Preparing Sons: Chapter 8 - Part One

Whew!  Now that we broke free of the chapter on "Perfectly Harmless Activities that Steve Doesn't Want His Family to Do"  we arrive at the beginning of the chapters on how Steven thinks people should raise sons divided into age groups.    The first age group he covers is three to six years of age.

 Not surprisingly, this leaves me with a few questions right off the bat.  Are children aged 0-2 years solely the domain of the mother or are the details of child rearing before age 3 the same for boys and girls?

I hope it's the latter.  My husband has been very involved with our son since the day he was born.  I was so sick after Jack was born that I could only see him for an hour or so every day before I'd be exhausted and having my blood pressure skyrocket again.  My husband roomed-in with me in the hospital on a tiny couch and visited Jack three to four times a day.   When Jack came home, he was a very labor-intensive baby because of his medical needs - although thankfully he's always been a very easy baby personality-wise - so my husband cared for him from when he got home from work until he went to bed.  He also did the first morning feed with Jack and prepped his bottles.   Jack's much less labor-intensive now, but my husband has continued spending a lot of time caring for Jack.  This is good for both my husband and my son - and it gives me a break from childcare and taking care of the house.

The chapter is pretty long, so this post is going to cover the first two topics: religious education/training and doing projects with your son. 

The section on "Salvation" is by far the longest one in the chapter - and that's a weird idea for me - but not for my usual issues around being saved.  Cradle Catholics are usually baptized in infancy and that's the only sacrament they receive until they are in 1st-2nd grade.  In the intervening seven or eight years, the kids are learning how to be good human beings.    Parents are working on issues like "Use your words, not your hands (or teeth) when you are angry" or "When you pushed Johnny, he got hurt and felt sad."  Parents are demonstrating why lying is wrong, why we should respect each other and why we should respect other people's property.   Yeah, most little Catholics will pick up a few prayers along the way and are probably hearing sanitized versions of Bible stories, but the major gist of faith formation during this time is helping kids move beyond the age-appropriate self-centered viewpoint of a small child into a small human who thinks about how actions affect others.

Here's Steve's starting point on salvation:

Most of my children have come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior around the ages of 5 and 6. Be careful not to push a child or force him towards salvation in any way. For your child to recite a Salvation prayer without a change of heart does no one any good. (pg. 105)

Duly noted.  Look, the only two examples I can think of from my life of parents forcing their kids to do anything involving religion is 1) dragging pre-teens and teenagers to Mass every Sunday and 2) requiring their teenagers to get confirmed. 

My parents expected us to attend Mass every Sunday while we lived at home.  Looking back, this wasn't about religion nearly as much as it was about having one family event a week.  Well, that and teaching my youngest brother that choosing to stay out past curfew on Saturday night was not an acceptable reason to skip out on Sunday requirements.  Of course, my brother had the last laugh.  One Sunday morning after a long Saturday night, he skipped breakfast and passed out cold just before the Liturgy of the Eucharist began.  Since he was sitting in the front row of seats that didn't have a railing in front, he did a header onto tile stairs.  The edge of the step hit him right between the eyebrows and split the area right above his nose down to the skull.    That's also how we met an attending doctor whose graduate stipend work including socializing Koko the gorilla.....but that's another story.  Either way, I doubt that attending Mass once a week was a real hardship for any of us. 

Forcing teenagers to get confirmed, on the other hand, lead to one huge mess at my parish.  Our home parish was huge.  I was in a Confirmation class with 55 other sophomores.   Of the 55 teenagers, exactly five of us were there by personal choice.   Hell, even my twin sister was there under parental dictates.   The  first-time instructor was completely overwhelmed.   In a class that was supposed to be preparing us to be adult members of the Catholic church, we had lost the "privileges" of using writing utensils and sitting on chairs by the end of the second week.    Week three's class involved sitting on risers in a music/utility room listening to the instructor read a children's book on St. Francis of Assisi.  Eventually, I joined my best friend and another girl in a "book club" where we worked our way through the catechism on Confirmation and discussed what we thought the Sacrament meant. 

The major difference between my two stories and Steven Maxwell's exhortation is the age of the people involved.  Life with pre-teens and teens is dragging reluctant teens to do things that are "good for them" because they are in a very peer-focused period of life.  Kindergartners are completely different critters - and anyone who feels like coercing their kid into a salvation event at that age needs to take several developmental psychology classes.

