Who's In Charge, Anyway?

There are a great many confused expectations of society which have contributed to the widespread breakdown of the family in our times, among which one is of significant importance if we would inoculate our own families against this plague. That is the idea that it is the child who is responsible for the relationship and anything that goes wrong within it. In "Our Babies, Ourselves" Meredith Small relates how Freud purported the notion that it was actually the baby who initiated and sustained the attachment with his mother and father. Freud believed that it was the baby's sucking that triggered the mother's maternal response, creating the bond between them, and that so long as he looked to her for nurturance he sustained that bond. If this were so then it would only be logical to believe, further, that any rupture in the bond was instigated by the child, as well. At the core of this notion is another idea just as preposterous: that man created God and God depends on man for His existence. No wonder Freud was so twisted!
Paradoxically, this idea is very evident in the authoritarian parenting paradigm, whereby all the blame is placed squarely on the shoulders of the child, and he is expected always to be the one to make amends for "initiating" any conflict between his parents and himself. If he is unhappy, he is labeled "ungrateful." If the parents are unhappy the child is labeled "difficult" or "rebellious." There are no "bad" parents, only "bad" children; or the only bad parents are the ones whose children "don't know their place."

Actually this idea that children are the ones responsible for the relationship and all the problems in it is inherently horizontal, or perhaps inverted, but definitely not mutually beneficial or sanctifying for parent and child. This idea has been formulating in my mind for months: since the Protestant Reformation, French Revolution, etc. there has been a gradual re-orientation of the world from it's once vertical orientation to one that is decidedly horizontal. As a race, man's ability to experience mixed feelings, love of self counter-balanced by love of God, has all but disappeared. Men no longer love God for love of God, but love Him for love of themselves, or love their neighbors for love of themselves--in other words, man no longer loves God, but himself. This is precisely an effect of punitive relationships--we "learn" to do the "right thing" for fear of what we will suffer if we don't. This creates but the facade of virtue, whilst beneath lies a hard and stony ground covered with thorns in which vice takes root welcomely (Lk 8, 4-15). This is what happens when we love our neighbor and/or God for love of ourselves. I include "or" in that statement because it is well nigh impossible to love them both for love of oneself, the neighbor being an obstacle to loving God because of all the temptations he represents, and God being an obstacle to loving one's neighbor, His laws being too burdensome to keep when all you're really interested in is avoiding suffering and experiencing as much pleasure in this life as you are able.

What this all boils down to is a call to conversion--or we will suffer the natural consequences of our horizontal (narcissistic) orientation in the anarchy--the great chastisement--toward which we are quickly heading. To be vertically oriented--attached to God, the author of life--we have to be willing to suffer--as Christ suffered--to die to ourselves. And we cannot love some for love of God, and not others. We cannot honestly say to God, "I love some of those you love, but not others." Again, this is loving for ourselves. We must love ALL of those whom God loves--EVERYONE! Like Jesus said, even our enemies. If we are not loving everyone for love of God we are loving only ourselves. We love only those who please us, and we love in them only that which pleases us. This is why man is constantly engaged in an effort to change those around him--in order to make them more easily lovable to himself. When we love everyone for love of God we have faith in the transformative power of love, the example of which Jesus demonstrated to us time and time again. Mary Magdalen was a prostitute, for heaven's sake! Jesus didn't tell her He wouldn't allow her into His company until she forsook her sinful ways, or remind her that being stoned to death was the natural consequence of her actions. He told us all to cast no stone unless we were without sin. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."

It's important to remember that blaming our friends or relatives for the unfortunate sutuation in which we find ourselves is counterproductive--we must love them exactly as we are aspiring to love our children (a task more difficult than loving our children because of it's inverted nature). They have always done they best they knew how, just like we're doing. They are "victims" of the skewed orientation of society, just like we are. This is something I've always known deep down, but until I understood attachment and orientation I don't think I really understood just exactly what is the nature of the beast. There is no disconnect between attachment theory and theology. Attachment theory is to inter-human relationships what theology is to man's relationship with the divine (and horizontal orientation is the devil's play ground). God provides for all our needs, spiritual and physical, and He loves us selflessly, and it's this love which makes us good--not just act good, but really and truly be good. God has His own set of attachment rituals--the sacraments. He feeds us with his own flesh and blood. He provides for our "nurturing touch" with the sacrament of matrimony. He listens with empathy through the priest when we confess our sins. He bonds Himself to us through baptism--attachment is nothing more than faith, hope and charity between two souls. Attachment theory proves His existence and the Divinity of Christ by demonstrating that the faithful application of the Gospel, even to our children, is mutually sanctifying for both in the relationship. The only reason we don't "just do it" is that we're afraid. We're afraid it won't work; we're afraid our own needs won't be met; we're afraid of being taken advantage of; we're afraid of hell, pain, suffering, etc. Well here's another truth for us:

