Category Archives: Moms and Motherhood

May 13, 2013 · 12:00 am

Moms Need Mentors Too

“I want my Mom!” No, that wasn’t the wail of a four-year- old. . . . It was the inner wail of a young mom with a two-week-old baby, two toddlers under three, and a husband heading out the door for an unavoidable business trip. For the first time in my motherhood, I had more children than hands and felt barely able to take care of myself, much less three very wonderful, but very dependent, children.

My mom, unfortunately, left the week before—headed home 542 miles away to her own family, my dad and my eight younger siblings. My mom needed to be home. I desperately wanted her with me.

It was a lonely moment.

But in my loneliness, I prayed. I asked God to help me find a fellow mom to learn from and lean on. I hoped for a friend, but a wise friend, one whose footsteps I might follow on this journey of faith called ‘motherhood.’ God provided, all in His perfect time. I met an older mom who gently shepherded me through many a low point, sharing encouragement, wisdom, and, most powerfully, her gift of faith. At two other critical junctures in my life, additional “mentor moms” stepped forward, blessing me with perspective, encouragement, and practical help.

I didn’t have a label for these important women—I just knew I was grateful for their friendship and prayerful encouragement. They (as well as my own mom) made a tremendous difference to my mothering and my own spiritual growth.

A Heartfelt Need

Recently, I asked some blogger friends to pose these questions to their Catholic-mommy readers: “Would you be interested in a mentoring relationship with an older mom, and, if so, what qualities would you look for?”

The floodgates opened.

Mother after young mother posted a reply. Honest, emotional, and hungry, they shared how lonely and difficult motherhood can be. Our fast-moving consumer culture under-appreciates the intangible value of shaping a child’s heart and soul—and these mothers feel keenly that lack of support. In addition, these were Catholic moms, committed not only to raising their children well in secular terms, but also to raising them right in the eyes of God.

They need mentor moms. One young mom, Jenny, put it simply: “I would just love to have someone in real life to whom I could go to with questions or just for encouragement during rough times.” Patrice, a Catholic writer and mother, values a mentor’s sense of perspective and hope: “They can show me that I will live through whatever life stage I’m currently going through with my children.” Emily, an artist and teacher, remembers how overwhelming life seemed as a first-time mom. “In the beginning I was completely sleep-deprived and I just needed to have someone visit me and talk, maybe bring a meal and care about what was going on.” Mary Beth hopes for “someone who is . . . a few steps ahead on the journey of motherhood, someone willing to share wisdom they’ve gained on this journey, [and] who is faith-filled, encouraging, and has a bit of time.” Kate Wicker, a popular blogger whose writing encourages moms daily, summed it up: “What so many of us long for is maternal empathy.”

These moms yearn for basic mothering support, but within the rich context of their lives as Catholic mothers. Yes, they need practical help, but, as Emily says, “combined with prayer and spiritual wisdom.” For a mom like Christine, a mentor mom would build on the foundation laid by her own mother. “My mom was my first and greatest mentor. She shared with me her love for God and our Catholic faith.”

Very few women, though, seem to have their own moms, sisters, or grandmothers nearby. Even those who do, Antonina points out, don’t necessarily find support for a faithful Catholic life. ”We are either too far away from family or have made lifestyle choices that differ dramatically from their experiences, i.e. faith, home schooling, parenting.” Women who were mothered poorly, were not raised Catholic, or whose extended families embrace cafeteria-style Catholicism feel the need for a Catholic mentor mom most acutely. Tosha’s experience is typical: “My generation needs mentor moms! Many of us grew up in broken homes. Our mothers did not pass down any of the ‘female arts’ and homemaking skills that they took for granted. We are left with the Church to guide us and reading about raising a godly family in books and on blogs.”

Divorced Catholic moms face similar struggles—plus more. Lisa Duffy, who ministers to divorced Catholics through her excellent website (www.divorcedcatholic .com), finds that divorced Catholic moms want “what married mothers want . . . to be accepted, not judged, and loved. To not be excluded simply because they are divorced, to not be judged (because oftentimes they have fought valiantly to save their marriage and are divorced against their will), and for other women to be genuinely friendly to them, to listen patiently to them without having answers. Just to be interested and compassionate.”