The next story is Jesse Maxwell's salvation story.   The story manages to be sweet and completely exasperating at the same time.  It's adorably sweet because Jesse's a normal elementary school kid and exasperating because Steven Maxwell is involved:

Six year old Jesse was our most recent child to be saved. He had been mentioning for several months that the Lord was talking to him about salvation. Each time he came to me, I told him that that was great, and we could talk about it when he was ready. I wanted to make sure this wasn't "false labor." I waited until he couldn't be put off any longer. Finally, he came to me and said, " Dad, I really want to talk to you about being saved. Can we talk about it now?" I said we would discuss it after supper.(pg. 106)

Steven Maxwell gives me whiplash - and not only in "Preparing Sons to Provide for Single Income Families".  The Maxwell family LOVES creating cold-calling conversion events - but when a kid in the family shows signs of readiness for being born again, feet dragging commences.   I don't understand why Maxwell dawdles so long on this.  In the Catholic Church, kids have to have reached the "Age of Reason" (usually around age 7) before receiving the Eucharist.  The rationale is that kids have to have reached a certain level of cognitive and moral development before they can have a basic understanding of what the Eucharist is and why it is important.    Maybe Steven Maxwell is waiting for a similar developmental milestone to be passed - but how would he know if he's not talking to Jesse about salvation one-on one?   

I'm also confused about who is the gatekeeper for salvation - Jesus or Steven Maxwell?  If Jesus is telling Jesse Maxwell that it's time for him to be saved, why is Steven Maxwell getting in the way?  I thought that being saved was one of those things that people can do one-on-one with Jesus anyway.  It's surreal to me because Maxwell has essentially re-created the ecclesiastical  governance found in Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Episcopal Churches in himself without the oversight and appeals process available in those denominations.

We went down into my office and closed the door. I asked Jesse a number of questions to determine if you really understood what the Lord has done for him. Did he understand sin and the consequences of it? Did he understand the Cure for sin? Was he able to earn salvation in any way? After I was satisfied he had a good comprehension of salvation, I asked him to go to his room and pray about whether he really wanted to become a Christian. He came back eight minutes later and said that he was sure.(pg. 106)

In this section, the capitalization of "the Cure" is from the book.  Every time I read it, the song "Friday I'm in Love" gets stuck in my head....followed immediately by a bunch of songs from "The Clash" because my dyslexia causes those two bands to get mixed up in my head.   Oddly enough, the Clash's "Do I Stay or Do I Go?" is apropos for this section. 

I wish Maxwell had included Jesse's answers to the first two questions.  The idea of an "Age of Reason" in my church includes the modern understanding that early elementary school kids are in a very concrete stage of moral decision making.  The level of understanding that a kid is supposed to have prior to receiving the Eucharist is that they can label a fairly cut-and-dry moral situation that they've been exposed to before as being moral/good or immoral/bad.   An example would be something like "Bob wants to play on the swing set, but all of the swings are full.  Should Bob push a small child off a swing so Bob can swing?" 

This also recognizes that kids will often default to very black-and-white thinking about more complicated moral situations like "Franz's family is starving.  He walks by a bakery that has lots of bread in the window.  Should he steal the bread?"  For early elementary school kids, they will often answer that Franz shouldn't steal the bread because stealing is wrong; they are too young to have a sense that stealing bread to save lives may be moral.

Since Jesse is allowed to be saved at the end of this, he must have answered "No" to "Can you earn salvation in any way?" - but my sense of humor wonders what would have happened if he had answered "Yes.  You have to convince your dad you are ready to be saved!"  :-P

I love the idea of a six year old praying really hard for eight minutes while deciding to become a Christian.   Absolutely sweet little guy!

I then asked if he liked people telling him what to do. He said, " No." I explain that salvation meant Jesus becoming his boss. I ask Jesse to go pray again about whether he really was willing to make Jesus his boss. He went away and came back four minutes later. " Yes!" He wanted Jesus to be his boss. I asked whether he would like to have Mom with us when he prayed, and he thought that would be a good idea. We went upstairs to the living room and knelt at the sofa. I prayed for him, then let him in prayer. At that moment, Jesse Maxwell became a child of God. (pg. 106)

*giggles*

Imagine Jesse's utter desolation when he realized that his parents were still able to order him around!  He had gone through all that work to make Jesus his boss only to find out that Jesus subcontracted the work!

Be very careful using metaphors with small children; they are not the best at abstract thinking at age six. 