The saints didn't become saints because they were afraid of the pains of hell, they became saints precisely because they were not afraid of the pains of hell. They loved God fearlessly, desiring to suffer everything for love of Him, without expecting anything in return for themselves. They loved Him only because it pleases Him to be loved. And this is precisely the love we have to bear for one another--especially our children who will learn to love from no one else but us.

God has taken full responsibility for His relationship with us, providing for all our needs, though he delegates to parents first and foremost some of the duties of demonstrating that love and distributing those provisions. And when parents love as best as God has provided them the wherwithall to love, it will transform their children without the need for fear inducing punitive force (this, btw, is the secret to attachment parenting many children close in age). Our parents never heard of attachment parenting and so made use of the best methods available to them at the time. But we have been given a "new" method that is 2000 years old! I believe God has provided the theory of attachment to teach us what love is again, because it's been lost on a vast number of past generations. We have lost our bearings because the world has turned its back on God, and none of us is "without sin." This doesn't change any of the boundaries we are so attached to--right is still right and wrong is still wrong. It simply provides us a way of transforming one another, or rather being instruments of the transforming love of God, which brings out the best in one another instead of--well, less than that.

Virtues flourish in a climate of charity. Vices flourish in a climate of fear. Parents are the greatest influence on that climate in the lives of their children. When St. Paul told fathers not to provoke their children, this is what he was talking about. We may not make our children sin by the way we treat them, but we can certainly tempt them, just as the immodest woman tempts a man. We've been so focused on protecting them from the temptations that the world lays before them that we are blind to the temptations which we lay before them. There is a better way available to us and Hold On To Your Kids, amongst others, lays it all out there for our benefit and our children's. It could have been entitled, "The Case For Attachment Parenting" but if you read between the lines you'll find another book entitled, "The Case For Christ."

The Responsibility of Assisting in the Formation of Saints

All Catholic parents desire to raise up their children to be Saints. In my search to better understand what motivates parents to take one approach rather than another, I have discovered some rather peculiar and often distressing contradictions in our methods, all revealing the folly of our own human efforts. Blessed Claude de la Colombiere writes in Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence, “A rule also that God usually follows is to attain His ends by ways that are the opposite to those human prudence would normally choose.” If we are to hold on to our kids, we must take this to heart.

One of the most perplexing contradictions that's been on my mind lately is the tendency of well-meaning parents to coerce their children with fear of suffering (corporal punishment, so-called natural consequences, deprivation of some need or want) in order to make them good, and then teach them that if they want to become saints they have to embrace suffering. This is just another way of saying that punitive parenting exacerbates a child's fallen human nature, inflaming his narcissism, whereby he is conditioned to make choices according to what's in it for him, instead of making choices based on how his actions affect his relationship with God and his neighbor. We say to our children, “You do as I say so you can learn to be good, or I’ll punish you.” The child is conditioned to fear suffering in order “to be good.” But in order for a soul to become truly holy, it must be willing to suffer for love of God. It is not fear, but love of which saints are made.



Through developments in attachment theory and research into the brain we now know that a child whose self-love is repeatedly hurt will develop a habit of defending against vulnerability, whereby, in order to avoid the pain of embarrassment, for example, he will hide his faults, blame others for his short comings, or distract himself from the pain. Dr. Neufeld writes, “The brains of children who are defended against vulnerability tune out anything that would give rise to feeling it, in this case the admission of mistakes and failure. Even being mildly corrected by a teacher or parent may threaten such a child with a sense of inadequecy and shame, the sense that 'something is wrong with me.' Pointing out what they did wrong will evoke from such children brazenly evasive or hostile reactions. Adults often interpret these responses as rudeness, but they really serve the function of keeping these kids from feeling vulnerability.” On the other hand, children who feel unconditionally loved and accepted are far more likely to accept loving correction from a trusted attachment figure because their self-love is not threatened by the pain of rejection. If we thought about if for two minutes we could easily see this happening in ourselves and our interactions with others.

