Raising Young Men Who Live the Gospel of Christ

 "Virtue is not something simply lacking in the modern world. It is something many in the modern world actually resent." ~Dr. Edward Sri

Trying to raise Christian young men who LIVE the Gospel of Christ is hard in this fallen world-- so many people want to lead them astray. Not always on purpose, mind you...but like the quote earlier... virtue is laughed at, ridiculed and resented. Chastity includes the custody of one's eyes! We want our young men to respect women, not objectify them - and it is hard to teach in a culture where half-naked women walk around EVERYWHERE (including church!), are on billboards, in stores, on products and on TV & in movies. The abortion on demand/ birth control mentality teaches men to objectify their women, too. It teaches young men that they can do what they please whenever they want because *it* can be taken care of. Women become mere objects to be used for their own pleasure. Sometimes I just hate the world!

My youngest went on a retreat the Diocese puts on every year. Our church youth group took a few people. During a break, a chaperone took teenage girls and a few of the boys to the mall nearby and they went to <ahem> Victoria's Secret.  I have already alerted the pastor. This is not appropriate!

I don't think young teenage boys should be exposed to the soft porn in VC. Just my two cents. 

 Highlights of a convo on FB (the first and second paragraph were a status)- It was such a great conversation, that I wanted to share.

A friend said, "Amen" and I replied: It is so hard... I tell you... so hard..... there are too many people willing to lead our kids astray. Adults..... We just have to keep working and praying. I don't care if the world laughs at me/my family. I want my boys to turn into men of virtue. I get so depressed thinking about the progressive agenda.

K wrote: 
Just make sure you don't forget that men objectified women LONG before birth control. Don't blame the birth control for the attitudes of men.

I replied: 
Oh, K, I know.. but if you read what the Pope's wrote before BC was widely available-- they predicted everything that is happening now. The birth control mentality aids men in their objectification of women. It is not the only reason nor the only way...but is is a HUGE factor in our current culture crisis.

W wrote: 
Women have been "objects" since the dawn of man. Just do the best you possibly can, and they'll show you how well you taught them. I see it in my sons now. Are they saints? Oh, heck no. But.....they know how to be a "true man" around women.And in regards to BC aiding men? Ummm, it works both ways. It also allows women to be "objectified". Please don't lay that much blame on a pill or the opposite sex. Women play the game too....with or without the "pill".

I replied with this link 
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P6HUMANA.HTM and:
The Church called it-- said that BC would cause higher divorce rates, infidelity rates, STD rates, so forth and so on... and the statistics are there to support what the Church predicted. Couples who do not use contraception have less than a 5% chance of divorce compared to the average population of over 50%.PS- remember, I am raising boys-so this is written from the perspective of a mother of boys,W. Not saying that BC doesn't cause the same effect for women...This article says less than a 2% divorce rate for couples who do not contracept: http://nosoulleftbehind.wordpress.com/2007/12/28/the-link-between-contraception-and-divorce/ 

K wrote:
Considering the rampant immorality that has existed since the beginning of time, I'd hardly say that birth control is to blame, or has even aided in any decline. What it HAS done is allow, for example, married women to continue to have relations with their husbands without having to endure childbirth 10 or 12 times, which was common as recently as 100 years ago in this country.

I wrote:
Well, K, you are free to disagree Here's another article about the low divorce rates : http://canonlaw.info/a_contraceptionanddivorce.htm I'm a practicing Catholic, so bringing up having 10 or 12 children doesn't sway me to your side--I only wish we could have that many living. We've had 19 pregnancy losses.

K wrote: 
Divorce rates increased because now, married women who are unhappy, can actually file for divorce. It's harder to file for divorce when you can't obtain credit in your own name, can be fired simply for being a woman, for getting married, or getting pregnant. Of course, divorce is higher now. That has to do with equal treatment under the law for women. 100 years ago, women just had to suffer, no matter how many times their husbands cheated on them, beat them, or came home drunk. As far as couples who do not use contraception having a lower divorce rate, I'd say that has more to do with religious convictions against both. Correlation is not causation.

I wrote: 
Naw.. it's more like we are an instant gratification society-- It has nothing to do with that. People think they have to be happy 24/7 or something is wrong-- they take antidepressants and if it isn;t right, you leave to go find yourself. People live in a disposable society --and not that includes marriage.

Mi wrote: 
So so true
K writes: 
We do live in a society where people tap their feet impatiently in front of the microwave.

I wrote: 
Oddly enough... none of the couples we've known the last 25 plus years who use NFP (no contraception) have divorced. We know lots of practicing Catholics. We know plenty of couples who contracept who have divorced. Before Chris and I were married, I was in a Bible study group with older couples who were all practicing Catholics and had never used BC... none of them were or have gotten divorced. A few spouses have died -- old age, cancer...... It is pretty amazing.I know, right?! 3 minutes to make popcorn, seriously!? But we want INSTANT happiness and we have a society that tells us YOU are more important than a relationship with your spouse. It tells us your happiness is more important than temporary pain of working issues out.