The last section is on doing projects and chores for kids.  Surprisingly, Maxwell and I are on the same page with this one.   My parents expected us to pitch in around the house in an age-appropriate manner starting from.... well, I don't remember not being expected to pick up my own toys and put dirty laundry in a hamper so I'm assuming we started as toddlers.  My little guy is too young to do anything around the house yet - but I already explain to him that he helps me out when I'm doing chores by either playing quietly by himself or telling me stories - which is what I call when he babbles to me while I clean the kitchen.  :-)

This next story sounds like something I did with my parents when we were kids:

This morning well our family was over working at Nathan's house, six-year-old Jesse spent the longest I'm picking up sticks in the yard and bringing them to me. He was so pleased to be able to help, and he was performing and needed to ask. One of my jobs was to break the sticks up into small pieces for the trash bag. He loves seeing a pile of sticks need to grow before me. We had great " fun." Joseph and John, the older now, we're also over there glad fully working with us. (pg.108-109)

Lots of CP/QF bloggers discuss endlessly the importance of teaching kids to have a good work ethic - and my two-cents is the best way to do that is to working hard and willingly yourself and have the kids join in as they are old enough.   My parents kept an eye on our elderly neighbors and did their yard chores.  Looking back, it was never something my parents discussed with us kids.  The people next door were too old to safely mow the lawn, rake leaves, and shovel snow; we were young and healthy so it was only sensible that we took care of their lawns, too.  We were free to complain about taking care of our home yard - but I don't remember ever complaining about taking care of Vivian's yard next door.   Complaining about that would have been insulting to her - and a sign of severe ingratitude for the fact that we were healthy and strong. 

We also learned by listening to our parents the importance of allowing people we helped to keep their pride.  Vivian was always extremely thankful that we cared for her lawn - and we kids always pointed out that raking her lawn gave us HUGE leaf piles to play in and snow for snowball fights.  As we outgrew "playing" as an excuse, we shifted to "I need more exercise" or "it's good cardio-training for soccer".

Fun is fun - and work can be fun, too.  I completely disagree with Maxwell's theory that the only way people will find working fun is if they don't have access to entertainment like TV, movies or fiction to read.   I spent several hours yesterday planting twelve fruit trees around our yard.  Raising perennial fruit crops is a lot of work, but it's a work that I find deeply satisfying and that increases the amount of fruit my household eats.  Ditto for raising chickens, planting a vegetable garden or crocheting dish towels.

Maxwell and I may be on the same page, but he includes an anecdote about his impatience with his kids in a "Oopsie" lightweight manner that is completely different from his tone in discussing his wife or children's foibles:

I have discovered that I get more than I bargained for when I have young children helping me on projects. If the project has any degree of difficulty, I have the opportunity to work on my character! You see, I become impatient when trying to answer a million questions while concentrating on my work. Little boys ask questions like," Daddy, why did you break that bolt off?" or, " Why can't we do it this way?" If I don't mentally prepare for the fact that the task will take longer with my son's participation, I will become frustrated. Then, instead of having a wonderful shared time, we are both unhappy. Therefore, make sure you begin a project with proper expectations. (pg. 109)

Ok, Steven.  You find it frustrating when you have to multitask with small children around.  Welcome to adulthood, dude.

Pause for a moment and imagine what Teri's life must be like while you were off at work.  She was trying to homeschool the older kids, wrangle the younger kids and keep up a home....with little voices chiming in their two cents all_the_time.   If "Why did you break that bolt off?" is annoying, imagine "why did you break that cup?", "why are we having eggs for breakfast?", "why can't I go outside?" and three million other questions every day. 

Makes having a kid underfoot while repairing something around the house take on a different light....

This last story is terrifying:

A family we know shared with us how one of their young sons stuck a drill up his younger brother's nose and pulled the trigger. The mom said she had never seen anything bleed so profusely. Please do not underestimate your child's ability to do something he shouldn't. Exercise much caution. (pg. 110)

Small children are extremely bad at judging relative risks.   They have no life experience and are still equally connected between fantasy and reality.   Small children and hand tools are a bit risky even under adult supervision - but small children should never ever be left near power tools even with supervision.    My dad directs plays for local high schools so we spent lots of Saturdays playing in the seating section of the auditorium while Dad and high school students built set on the stage.   Notice the clear spatial division between the kids and the power tools; the tools were located on a raised stage that we were not allowed to be on (or even the steps up to the stage) unless Dad told us we could come up.  We were allowed to come up once all the tools were secured OR if Dad needed us to sit on a piece of lumber to act as a counterweight while he was cutting it. 

Hopefully, the drill only had a short bit for driving screws on it.  That can mess up the soft tissue in the nose - but a longer bit could start ripping into the internal bony structures in the sinuses - and that's a whole new level of nasty complications......