Today’s young women struggle to raise not only healthy families, but also holy families anchored in Catholicism. They want to know how to:

● love their husbands and children more deeply and sacrificially

● pray and pass on the faith to their children

● raise happy, balanced children

● live the Church’s teachings on marriage and sexuality

● accept their trials, struggles, and mistakes without discouragement or resentment

● become holy, peace-filled moms

They are looking for something akin to spiritual mothering.

A Scriptural Solution: Titus 2:3–5

Elizabeth Foss, a mother of nine and an award-winning blogger, believes that mentoring “re-creates” the extended family culture, allowing experienced moms to pass on the vision, skills, and faith at the heart of Catholic motherhood. It is spiritual motherhood, rooted in Scripture: “Older women . . . are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, and submissive to their husbands, that the word of God may not be discredited” (Tit. 2:3–5).

In addition, Elizabeth points out, mentoring younger moms is a practical way to build the culture of life, “helping moms create strong families that will nurture” life. Emily’s situation provides a case in point: “I want to have a second child. Yet without support, I am scared.” Lack of support for motherhood creates a ripple effect across the lives of women and their families.

So, if younger women are eager to learn, are “older women” available to guide them? I turned to experienced moms and asked. Darby, an active parish volunteer, replied: “I would love to be a mentor. I’m a mother of 4 and a soon-to-be first-time grandmother! My youngest is going off to college in the fall. . . . The empty nest is becoming a reality too soon!” Colleen, whose youngest is in college, recalls John Paul II’s teaching that “every woman is a mother whether she is married or single, with children or without.” Genevieve Kineke, author of The Authentic Catholic Woman, agrees. “We’re called to this. . . . Every woman should be assessing her experiences for the wisdom to be gleaned” and shared, when appropriate.

Some mature moms very naturally share their time and wisdom. For others, it’s not so easy. “That is actually one of the biggest challenges,” shares one mom, “to ask seasoned moms, who have their own busy lives, to sacrifice quality time for younger moms.”

Kate Wicker, who writes beautifully about the generous mentors in her own life, sees humility rather than lack of generosity as the limiting factor. “So many of us long to have a sister in Christ to mentor us; yet we see ourselves as unworthy of ministering to other moms.” Jenn, whose five children range from 2 to 14, interpreted her own loneliness as God’s nudge to serve moms foundering in isolation. “Instead of answering my pleas directly, God has [given me] a passion for assisting other women so they don’t have to ‘go it alone.’”

Genevieve, a seasoned mentor, reassures us that although “women worry about one more demand on their time . . . I find the blessings, rewards, and joys far outweigh the demands and the energy [spent].”

What Makes Mentoring Successful?

Both experienced moms and newer moms identify similar qualities for a successful mentoring-mom relationship.

Be an Example. Nearly all the younger women were drawn first by the veteran mom’s example. A woman mature in the love of Christ, kind and friendly to others, teaches others constantly—and inspires imitation.

Be Real. Megan, a Texas mother of five, cautions, “Young moms need mentors . . . but they need real ones. [Otherwise] the expectations are too high and these poor young moms are left wondering what is wrong with them.” Elizabeth Foss highlights the need to “share your failures, your foibles, for someone else’s benefit. It’s almost impossible to mentor if you’ve set yourself up on a pedestal as someone who never made a mistake.”

Be Humble. Genevieve Kineke notes, “Others will be put off if we think that we are better, smarter, holier. Besides, it’s not true!” Say “I don’t know” if you don’t. Be willing to learn.

Be Empathetic. Seek to understand—to meet her where she is—and help her grow from there. Listen well. And never dismiss the younger mom’s struggles as insignificant.

Be Patient. It takes time for a relationship to grow and for insights to bear fruit. Helpful friendships may move forward before anyone labels it a “mentoring” relationship.

Be Confident. Elizabeth believes that “women are afraid to mentor because they think, ‘I don’t have it all together.’ Ask yourself instead, ‘What’s worked?’ and reflect on that.”

Instill Confidence. A mentor’s goal is not to micromanage or control, but to encourage and guide. Affirm good intuitions and decisions; help her learn from experience.

Be Charitable. No need to air the dirty laundry (about husband, children, mother-in-law, and other women) under the guise of mentoring.

Be Prudent. Tread delicately when it comes to marriage issues, moral questions, and childhood wounds. Know your limitations— and defer to a priest or professional counselor when needed.