W wrote: 
The pill came out in the mid 30's. In the 40's, divorce rates were at about 14%. In the 50's, it was about 20% (could've been all of the women refusing to give up their jobs when the men came home from WWII....women's lib and all that fun stuff). When we hit the 70's, divorce rates skyrocketed to the high 40s, low 50s. If anything, I would explain it as liberalism in general.....a disposable society with no personal accountability. And feminists ate it up. In short, I blame my parent's generation....born in the late 40's, early 50's, grew up in the 60's, early 70's. Also, that is when public schools started to get taken over by liberals, especially upper academia. It's a vicious cycle......but not caused by one pill or BC in general. If you look at in this way, and throw in the feminists, one could probably state that it's women's fault for the higher divorce rates....not men. Purely hypothetical, but..........

I wrote: 
absolutely-- the free love of the 60s was made possible by the pill-- the pill aided the liberal agenda. Maybe I can get a priest or two to post since they might be better at explaining? The pill aided the moral decay of society-- I don't think anyone is saying it is the ONLY thing. Abortion is one thing... the attack on traditional marriage, etc, etc....

W wrote: 
Why did it take 40 years for the divorce rates to hit and then plateau at around 50%? Considering all of the other forms of BC available, logic would dictate that the divorce rates would keep climbing higher, but they haven't. ANd it's been 40 years at around that rate. Why didn't divorce rates spike in the late 30's or early 40's and just keep climbing? Something else is afoot.

 I wrote:
I also posted an article where a tribunal (Catholic) looked and found most couples coming for annulments were using contraception --very few NFP users ..... The pill came available in 1960, right?What pill came out in the 1930s? http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-05-07-1Apill07_CV_N.htm This is an article from 2010 -- the 50th anniversary of the pill.  Up until the 1930s- all denominations were opposed to artificial birth control, but Margaret Sanger and her organization changed that.

F wrote: I'll just place my toe in the turgid waters here.... it all depends on where one gets their facts. Pattie has shown you where she got hers. Can you post where you got yours? There were and are many causative factors to be discussed, but birth control opened Pandora's box even more than the sliver that showed. We can thank Margaret Sanger for that. She had her own agenda, and I humbly suggest you look into her motivations. Once birth control came on the scene, many thought it was a boon to women. Here's the issue. Using a wrong to right a wrong is still wrong, if you follow me. Birth control is just that - wrong. Then we have the media. Think back to the 50s and 60s. Every "perfect" family had two parents, and two children, one of each. Don't forget the twin beds. That came from the contraceptive mentality that had been creeping through the back alleyways since Sanger's day (actually she was still alive then and going on talk shows). So...everyone either consciously or unconsciously wants to emulate the "perfect Hollywood family" and doctors began receiving "incentives" to share with their patients the magic pill that would ease their worries about family size, finances, etc. Once that started making the rounds, and the "sexual revolution" got underway with the beatniks and hippy kids of the 60s, the pill was the perfect panacea for this "if it feels good do it" subculture. Then, they get older. They get married (or not). They have kids, but everyone is having only two (that's what TV tells them), and everyone is on the pill, and how dare the Church tell them how many kids to have!! Priests aren't even married, how could they possibly know how hard it is..blah blah blah! It's disobedience. Pure and simple. We all think we know better than God. Contracepting couples have a 50% or greater divorce rate, "Catholic" contracepting couples are commensurate with that level. Non-contracepting couples, as Pattie has shown, have a much, much lower divorce rate. Proof's in the pudding, if you ask me. And back to the original issue - if people would dress modestly, then the inclination to sin would be much less. Notice I said less, not gone. Men are visual creatures, where as women are emotive. There's an old saying, "Men give love to get sex, women give sex to get love." If women want love, they must take care to not objectify and sexualize themselves to men. Men, also, must give women respect by guarding their eyes and guarding the reputation of those women by not giving in to the visual cues they see everywhere. If I might add an economic note here? We have contracepted our society into bankrupcy. We have too many retiring workers and have contracepted away a new crew of workers. We now have an inverted pyramid, and that is why social security is crumbling. If you have time or inclination, I suggest you watch Demographic Timebomb and Demographic Winter.

