March 25, 2013 – Catechism 2221 – 2231

Several thoughts on these paragraphs.  With it speaking about the extremely important role that parents have in educating their children it impossible to not mention the idea of home schooling.  It is on our minds for many reasons, but mainly because we see school systems that are dysfunctional and heading in a direction of teaching children things that we really don’t believe are true.  It would become a constant reeducation of our children every night they come home and completely confusing for them.

Also, when you look at the home as being the first and best teacher of children, it is important that they learn from the modeling of their parents.  That includes “self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery”.  What this tells me is that many children and getting a very bad education at home because our world is full of teaching people that they do not need self-denial or self-mastery.  Many 20 and 30 something’s have been taught that whatever feels good is good.  This is the generation having children now, and those children are learning that self-denial and self-mastery don’t exist.  They see mom and dad getting whatever they want, so they want whatever they want.  This little cycle leads to them getting whatever they want because what the parent wants is peace and quiet, so they give in and the problem worsens.

When the world teaches that self-denial is wrong and that self-mastery is old fashioned because you should do and believe whatever you want, the home is supposed to be a place where the child learns that the world is wrong.  When those lessons are not taught in the home because the parents are victims of a world theology of materialism and relativism, the children come out of the home with no education in any proper sense.  That really makes you worry about the future of our country and our world.