Be Open. Moral issues aside, there may be many solutions to a particular issue. Each family is different. Jenny urges mentors “to be open to new or different ideas. . . and to encourage what works. . . . [Do] not judge, but offer constructive, helpful criticism.”

Be Available. Mentoring does not require a 24/7 commitment, but, like other important relationships, it thrives on availability. It takes “consistent time, energy, and vulnerability,” observes one mom. Agree on frequency and mode of communication (phone, email, in-person).

Be Trustworthy. Like any good friendship, a mentoring relationship requires trust. Keep confidences confidential.

Create the Opportunity

What’s the best way for mentoring relationships to develop? DeAnn, a home schooling mom, suggests “a balance between forming natural relationships with people that you are drawn to and doing so through an organized means provided by a church or home schooling group.” Moms on both sides of the relationship seem to find relationships that develop organically, arising naturally from situations that bring moms of a variety of ages together, most appealing. This requires, however, that moms of all ages “tune in” to both needs and opportunities. Dawn, another homeschooler, observes that “more experienced moms in our group who could be a great source of wisdom . . . tend to ‘hang out’ with each other and not with the younger moms. . . . I think it’s just that they have more in common with each other. They may not be aware that some of us would really like to form mentoring friendships!”

Conversely, younger moms must be careful not to prejudge, ruling out a good mentor in favor of an illusory “perfect” one. “My ideal mentor,” says Melanie, “would be a woman whose personality is similar to mine. . . . On the other hand . . . sometimes a woman who is very different in personality and in life situation may still have much wisdom to dispense. Perhaps the people we wouldn’t choose for ourselves are the very women God would put into our lives to challenge us, to help us grow and change beyond what we can imagine for ourselves.”

So what situations might bring women of all ages together? Anything that meets the practical needs of moms and family life. Elizabeth Foss suggests anyone with a heart for mentoring consider making herself available to new moms. “Bring meals to a woman after a baby is born,” suggests Elizabeth, “and strike up a conversation, telling them ‘I remember when . . .’ Offer perspective.”

Any parish ministry offers possibilities. One pastor let a parishioner teach free aerobics classes at the parish so moms could attend with their kids. Older women came as well, and mentoring relationships were born. Similarly, in another parish, a grandmother who teaches Atrium to four-year-olds lingers to chat with moms as they pick up their kids. They, in turn, seek her wisdom on all sorts of topics.

Sacramental preparation creates prime opportunities for mature moms to connect with younger moms on a sustained basis. In some dioceses, baptism classes for new parents are taught by couples who remain in touch even after the baptism. Similarly, Amy from Minnesota finds that, although she is only 31, “people that have come to me as a ‘mentor’ noticed me mostly because I have volunteered as the confirmation teacher at our parish for 10 years and take those children as my own.”

Sometimes mentoring relationships begin right next door. Maryan remembers living with her husband in military housing, right next door to “a family of 6 kids. . . . Being away from my mom (who would be a natural mentor), I was so consoled to have Joan right next door to answer all diaper, first aid, discipline, and home schooling questions. . . . Her mentorship to me was invaluable.”

As Internet-connected lifestyles become the norm, moms are plugging in to mentoring opportunities online, discovering relationships through influential mom-bloggers or social media, like Facebook and Twitter. According to the latest stats, web-savvy moms typically log on at least three—and sometimes up to a dozen—times a day. No wonder that many Catholic women increasingly turn to these virtual relationships for advice, encouragement, and support. One woman shared, “The Lord has slowly worked to mold and soften my heart for motherhood, and I truly believe that [a momblogger] played a large role in that, even though we have never met. . . . In the conversation about mentor-moms, Internet friendships must be included.”

Similarly, Kate Wicker writes, “I continue to be grateful for the online community and how it has allowed me to connect so many godly women. . . . Finding the right fit for a mentor . . . is in some ways easier online. We simply have access to more moms with just a click of a mouse.”

“Perhaps the reality is that there are different types of mentoring relationships that suit different needs, and we might have several different women who mentor us in different ways at different times in our lives. For me,” writes Melanie, “there are some distinct advantages to an online versus a ‘real life’ mentoring relationship. I am an intensely private person. . . . I often find it much easier to write about my interior struggles than I would to voice the same sorts of concerns to a friend over coffee. It would take years and years to build up that kind of trust and friendship and, frankly, I need help now.”

