christianity should be about reading the Bible, not fun and games.
To be clear - I’d put the liberalization of the Protestant Churches squarely in the 20’s, when they slowly started accepting contracepting and divorce. After that, it seems to be all down hill from what I can tell historically.
I couldn’t tell you, honestly. I’m relating mostly my history growing up in an Evangelical Church, bounced around to others of friends in Jr High/High School, that I honestly thought was non-denominational until I was 25 and converted to Catholicism.
But yes, I don’t see many people being serious from what little interaction I have with people outside of Catholicism these days. Which is why I assume it’s gotten worse, when I see the news and polls that say what they do.
Great article. It reminds me why we chose to move back to our small town where we have our entire family and friend circle within a 35 minute drive. The world has taken away so much from children, however grandparents, cousins, and a few others provide a great arena for them to learn and grow.
Fantastic piece. No punches pulled. It could have been way longer with all the ways society is anti-child.
I will say that, along with the cratering dating scene and birth rate, this is ultimately a problem that men must solve. We have to be leaders again. When women say screwed up shit like "*forced to carry a baby to term*", we need to have the stones to tell them to shut up and sit down, lest they scare the younger girls from ever having children at all.
Women will go where strong men lead them, and they will go back to prioritizing family again, if us men make it a priority ourselves.
"Dating" was misogynistic consumerism which emerged in 1930 as a pastime for the affluent, originating from Edwardian courtship: it served the interests of crass commercialism, since businesses could sell romance-related products like makeup and Hollywood made romances, both sexualizing women in the process.
St. Paul condemns such things; also, you have to remember women do NOT want to bear a rapist's child or have a child which will die after childbirth and could KILL THE MOTHER.
Many people who had abortions wanted to have children, but discovered the children were unviable.
Nothing wrong with strong women, but their men must be stronger. And I really don't have much to say about aborting rape babies or non-viable ones, except the women who do this should shut up about it so they don't scare the hell out of young women who should be having babies but aren't. Women are social creatures, they follow trends, and if the phrase "forced to carry a baby to term" becomes part of their vocabulary, they will internalize it as pregnancy being horrifying and scary, instead of a wonderful miracle. It's all "vibes", and the vibe right now is that pregnancy is a disease and not a miracle. This idea even infected my own wife and resulted in us only having one kid, and I was confused about it until it was too late. Women need to stop scaring each other about pregnancy, but i'll say it again....this is men's job. We have to stop them from doing this.
Part of the reason women are reluctant to have children is because due to the end of the American Decade (the dollar began weakening under Truman), they are unable to afford children: obviously this implies to poor women and debt-ridden middle-class women. Living near crime-ridden areas or looking after sick or elderly relatives (or being a nurse or caregiver), or helping their husbands with their jobs (as assistants and such), would also prevent them having children.
Also, women could be put off by the sexualization of women and children, as well as fear of children dying or failing as a mother: the fear of children dying or failing as a father also affects men too. Men would also encourage women to avoid having children, since a patriarchal society would incentivize men to have women to make adjustments to suit the needs of the men: for instance, men could pressure women to have children or to have an abortion.
Women could pressure men like this of course, but men have more power.
Indeed, children bring so much joy to every moment. I have 4 Treasures, and I remember how the littlest ones preferred to stay with us (Mom & Dad) even during long services; and how much I was looked down on for it, even scolded by some congregational leadership. By 6 or 7yrs they could usually understand some of what was being said. Unless the children's class was exceptionally warm, nurturing, and developed long-term relationships with the children, they just didn't want to go - and I was disinclined to send them, preferring for them an opportunity to learn (and practice) by watching, which is their Designer's intended feature. They were perfectly happy to sit and play with quiet toys, or kneel on the floor for a bit. Worship was active with little silky flags, finger ribbons, etc. Then they would sit quietly with us. After a while we would take a walk to work off the wiggles, and return to our seats. The children often received - and gave - discreet smiles to the oldest generations seated nearby. Those moments are part of what made those services sweet, and remain memories I return to often.
Children should be serious, and I agree with the old wisdom that they should be seen and not heard: we should bring back the Puritan child which feared hellfire, and did not play with toys. Children should fear their parents, and we need parents to use the ethnic minority model of parenting: a combination of helicopter parents and tiger parents.
