Growing Up
“Whoever tries to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses it will preserve it.” (Lk. 17:33) In these few short words, Our Lord Jesus Christ gave men the key of fulfilling the life of which He is the source and final end. If he wants to grow up, a man must give up: denial of self is the only way to escape from self in order to find self, in this life and hereafter. This final article on adolescence will explore the ways in which parents can give children the strength they need to face the tough realities of adult life. The most important of these is a spirit of self-denial, which in turn must be supported by affection and good rapport.
Receiving vs. Giving
Emerging from his mother’s womb into the outside world, a man is completely helpless and needy. For at least a decade, he is unable to provide the sine qua non’s of minimal subsistence: food, clothing, and shelter. In growing older, and especially in the teenage years, he becomes more independent and takes on responsibility, getting ready for the day when he will be on his own.
As a child, a man receives everything and gives nothing. To become an adult, he must look to receiving nothing and giving all. But from the very beginning, he is deeply wounded with selfishness; his first impulse is self-gratification. Overcoming this instinctive egotism requires long practice and the guidance of good parents.
There are two possible extremes in a man: one seeking to maximize his fun and minimize self-sacrifice, the other seeking to minimize self-gratification and maximize self-sacrifice. The latter has its personification in Our Lord Jesus Christ and the former in the Greek philosopher Epicurus, father of hedonism.
We see so clearly today what results when boys are raised on the epicurean model, so deeply ingrained in modern society and pop culture: you get children in adult bodies, “men” who are only looking for enjoyment in all with which they come into contact. Even their wives and children only have value for them insofar as they give them pleasure. Everything is for them. They only give so as to receive, and if they cannot receive, they do not give or bother themselves.
So many today cannot even get their lives off the ground. They emerge from high school looking for a good time. They cannot persevere in education; they cannot persevere in their job; they cannot persevere in love. Their lives are a roller coaster ride, punctuated with one or more moral disasters: drunkenness, substance abuse, illegitimate children and abortions, sporadic employment. Why could these sad lives never get on track? Because they were not able to give of themselves. The life was never lost and so never gained.
For the best of adults, the best of fathers, the best of priests, the reverse is true. He sees himself as one who is to sacrifice all for his loved ones. He gives all that he can for them and for God. No sacrifice is too demanding, no responsibility too big, because his life/personal interest is lost already…in his life as defined by his vocation. He has no overweening sense of entitlement nor is he a slave to empty pleasures.
The more a teen learns to sacrifice himself for others, the better position he is in to give himself completely to the plan God has laid out for him when he comes of age. The less he is able to do this, the less he is able to pursue any sort of vocation. Fr. Henry Sattler remarks:
Physical maturity is naturally expected in those who marry, but mental and emotional maturity is equally needed and less often possessed. Many modern works [in the 1940s!] have pointed out that emotional immaturity is almost a characteristic of the American nation. Now, unless two people are adult in their approach to reality, they will find it difficult, if not impossible, to make a success of marriage. Sulking, childish traits, lack of decisiveness, inability to give and take, wreck many marriages.[1]
It should be clear, then, for parents, how important it is to give their children a spirit of sacrifice, both by word and example. God provides a difficult test to adolescence which parents must use to help in this training.
Maturation
One of the mysteries of nature is the development of the body in advance of the soul. Children reach puberty and become physically capable of bringing forth a family well before they are spiritually and psychologically able to raise that family. Although one can bear children at the age of 13, it would be a disaster to get married at that age.
Why did God in His Wisdom choose to ordain nature this way? It is to provide a training ground to children for adulthood by way of a difficult test of restraint and self-denial. The attraction between the sexes awakens and the passions begin raging. In keeping these forces under control during the teenage years, a child attains the spiritual maturity needed to take on adult responsibility. Indulging and abusing these forces, as teenagers are encouraged to do today, only spoils these powers, rendering them sour, and atrophies the personal growth of the adolescent.
This most important test is a huge determinant in shaping the adult life that is coming. What great things are those capable of who have fought this fight and come out victorious! And on the other hand, what pleasure addiction and spiritual anemia beset those who fail to protect their purity.
One modern author goes so far as to call depression a sexually transmitted disease because of her experience as a doctor with teenagers. As a first step in her treatment of depression, she has them give up fornication.[2] A bishop from the 1930s says, “The soul of one who practices it [impurity] for a long time becomes so dull and unresponsive to all moral influence, that the pleadings of a loving father or the authoritative command of his teachers have no effect. The will power of such a youth decays completely.”[3]
As with every great test given to us by God, both the rewards for passing the test and penalties for failing it are life-defining. For teens to preserve themselves unsullied in a sexually obsessive and oppressive culture, they must be well instructed by their parents and well practiced in self-sacrifice when the onslaught of temptations comes.
Teaching Unselfishness
It is amazing how willing young children can be to offer sacrifices for a reward that is spiritual and not to be given until this life is finished. This willingness comes from the fact that they believe what they are told–children are not cynical. A parent with a spirit of faith and a certain creativity can easily motivate his children to give things up for God. Why should Johnny share with his sister? “Well, Johnny, you see, there is a treasure box with your name on it in Heaven. Whenever you give up your toys to make your sister happy, your guardian angel takes your action up to Heaven and puts it in the treasure box, and he is very glad to be able to do so. One day you will get to see that treasure box. Don’t you want to make it as full as you possibly can?”
We see how early the saints started in practicing mortification. At the age of five, the Little Flower carried a “counting rosary” to add up her daily sacrifices. As a child, St. Teresa of Avila tried to run away with her little brother to become a martyr. Some saints, as St. Philip Benizi, are even reported as abstaining from breast-feeding on certain penitential days!
