The church should support family development in every respect. But is this really the case? Let’s take a closer look at this from the perspective of a community called domestic church. It sounds encouraging. It suggests drawing closer to God at home, with the whole family. But what does this look like in practice? Of course, it doesn’t have to be always like I’ve described. These are just my observations.
In practice, even the smallest children are separated from their parents during the meetings. What if the mother is feeding and the baby cries? The crying is disturbing. The advice heard at the meeting was: pump milk, leave the baby with grandparents or a caregiver. Older children run around, make noise, want to play – that’s also disturbing. In the experience of someone I know, they were locked in another room, where they were supposed to sit together and engage in activities without disturbing the adults. A few times during the meeting, an adult stopped by. The adult now remembers this time fondly; he didn’t like it. The children were of different ages, not all liked each other, and the older ones didn’t want to care for the younger ones.
Apart from the monthly meetings and retreats, which I touched on in my previous post, how much time per month is taken up by all the obligations: daily reading of the Holy Scripture, daily separate prayer for spouses, daily prayer for spouses together, daily prayer as a family, meetings in circles, retreats, days of recollection, and even Sunday, if not more frequent, Holy Mass? If you add it up, it’s a lot. On top of that, as in any family, everyone has to go to work, has to take care of the house (shopping, cleaning, laundry, cooking), children often want extra activities or require therapy, which is necessary, and family gatherings would also be appropriate, at least occasionally. These days, maybe someone works two jobs, otherwise the family can’t cope. How much time, apart from church, do we have left to spend together as productively as the children need? Not much. When you add up these responsibilities, there’s even less. I have nothing against going to church or children’s religious education, but we shouldn’t throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Isn’t the church expecting too much here? Okay, congregations are voluntary—for adults, because this particular one isn’t for children. Priests, detached from normal life, work, children, and household responsibilities, often have no idea what they require. What a negative impact such congregations have on young people under the guise of a desire to do good and develop spiritually.
Should teenagers or young children really be forced into this? It goes beyond normal religious upbringing. Children need time with their parents, alone. Is it always good to talk about children’s problems with other people, essentially random people with different professions and skills? If there are any problems, isn’t it better to go to a specialist? Instead of dwelling on them and listening to advice, not necessarily good advice, from others? I understand that the intentions may be good, but the consequences can unfortunately be disastrous. As parents, we should know what’s best for our children. If a child gets sick, do we seek help from a tailor, a cashier, or anyone else? We don’t seek help from a doctor. This isn’t about belittling anyone, it’s about who has the right skills and whether parents are truly telling the whole story at such meetings, or trying to whitewash themselves. After all, no one wants to speak ill of themselves, because what people will say, what a priest (who has no clue about raising their own children) will say? How can you offer advice without knowing the full story? We can support each other, but we know how it ends – someone says they should do this or that, and that’s okay. It might work for their child, but it won’t necessarily work for mine. This puts pressure on the group. I’d also like to add that perhaps it would be better to simply dedicate time to the children, talk to them, get to know them, and then perhaps fewer problems would arise.
Furthermore, should meetings aimed at spiritual development and mutual support regularly address topics related to children or families and what happened there? Should that be their goal? Probably not. If they’re supposed to bring people closer to God, then we should talk about God, what He teaches, and how to relate it to our reality. Perhaps how to encourage others to faith, because we certainly don’t do that through force. Force generally achieves the opposite of the intended effect, especially in such a delicate matter as faith. There would truly be something to talk about if we spoke only about God and what He expects from us. By speaking about this, everyone could relate it to their own situation in their heart, and ask aloud if, for example, they understand a given issue correctly. This would deepen their theological and religious knowledge, their faith… but that’s not the point.