Children should be encouraged, but taught to be stoic (like soldiers): they should not be taught to be sentimental, and parents should not be affectionate. It has worked wonders for East Asia, and remember the stereotype of "the stoic Indian" (i.e. indigenous people).
“Parents should not be affectionate…children should be stoic…”No, just no. That’s the pendulum swinging back to an oppressive approach. The corrective for our current ills is not to return to a different set of ills.
I read somewhere that in French restaurants, they don't have children's menus. The kids are expected to sit with the grownups, moderate themselves, figure out what real food to order, eat it, and be generally charming, or at least agreeable. Childhood ought to be normal life with training wheels, not a completely different world.
I think there could be a time for churches to have peer-based times in youth groups, but I really like what you said about going to church as a family. And that's not even considering the trust issue of handing your children over.
The parts of this that really struck a chord with me are the child bashing and the child free weddings.
My own mother loved to child bash. She told me don’t expect her to help with the grandkids. It was terrible then and now but I think she felt sort of rebellious and chic for talking this way even though she was always a stay at home mom born in 1948.
My birth family is not super close anymore but I used to have a good relationship my brother. Then after we had booked plane tickets for the whole family (which would be the only plane trip we could afford in a year) he told us the kids weren’t invited to the rehearsal dinner or the reception. I could go on but I’m not over it.
Willingly childless couples are not the same thing as manchildren and womanchildren who are fans of toys, these manchildren appearing to date back to the Silent Generation (born 1910 and came of age in 1930), judging by "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." The article says how we should not raise children, but does not say HOW we should raise them.
During the pandemic, the only people I could have a drink and play video games with were my elementary aged kids. I uh... haven't broken the habit yet. My wife thinks this is a concerning issue, but my kids are in no way motivated to even *try* alcohol one day, so I think they're fine, plus I'm a jovial drunk, it's not like I'm yelling at them, even when we lose or kids get jealous over who gets a turn, etc. I'm a cradle Catholic, and though my parents never really drank around us kids, they also never had a taboo against it, and definitely thought nothing of having cocktails during family Christmas and Easter celebrations. I mean, Jesus first miracle was at the behest of His mother, who pointed out that a wedding with no wine is an embarrassing bummer, dude. But she's a Protestant convert and has a lot of hang ups about alcohol, so just the fact that I drink around them at all is a looming disaster waiting to happen in her eyes. Personally, I think the fact that I spend 10x as much time actually engaging with them on the weekends than my dad ever did should outweigh the fact that I'm tipsy, ha.
"If you go to a church that sends the kids away during worship, politely decline. Keep your children in decent behavior, of course, but don’t banish them to a kids’ room. A culture that won’t even keep kids around when assembling before God won’t want kids around anywhere else, either."
This is huge. I had a talk with my mother a few years ago, and it was clear she had no idea what they were teaching us all those years we were growing up in the Sunday school classes. No idea what was going on in the Church youth groups.
And how can an adult? It's just like a public school - once you give away authority of your child's upbringing, you become reliant upon others to report what is going on. They're not always incentivized to tell you everything, or know what you'd want to hear, or remember (if you're asking the child).
So just don't do it to begin with.
If you aren't sure what they're teaching your kids at church, and if you don't know a little about the person teaching the class, you're probably being a little remiss as a parent. Also, isn't part of a child growing up in the faith the experience of learning, not only that we do this as a family, but also that there are other people that we do this with? It seams that a healthy church experience for growing children will include both some age-appropriate teaching and experiences AND a chance to worship with the family in the larger community.
I presume youth groups teach a kid-friendly version of the Bible and hand out candies, like the Shell Club or Sunday schools. The adult churches have people sing hymns that aren't in the Bible, instead of talking about how Bible lessons can be applied to modern society (as opposed to problems children face).
I would make no such presumptions at all.
I know that there were plenty of shenanigans going on in the various Churches I attended as a youth between the youth once they hit junior high. I would assume they’ve gotten worse.
I would assume the teachings have gotten worse. From what I see in the new and talking to people, it appears that way.
I was saying the teachings in the youth and adult churches are bad: what happened to taking things seriously? Communalist groups like the Amish, Jesus Freaks, and Mormon sects, are serious, and even Christian militias take things seriously. I have checked 1950s books on Christianity which already support liberal Christianity (also called neo-Christianity, originating in the Victorian period and divided into Sunday School and Cafeteria Christianity).