Linking the sacrifice with something tangible (while at the same time emphasizing the need to hide one’s sacrifices) can be helpful. Some families make little slips of paper to represent a Mass, Communion, sacrifice, etc. The child, on performing a good work, puts the appropriate paper in a basket, to be added up after a certain time for a spiritual bouquet for another or some intention. The Eucharistic Crusade, which the SSPX continues, does something similar with its treasure sheets.
“Mortification,” says Fr. Sattler, “should be a commonplace in the Catholic home. Friday abstinence, little Lenten mortifications, and tiny voluntary sacrifices offered to God, develop a self-control in the child which will carry over for life.”[4] A few examples of little sacrifices are the following:[5]
Beyond exercising oneself in unselfishness through acts of self-denial, the general ambiance of the home is an enormous factor in teaching children to give of themselves. Chaos in the home begets selfishness, while order repels it. Fr. Sattler remarks:
Well-ordered home life demands discipline in many matters. Such home discipline should prepare the way for the practice of chastity, which also demands discipline particularly in the realm of thought and imagination. This mental discipline is taught better by direction than by repression. If a child is expected to apply himself diligently to his studies without daydreaming; to perform duties suitable to his age; to stick to a job until it is finished–he will learn this necessary discipline of thought and imagination.[6]
These last comments bring up a final factor in teaching unselfishness: perseverance to obtain the arduous good. Everything of value in this life requires effort, does not give immediate gratification, and is not glamorous or exciting in the worldly sense; superficial things, on the other hand, ask no effort, give immediate pleasure, but fade without enriching. Heaven itself, the ultimate “valuable,” is only attained by being faithful to God to the end of one’s life.
Children who have a habit of self-denial will much more easily develop a good work ethic, strive for the best in all they do, and take interest in what perdures rather than what passes. Rudolf Allers gives this advice to parents along these lines: “Instead of encouraging the tendency toward the superficial and shallow, we ought to try to arouse the slumbering interest of the adolescent in things intellectual.”[7] An adolescent who has a yearning for increasing his knowledge, culture, and union with God–and all of these are tough work–is set for great things as an adult. But such a teenager is rarely found these days.
Affection and Parent-Teenager Rapport
Dysfunctional families produce dysfunctional children, and all of parents’ efforts to teach their children to be unselfish will be in vain if their children are not loved. Being unselfish is to give up oneself for something greater. If the sunshine of confidence and security smiles down on a child’s world, the child will relinquish self with fearless aplomb. Otherwise, the psychological courage required for such an idealistic leap is well-nigh impossible.
Rev. Fr. Yves le Roux emphasizes this need for parental affection:
The family is a microcosm in which man learns how to live. Later he will reproduce what he has received, and what he did not receive will be almost impossible for him to receive later unless he comes to belong to a family again, such as a monastery, seminary, or school (although these are less of a family). He could also receive it by undergoing some trial, but even this trial must be something truly hard, which will oblige him to face reality. But if it happens, there is a great danger that he will break down. In fact, to be effective, that trial must bring him back into a relationship with some kind of paternity. Nothing, indeed, can replace the family. In a normal family, the children receive affection, and through it their souls receive a deep imprint that gives them balance for their whole life, giving them the ability to judge reality later. On the contrary, it is medically proven that a lack of affection creates some grave psychological problems.[8]
He also makes clear the distinction between affection and consolation. Affection leads to the sacrifice of oneself for the good of the other; consolation gives candy instead of self. Consoling parents dote on their offspring with toys, soccer meets, lush living, and fuzzy feelings; affectionate parents give them their own lives, sharing with their children work, play, prayer, and meals. Consolation disenchants youth and makes them starved for love; affection makes them strong and able to love. Affection is true love based on self-sacrifice; consolation is saccharin sentimentality.
Many parents experience, however, that the changes of the teenage years make it extremely difficult for them to connect with their once innocent and happy-go-lucky child. Keeping teens from quarantining themselves from the family that surrounds them is indispensable for their development. They must remain connected with the family to continue to partake of its benefits, affection being primary.
Following are a few strategies directed to maintaining the rapport that was once so simple and straightforward, but now takes much more effort:
Courage!
The success of an adult is directly proportional to the spiritual and psychological maturity he achieved in the years leading up to adulthood. This personal development is ultimately accomplished by practiced self-denial, no doubt a tall order for our wounded, egotistical nature. Brave parents will do well to provide the psychological and emotional foundation for acts of self-denial by giving their children true affection and maintaining with them the solid relationship that such affection implies. Having done this, they will find their children generous and even willing to outstrip them in dying to self and living up to God’s plans.
1 Henry V. Sattler, Parents, Children, and the Facts of Life (New York: Image Books, 1956), p.206. This book has recently been republished by Catholic Treasures.
2 See Meg Meeker, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters (New York: Ballantine Books, 2006), p.110ff.
3 Tihamer Toth, Youth and Chastity (Toronto: Garden City Press, 1934), p.63.
4 Ibid., p.8.
5 Cardinal Mercier’s little work “The Practice of Christian Mortification” is highly recommended.
6 Ibid., p.78.
7 Rudolf Allers, Forming Character in Adolescents (Fort Collins, Colorado: Roman Catholic Books, 1940), pp.84-85.
8 Taken from a transcript of a conference given at the 2006 Priests’ Meeting in Winona, Minnesota. The transcript appeared in the July, 2006 Angelus. Fr. le Roux’s Rector’s letter of January, 2004, (http://stas.org/publications/letter/2004/January) on “Problems of Disaffection” is also germane to this subject.
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