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Bloggers

Meet the Faith & Family bloggers. We invite you to join us in encouraging and helping the Faith & Family community grow in faith!

Danielle Bean

Danielle Bean
Danielle Bean, a mother of eight, is Editorial Director of Faith & Family. She is author of My Cup of Tea, Mom to Mom, Day to Day, and most recently Small Steps for Catholic Moms. Though she once struggled to separate her life and her work, the two …
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Rachel Balducci

Rachel Balducci
Rachel Balducci is married to Paul and they are the parents of five lively boys and one precious baby girl. She is the author of How Do You Tuck In A Superhero?, and is a newspaper columnist for the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia. For the past four years, she has …
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Lisa Hendey

Lisa Hendey
Lisa Hendey is the founder and editor of CatholicMom.com, a Catholic web site focusing on the Catholic faith, Catholic parenting and family life, and Catholic cultural topics. Most recently she has authored The Handbook for Catholic Moms. Lisa is also employed as webmaster for her parish web sites. …
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Arwen Mosher

Arwen Mosher
Arwen Mosher lives in southeastern Michigan with her husband Bryan and their young children Camilla and Blaise. She has a bachelor's degree in theology. She dreads laundry, craves sleep, loves to read novels and do logic puzzles, and can't live without tea. Her personal blog site is ABC Family. …
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Rebecca Teti

Rebecca Teti
Rebecca Teti is married to Dennis and has four children (3 boys, 1 girl) who -- like yours no doubt -- are pious and kind, gorgeous, and can spin flax into gold. A Washington, DC, native, she converted to Catholicism while an undergrad at the U. Dallas, where she double-majored in …
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Robyn Lee

Robyn Lee
Robyn Lee is the managing editor of Faith & Family magazine. She is (yikes!) an almost 30 year-old, single lady, living in Connecticut with her two cousins in a small bungalow-style kit house built by her great uncle in the 1950s. She also conveniently lives next door to her sister, brother-in-law …
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Hallie Lord

Hallie Lord
Hallie Lord married her dashing husband, Dan, in the fall of 2001 (the same year, coincidentally, that she joyfully converted to the Catholic faith). They now happily reside in the deep South with their two energetic boys and two very sassy girls. In her *ample* spare time, Hallie enjoys cheap wine, …
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Fr. John Bartunek, LC

Fr. John Bartunek, LC

Fr John Bartunek, LC, STL, received his BA in History from Stanford University in 1990, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He comes from an evangelical Christian background and became a member of the Catholic Church in 1991. After college he worked as a high school history teacher, drama director, and …
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Guest Bloggers

Kate Lloyd

Kate Lloyd
Kate Lloyd is a rising senior, and a political science major at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire. While not in school, she lives in Whitehall PA, with her mom, dad, five sisters and little brother. She needs someone to write a piece about how it's possible to …
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Elizabeth Foss

Elizabeth Foss
Elizabeth Foss, an award winning columnist for the Arlington Catholic Herald, published her first book, Real Learning: Education in the Heart of My Home in 2003. The book is now in its third printing. Her popular blog, In the Heart of My Home is a source of inspiration and support for Catholic women …
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More on Moms and Mini-Men

Ask a Priest vol. 16

Further Thoughts on Last Week’s Question:

Q: I am a mom of a 14 year old son. He talks quite a bit with his dad about sports and school and such, but clams up with me. I don’t have this problem with my two older daughters. I would love to help encourage him to grow in his faith life, but am I being unrealistic? Should a mom expect a more “distant” faith relationship with her son?

In Part I of the answer to this excellent question, we reviewed a fundamental reality: your teenage boy doesn’t feel like a teenager, he feels like a man.  You have to keep telling yourself this, because it isn’t obvious to you.  And you need to prepare yourself to deal with the consequences, which can be painful for you.  Watching your children grow up (i.e., gradually need you less and less) is bittersweet.  But for now, he still needs you greatly.  He needs your inspiration.

Part II: Inspiring Your Mini-Man

Now we are ready to face the answer to your question, which is both “no” and “yes.”  No, you are not being unrealistic by desiring to encourage his faith life. But yes, moms should, in general (again, it’s hard to generalize…) expect that their mini-men will need more space, more distance from the mothering of the past ion this areas too as they start to spread their masculine wings.  The crux of the dilemma has to do with how you encourage his faith.  This will sound strange, but stick with me here.  What mom needs to do with her mini-man is similar to what she did with dad back at the beginning of their romance.  Mom needs to work indirectly to inspire her teenage boys, not directly to instruct and mold them.

This can happen in two ways. First, mom needs to strive by her example to be the kind of woman that she wants her son to be attracted to later (when marriage time comes along).  When Tony sees mom look her best when she goes to Mass, that says a lot to him. When he sees her kneel and pray sincerely and humbly before Mass (having arrived a few minutes early), he sees the beauty of piety.

When mom (or dad) asks the children what they thought of the homily on Sunday, and then really listens to what they have to say, responding with, “That’s a good point; I didn’t think of that,” instead of correcting them with a “Boy, you really missed the point …”, then Tony begins to see that the faith is not just something that parents force on their kids, but something capable of standing up to his own lively mind. When mom puts some flowers on Tony’s dresser in honor of his baptismal anniversary, without saying anything about it, she tells him that his faith life is something attractive to a woman, which links it, subconsciously, to his emerging sense of masculinity.  Inspire your mini-man instead of instructing him.

Second, mom needs to give her teenage boy a chance to act like the man he feels he is becoming. She can allow or invite him to do things, to take on responsibilities, to make a contribution instead of just receiving guidance, help, and direction from mom.  This is especially helpful if you do it indirectly.

“Tony, I am so frazzled right now, I just have way too many things to do this weekend and I don’t know how I am going to make it work. Can you help me out?” 

This approach can trigger his noble side, his desire to come to the rescue of the fair maiden who needs the benefit of his strength. It’s a very different approach from saying, “Tony, I am pulling my hair out here.  Will you PLEASE take out the garbage like you’re supposed to?!?!”

A corollary of this has to do with the issue of praise. The mini-man may be awkward and clumsy during these transition years, but he needs your praise anyway. He needs your smile and delight to shine on his activity – whether chores, debate club, or baseball. Letting him contribute and giving him praise doesn’t touch his faith life immediately, but it creates space in your relationship which will allow him, eventually, to feel comfortable conversing with you and including you in his new stage of life. It shows him that you recognize that he is no longer just a boy. So, he will be more likely to listen to your wisdom when you share it. (But when you share it and he seems not to hear it – the clamming up moments – just be humble; he hears more than he lets on.)

For the third time, I repeat: it is hard to generalize in the area of mother-son relationships, but I hope that these reflections will give you some ideas to think about, and some tactics to try.  God bless you!

Do you have a question for Fr. John? Leave it in the comments here or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)!


Comments

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Hi,
I feel for you.  I have an 11 year old who I have prided myself with how I have always been close to him.  He definitely in the past year seems to respond more to his father than me.  The only advice I can give is just keep being strong for him.  You truly are his guide (mom’s are a different breed).  The boys emotions are a rollercoaster and it wreaks havoc with all that make sense.  Keep being positive, asking questions and keeping your cool when you want to scream.  Remember we are raising someone who will someday be a husband and how we interact with them is what they probably will look for in a woman.  Best of luck to you and God Bless.


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