The liberal Christianity of those books and denominations appears to be Cafeteria Christianity, or arbitrarily choosing what parts of the New Testament (and by extension, the moral laws of the Old Testament: the dietary and cleanliness laws being abrogated), to believe in. It differs from Cafeteria Christianity since it interprets archaeological evidence through a skeptical lens, when there are explanations which support the Biblical accounts.
As a skeptic myself who opposes pseudoscience, I think that we can still assume the benefit of the doubt for the Biblical accounts, as it does not necessarily mean all things have a supernatural or preternatural explanation.
Christianity should be about reading the Bible, not fun and games.
To be clear - I’d put the liberalization of the Protestant Churches squarely in the 20’s, when they slowly started accepting contracepting and divorce. After that, it seems to be all down hill from what I can tell historically.
Ah ok, that wasn’t clear or I misunderstood.
I couldn’t tell you, honestly. I’m relating mostly my history growing up in an Evangelical Church, bounced around to others of friends in Jr High/High School, that I honestly thought was non-denominational until I was 25 and converted to Catholicism.
But yes, I don’t see many people being serious from what little interaction I have with people outside of Catholicism these days. Which is why I assume it’s gotten worse, when I see the news and polls that say what they do.
Great article. It reminds me why we chose to move back to our small town where we have our entire family and friend circle within a 35 minute drive. The world has taken away so much from children, however grandparents, cousins, and a few others provide a great arena for them to learn and grow.
Great point. That's one of the few ways to re-establish childhood as it should be.
Excellent work
Fantastic piece. No punches pulled. It could have been way longer with all the ways society is anti-child.
I will say that, along with the cratering dating scene and birth rate, this is ultimately a problem that men must solve. We have to be leaders again. When women say screwed up shit like "*forced to carry a baby to term*", we need to have the stones to tell them to shut up and sit down, lest they scare the younger girls from ever having children at all.
Women will go where strong men lead them, and they will go back to prioritizing family again, if us men make it a priority ourselves.
"Dating" was misogynistic consumerism which emerged in 1930 as a pastime for the affluent, originating from Edwardian courtship: it served the interests of crass commercialism, since businesses could sell romance-related products like makeup and Hollywood made romances, both sexualizing women in the process.
St. Paul condemns such things; also, you have to remember women do NOT want to bear a rapist's child or have a child which will die after childbirth and could KILL THE MOTHER.
Many people who had abortions wanted to have children, but discovered the children were unviable.
Why shouldn't women be strong?
Nothing wrong with strong women, but their men must be stronger. And I really don't have much to say about aborting rape babies or non-viable ones, except the women who do this should shut up about it so they don't scare the hell out of young women who should be having babies but aren't. Women are social creatures, they follow trends, and if the phrase "forced to carry a baby to term" becomes part of their vocabulary, they will internalize it as pregnancy being horrifying and scary, instead of a wonderful miracle. It's all "vibes", and the vibe right now is that pregnancy is a disease and not a miracle. This idea even infected my own wife and resulted in us only having one kid, and I was confused about it until it was too late. Women need to stop scaring each other about pregnancy, but i'll say it again....this is men's job. We have to stop them from doing this.
Read momanddadmatters.substack.com/grand-old-party for an up to date solution (for both men*and* women) to the problem you pose.
Part of the reason women are reluctant to have children is because due to the end of the American Decade (the dollar began weakening under Truman), they are unable to afford children: obviously this implies to poor women and debt-ridden middle-class women. Living near crime-ridden areas or looking after sick or elderly relatives (or being a nurse or caregiver), or helping their husbands with their jobs (as assistants and such), would also prevent them having children.
Also, women could be put off by the sexualization of women and children, as well as fear of children dying or failing as a mother: the fear of children dying or failing as a father also affects men too. Men would also encourage women to avoid having children, since a patriarchal society would incentivize men to have women to make adjustments to suit the needs of the men: for instance, men could pressure women to have children or to have an abortion.
Women could pressure men like this of course, but men have more power.
If someone invites you to a “kid free” wedding, you absolutely decline. Don’t be part of the problem and normalize that behavior.