Since we know that grace builds on nature, it seems an affront to God's order when we train our children in habits which inhibit the efficacy of grace in their souls. I would even go so far as to say that it’s sinful, for we provoke them to wickedness, we “cause one of these little ones to sin.” When we assume the worst about our children we train them to react to us with pride, but then tell them they have to become humble in order to become holy. We provoke them when we deny them affection, physical or emotional, when they've behaved in a way that angers us, making them long for physical intimacy (I’m not just referring to sex, here, but to the basic human need for touch), then tell them they're wicked and impure when they seek physical intimacy by unlawful means. We inflame their anger by assaulting their God-given free will and then teach them that meekness is a most necessary virtue if we wish to imitate Christ. We attempt to motivate them to try harder by comparing them to others, igniting the consuming fire of jealousy in their hearts, and then teach them that jealousy is contrary to fraternal charity. We deprive them of the experience of the happiness of pure, selfless love, which is the object all men ultimately seek in every good thing, causing them to envy others for their happiness, and then teach them that envy is a sin against gratitude to God. Hoping to motivate them to improve themselves, we cause them to grow discouraged by frequent criticism, driving them to hopelessness and sloth, and then teach them that sloth is directly opposed to the love of God. (I'm not excusing our children's sins here, just recognizing that, as with modesty, we are responsible for the effects our actions have on others. This is a part of the doctrine of the Communion of Saints) There are a great many foolish things parents do to their children--I know because I have been among them.

It took me a long time to realize that the same actions of others that bring out the worst in me, have the same effect on my children when I engage in them. But now, by the grace of God, I see it so clearly. We can teach our children habits of vice just as easily as habits of virtue—it all depends on how we approach them in any given situation. Or more importantly, it depends on our view of them as unique creations of God, with a specific purpose in His plan for mankind—equal to us in dignity—not ours to do with as we see fit, but entrusted to us to safeguard as they grow, through God’s own providence, into the vocation God has called them to--as the deposit of faith is entrusted to the Holy Father, not to change, but to protect in its organic development.

When our children know and feel that they are loved unconditionally, they are open to correction, lovingly offered. They have not been conditioned to defend against vulnerability, to fear the pain of humiliation. When their relationship with their parents is in order, their relationship to the Church and to God will follow suit. They do not learn virtue by force, by being treated as if they are naturally bad--this sort of attitude does not escape them and brings out the worst in them--and us. They learn virtue by love--love for their parents, love for the virtues their parents love, love for the virtues that will make them most pleasing to the God of love.

We live in a culture founded on the ideals of the Reformation and the French Revolution—that man is depraved and that his rights and private judgments supersede those of God or the Church—distinctly horizontally orienting influences in human history. It should come as no surprise to us that un-Catholic ideas about parenting such as I have described here have seeped into our Catholic households. It’s time we reclaimed our children to Christ and the Church—for the sake of the entire world. The emerging devastation of the stagnant, self-destructive orientation of the world is our call to conversion. If we would save our children we must desire to love God with our whole selves in every single moment--even in suffering.

In A Story of a Soul, St. Therese, nearing her death, writes, “He made me to understand these words of the Canticle of Canticles: ‘DRAW ME, WE SHALL RUN after you in the odor of your ointments.’ O Jesus, it is not even necessary to say: ‘When drawing me, draw the souls whom I love!’ This simple statement: ‘Draw me’ suffices; I understand, Lord, that when a soul allows herself to be captivated by the odor of your ointments, she cannot run alone, all the souls whom she loves follow in her train; this is done without constraint, without effort, it is a natural consequence of her attraction for you. Just as a torrent, throwing itself with impetuosity into the ocean of Your Love, draws with her all the treasures she possesses. Lord, You know it, I have no other treasures than the souls it has pleased You to unite to mine; it is You who entrusted these treasures to me, and so I dare to borrow the words You addressed to the heavenly Father, the last night which saw You on our earth as a traveler and a mortal.”

"Draw me, we shall run…"