Ma wrote:   Birth control is one aspect if you look at the big picture BUT I can tell you where BC has aided in our downfall. First it has made it easy to forget that sex is for reproduction. That is it's purpose. The fact that children came from sex helped people think about who they laid with and when. Usually with a spouse after marriage. As for women being able to have relations with their husband, that can still happen without child birth or BC but it takes communication between man and wife and commitment of both of them instead of just between a woman and her doctor. Birth control is responsible for increase in the spread of promiscuity for the first reason I listed, which also led to the increase in the spread of disease. The whole "if it feels good do it" attitude came from the lack of natural consequence of sex and the sexualization of women has been made more convenient and acceptable due to that attitude. Women and men are to blame for the attitudes and actions. Both want the immediate satisfaction of sex now marriage later.
I do not understand how anyone can not see the connection. It is as clear as day.

One more thing about the BC used by married women remark - as we all know it isn't just married women using it so they can have relations with their husband without worrying about children so that argument holds very little water anyway even if you take religion out of the equation.

Further the concept of children being a burden to be put off has made the whole concept of abortion easier to swallow.

So to recap. No birth control by itself has not caused the downfall of society BUT it sure has not helped either.

And I didn't even go into the horrible effects it has had and remains to have on women's health

I wrote: 
Maxine just said everything I wanted to say but couldn't find the words. You are awesome, Maxine. What we teach our boys about birth control? I ask them if they want the women they love and marry to have an increased risk of cancer, blood clots, strokes and other health issues just so that they can have sex whenever they want. Hardly seems worth the risk to me-- if you love your wife, why would you want to put her health at risk? Again, I only have boys, so I'm coming from teaching boys. I don;t get all this organic food- no pesticides or hormones, but then we pump our women full of them. crazy!

M wrote: 
I have girls and boys... it is a concern to me either way... and I do let my kids about age 12 and up listen to Pam Stensels discussions about sex and abstinence. I recently discussed the topic with my 16, 12 and within ear shot of my 9 yr old. I was having a difficult time getting them to listen... finally I said, ok, maybe we are not ready for this, however I'll have one more statement. (Mind you we had already discussed how that is one gift you can give JUST ONCE... etc.) And I asked them. If their friend across the street was going to give them a piece of gum... would they want it to be the gum that everyone else had chewed already - even if it had been cleaned, or would they want a new piece still in the package? Think about it... with the spread of sexually transmitted diseases etc, the gum can only get so clean, and so can your body once you've given it away because you never REALLY know where someone else has trod... I told them that if they never thought about another thing I said that in the heat of the moment, when their hormones were overtaking their brains THAT was the one thing I wanted them to think of.

F wrote: 
I have five daughters and two sons, and use the analogy of the pan of brownies with a little bit of dog poop in it. Would you still want to eat it?

I wrote: 
PS- I am blogging about this w/o using names! This was a great conversation everyone..... very good. I enjoy these

I wrote: 
K, are their not people of equal religious conviction that use contraception? What causes them to have a 50% plus divorce rate, too? It is not merely a matter of religious conviction- now that we have equal treatment under the law. While you are saying correlation is not causation, I believe you are looking at the wrong variables. Or are you trying to say that those of us who do not use contraception have more religious conviction? I think there is a correlation between the use of birth control and divorce--Last stat of the night-- did you know the divorce rate among couples who lose a child is 85% and higher? Couples whose kids have chronic, life-threatening illnesses have a divorce rate over 80%? We are really beating the odds......... so there are many factors in divorce....

K wrote: 
I would argue that those of any religion who avoid artificial birth control for religious reasons are more likely to also avoid divorce for the same religious reasons. The correlation between birth control usage and divorce rates has intensity and type of religious belief as the correlating factor. This is true for the religions that teach both are wrong. The belief system affects both BC usage and divorce. The BC usage by itself does not cause the divorce. Most married couples remain married as the divorce rate peaked at a little under 50% a few years ago.

I wrote: 
many times, it is the infidelity caused by the BC use that causes the divorce 0_0 ..... You know I had to say that!

M wrote:
That is what I have been trying to say for a while now. I have finally just started repeating: "we are supposed to bend to our faith not bend our faith to ourselves

F wrote: 
True, and now in the majority of "mainstream Protestant denominations", birth control and abortion aren't even discussed. In the documentaries I mentioned, the three groups who are having babies are the Orthodox Jews, Muslims, and traditional Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants. Yes, religion has something to do with the choice not to contracept, but there are many who do not contracept due to health concerns or a more "natural" approach.

L wrote: 
and if we believe that the Catholic Church is the True Faith, we have to believe that the Teachings are what God wants us to follow. So we follow them, out of obedience, not out of personal opinion. That's a part of surrendering to God's Will and trusting in His guidance. And, I personally think contraception would aid in infidelity. Women and men are more likely to cheat if they think they can get away with it. Contraception reduces the chance of a pregnancy. I don't see what good contraception can do. Catholics are allowed to space their children (even indefinitely) with NFP. And that's out of the catechism.