Great article, very wholesome. Also: I was howling at "By pure coincidence, I’m sure, the Child Catcher was played by a gay man" LOL
This brings tears to my eyes. Well done.
Indeed, children bring so much joy to every moment. I have 4 Treasures, and I remember how the littlest ones preferred to stay with us (Mom & Dad) even during long services; and how much I was looked down on for it, even scolded by some congregational leadership. By 6 or 7yrs they could usually understand some of what was being said. Unless the children's class was exceptionally warm, nurturing, and developed long-term relationships with the children, they just didn't want to go - and I was disinclined to send them, preferring for them an opportunity to learn (and practice) by watching, which is their Designer's intended feature. They were perfectly happy to sit and play with quiet toys, or kneel on the floor for a bit. Worship was active with little silky flags, finger ribbons, etc. Then they would sit quietly with us. After a while we would take a walk to work off the wiggles, and return to our seats. The children often received - and gave - discreet smiles to the oldest generations seated nearby. Those moments are part of what made those services sweet, and remain memories I return to often.
Children should be serious, and I agree with the old wisdom that they should be seen and not heard: we should bring back the Puritan child which feared hellfire, and did not play with toys. Children should fear their parents, and we need parents to use the ethnic minority model of parenting: a combination of helicopter parents and tiger parents.
Children should be encouraged, but taught to be stoic (like soldiers): they should not be taught to be sentimental, and parents should not be affectionate. It has worked wonders for East Asia, and remember the stereotype of "the stoic Indian" (i.e. indigenous people).
“Parents should not be affectionate…children should be stoic…”No, just no. That’s the pendulum swinging back to an oppressive approach. The corrective for our current ills is not to return to a different set of ills.
I remember being in rural Austria in 2017/18, and being surprised to see a McDonald's with a child's play area (though I never saw anyone using it).
I read somewhere that in French restaurants, they don't have children's menus. The kids are expected to sit with the grownups, moderate themselves, figure out what real food to order, eat it, and be generally charming, or at least agreeable. Childhood ought to be normal life with training wheels, not a completely different world.
I think there could be a time for churches to have peer-based times in youth groups, but I really like what you said about going to church as a family. And that's not even considering the trust issue of handing your children over.
The parts of this that really struck a chord with me are the child bashing and the child free weddings.
My own mother loved to child bash. She told me don’t expect her to help with the grandkids. It was terrible then and now but I think she felt sort of rebellious and chic for talking this way even though she was always a stay at home mom born in 1948.
My birth family is not super close anymore but I used to have a good relationship my brother. Then after we had booked plane tickets for the whole family (which would be the only plane trip we could afford in a year) he told us the kids weren’t invited to the rehearsal dinner or the reception. I could go on but I’m not over it.
This is top notch work, Jack. Multiple arrows hit simultaneous targets.
This will be shared with anyone in my life that will listen. Great work.
Willingly childless couples are not the same thing as manchildren and womanchildren who are fans of toys, these manchildren appearing to date back to the Silent Generation (born 1910 and came of age in 1930), judging by "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." The article says how we should not raise children, but does not say HOW we should raise them.
I'm gonna let my toddlers go play with other kids during the church service.
Have you seen the price of stamps lately? Can you open your operation again please?
During the pandemic, the only people I could have a drink and play video games with were my elementary aged kids. I uh... haven't broken the habit yet. My wife thinks this is a concerning issue, but my kids are in no way motivated to even *try* alcohol one day, so I think they're fine, plus I'm a jovial drunk, it's not like I'm yelling at them, even when we lose or kids get jealous over who gets a turn, etc. I'm a cradle Catholic, and though my parents never really drank around us kids, they also never had a taboo against it, and definitely thought nothing of having cocktails during family Christmas and Easter celebrations. I mean, Jesus first miracle was at the behest of His mother, who pointed out that a wedding with no wine is an embarrassing bummer, dude. But she's a Protestant convert and has a lot of hang ups about alcohol, so just the fact that I drink around them at all is a looming disaster waiting to happen in her eyes. Personally, I think the fact that I spend 10x as much time actually engaging with them on the weekends than my dad ever did should outweigh the fact that I'm tipsy, ha.
Do you accept freelance article submissions?