The Vintage Catholic Housewife

I have just updated this Organic Mothering blog with a new image of the Madonna and Child, which features the Proverbs 31:18 verse, Her lamp shall not be put out in the night. I have also changed the subtitle to the vintage catholic housewife. In general, a new look is always refreshing. In particular, I have decided to pull together the various themes of this blog and focus in on the time period from the 1920s, up till about 1965.

While no era in history is perfect, there are certain distinguishing features of those decades which I think are desirable and applicable to contemporary life. Might I even say, profoundly inspirational. We can never go back to those bygone days, and in many respects we would not wish to. Yet history exists for us to learn from, does it not? That's what we always heard in school, and that's one area where the truth has been told.

I chose the 1920s as the starting point, because this decade is seen by historians as the beginning of our Modern America. While there is much that is appealing in prior eras, such as in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie days, the 1920s and forward are accessible in a way that earlier times are not. I closed the timetable with 1965, because that was the last year of the Second Vatican Council, after which the Church was plunged into a confusion and disarray from which she has not fully recovered. It's also before certain radical components of feminism spun into full throttle.

But why on earth, you may be wondering, did I choose to use the word housewife? Well, it works better with the word vintage, for one. And it's kind of fun at this point in Post Modern America to use such an old-fashioned term. Homemaker is truly more lovely and accurate, but if I'm going to get into a certain mindset, I think it's advantageous to use the terms that conjure those retro images in the imagination.

I think that those traditional ways of living and worshiping from 1920s to early 1960s America were much inspired by French Catholics, so do not despair that I am taking leave of la joie de vivre. Far from it. I believe it will all come together most nicely. So welcome to my vintage Catholic housewife bubble!

Homeschooling & Parental Authority

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204740904577196931457473816
Why French Parents Are Superior by Pamela Druckerman

I have spent a lot of time on homeschooling forums and have noticed a recurrent theme. Mothers are exhausted from fighting their children about doing lessons, so they decide to give up and try unschooling. Some unschoolers report more peaceful homes as a result, while others do not. Many times I have read about unschooling parents whose children say they hate them. Is unschooling, in the long run, truly a good antidote for rebellion in children?


Unschooling can mean different things to different people, and there is a wide spectrum regarding how much freedom children are given to make their own choices and decisions. Whether this method of homeschooling works or not depends upon who you ask. But let's just look at this question of educational lessons and children who don't wish to do them. Is it because the curriculum is boring or too easy? Is it because the child is having difficulty understanding the material? Is it because the mother herself is stressed out about it, so it isn't any fun?

Whatever the details of the resistance, there is a common denominator, which is the root of the resistance itself. Human beings are born with different temperaments, and certainly some kids are more naturally compliant than others. But as I've been saying in the last couple of posts, the core issue is the general abdication of parental authority that has seized Americans. Can you imagine the Ingalls children arguing with Ma about doing their lessons? If you read the Little House on the Prairie series, you know that Ma was kind, loving, and generous with her children. She was also strict by today's standards. Children respected their parents. And Ma and Pa respected their children as persons while at the same time expecting obedience to their authority. Was Laura Ingalls lacking in joy, creativity, or originality as a result? Was her spirit crushed? I think not.

In Chosen and Cherished, Catholic homeschooling mother Kimberly Hahn tells us this:

"How are we to fear the Lord? Psalm 112 gives us the answer: 'Praise the Lord! / Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, / who greatly delights in his commandments!' (Psalm 112:1) Like the psalmist, we worship in reverence and joy: The fear of the Lord links joy to obedience. Our children's obedience gives us a paradigm for our response to our heavenly father. At first they obey from fear of consequences. That is an acceptable motivator for a young child, especially with safety issues involved. However, we look for the mature love of a child who obeys from the heart--to please us, to honor us. This obedience flows from proper respect for us." (emphasis mine)

What a difference this is from the "partnership paradigm" of unschooling! The fear of the Lord is being linked to joy, respect, and obedience. Think about this. Even if in the short term you have a more peaceful relationship with your children because you don't "force" them to do lessons (or brush their teeth, or eat meals with their family at the table, etc...), in the long run you have created an insecure relationship. You have given up the authority given to you by God. We are supposed to role model the Christian fear of the Lord to our children. By learning to obey us, they learn to obey God.

Instead, what we have in America are parents who live in fear of the anger, disappointment, and negative behavior of their children. The bottom line is that however you are teaching your homeschooling lessons, the lessons themselves are ultimately not the problem. The problem is that you have given up your authority, or you never had any in the first place, and your child knows it. The solution is not to stop teaching lessons. If we are going to homeschool, we must be willing to try different approaches and materials until we figure out what will click best, and we have to work at the art of teaching with wisdom, faith, and patience. As Charlotte Mason advocated, develop the habit of obedience in your children and set out a bountiful feast of ideas.

If you read the article Why French Parents Are Superior linked above, you'll get some good ideas on how you can begin to establish your parental authority. It is our responsibility to do so. I am alarmed that many Catholic unschoolers have told me that unschooling is so very Catholic! How? When I hear Christian homeschoolers gushing over the likes of radical unschooling guru Sandra Dodd, it makes me cringe. It's a subtle deception that is simply not in line with the Christian parental vocation. Words like freedom, peace, and joy are being used to tempt parents away from doing the right thing. In fact, it bears a disturbing resemblance to the New Age deception that I have also been writing about.