Holding on to innocence

Amy Welborn asks this important question on her blog today.

I was struck by their enthusiasm and openness, and I have to wonder, as I often do when I see children of this age group…what happens? It really only takes a year or two more, and by eighth grade, if not sooner, half of these kids will be worldly, knowing cynics, more closed than open to what anything would like to tell them….when I speak of a desire to preserve innocence or the integrity of childhood and youth, this is what I’m talking about. It’s less about what they know than about their stance towards the world (although the two are probably interconnected, or perhaps not.). Youth is supposed to be about open-mindedness and growth. What happens to these kids that makes them cynically close in on themselves and shut out the broader world by the time they’re 13?

I’ve got a couple of responses on that thread but I’d like to share some of my experiences here. I lost my innocence by attending school. It doesn’t matter that it was a Catholic School or that my mother was sending me there at great expense. The school and its environment choked out of me the early innocence and pure faith that I had had as a young child and I didn’t get that faith back until I was in my 30s and then after great difficulty and hardship.

You just can’t be immersed in your equally immature peer group that long without losing that innocence. Couple that with dissident and heretical teachings i.e. “It’s Ok to have sex outside of marriage as long as you are committed to each other.” (uh right. A brother at my Catholic High School told me that one in religion class one day,) and you have the recipe for cynicism.

And this is why we chose to homeschool folks.

That’s not to say that every child that attends an institutional school is doomed. One of my very good friends attended public high school and she has always been a woman of deep faith and exudes a pure faith and innocence. Her secret? Her mom took her to mass everyday. I can see that most of my nieces and nephews are growing into Godly young men and women and all of them have attended school as well. This is a tribute to the faithfulness and leadership of their parents.

But my mom was faithful, and she was a wonderful example, and I still went the other way. My husband will say the same thing about his experience. So for us the only answer was to hold those children close at home and introduce them to the peer groups, but not immerse them in it.

Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

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