Finally, ministries that focus on pregnant teens or underprivileged women clamor for women to volunteer as mentor moms. Colleen, who works with Birthright, encourages moms to be “solid role models for these women to move out of a lifestyle pattern their moms and grandmoms have lived and are handing on.”

Are Catholic mentor moms needed? Absolutely. Hungry hearts are waiting. Genevieve Kineke offers two final thoughts to women who wonder whether to serve as a mentor mom. First, “It’s because we’re not perfect that we can do this,” and second, “Be not afraid to open your heart to one more soul.”

We will never regret giving of ourselves to others. And to my own mom, and the moms who have given to me so generously over the years . . . I cannot thank you enough! Happy Mother’s Day!

A version of this article was first published in the May/Jun 2010 Issue of Lay Witness Magazine, under the title “Catholic Mentor Moms—How to Find One, How to Be One.”

Annie, the Smiling Evangelist

She’s fearless. She’s charismatic. She’s radiant.

A modern evangelist, Annie basks in Christ’s love and shares it with a simple, winsome touch. A heart overflowing with love is a powerful testimony, I’ve learned. “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19). Annie’s love spills over, mysteriously opening hearts long shut to God’s mercy and love.

You’ve got to meet her—so I’ll tell you more about her in a second.

First, a confession. Annie’s love humbles me. It’s so natural, immediate, and unselfish that it stops me dead in my tracks. She’s the perfect foil for my easy self-absorption and carefully calibrated giving, because Annie is never calculating. She reaches out, gives, and loves, without measure.

Meet Annie: she’s almost two, with feathery blond hair, the most beautiful blue eyes, and a smile that lights the sky. She knows sign language and loves music. The cherished youngest of ten children, Annie gives hugs all day long. She also has Down Syndrome.

Ok, she’s cute. But an evangelist?

Yes. From the start, her very existence witnessed to the goodness of all life. When a routine sonogram showed “problems” in utero, the obstetricians sent Annie’s mom for a more precise sonogram in another building. Radiology was on the ground floor. When a sonogram confirms a Down Syndrome diagnosis, a mother need only ride the elevator a few floors up for an abortion.

So convenient. That’s the way it is now. Women don’t want babies like Annie, so they abort them.

Except that Annie’s mom would never consider it. This was her daughter, after all, no matter what.

A few weeks ago, the New York Times published a reaction to new North Dakota legislation, which outlaws abortions sought because of fetal abnormalities (including Down Syndrome). The writer, Alison Piepmeier, a feminist, gender studies professor at the College of Charleston and the mother of a Down Syndrome child, faults the legislation. In her view, women should be allowed to have abortions “for whatever reason they choose.”

Piepmeier’s research on “reproductive decision-making” found that a woman carrying a Down Syndrome baby typically viewed “the fetus” as a child already, sometimes with a name. Piepmeier defends the decisions of women who aborted their Down Syndrome children, noting that those decisions were “incredibly painful.” (Agonizing over a decision seems to confer moral legitimacy, as least in the New York Times.)

The women in Piepmeier’s study denied that they chose abortion because “they wanted a ‘perfect child.’” Their decisions were justified, in Piepmeier’s view, “because they recognized that the world is a difficult place for people with intellectual disabilities.” One mother called her decision “the protective choice” for her baby.

The reigning philosophy seems to be better dead than disabled.

In an unpublished letter to the Times, Annie’s mom, also a professor, rejected Piepmeier’s justifications. “My own experience is that Alison Piepmeier’s pro-choice position is very much an outlier – most parents of Down Syndrome children whom I have met view the eugenic abortion of Down Syndrome children as tragic and shameful.”

Annie’s mom also observed that many women who choose abortion because of a Down Syndrome diagnosis do so out of fear and misinformation. Medical doctors don’t do much to allay those fears—partly because they see mostly gloom and doom statistics. According to the National Down Syndrome Congress, “many obstetricians are inadequately prepared to explain a diagnosis of trisomy 21, often using overtly negative language or out-of-date information.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), for example, targets Down Syndrome (trisomy 21) for routine screening (with termination likely), devaluing the lives of Down Syndrome people and discouraging parents from welcoming them into the family.

What’s to be done?

One of the first press reports after Pope Francis’s election recalled that, as Argentina’s archbishop, he admonished his fellow bishops for their timid, reluctant witness to the Gospel. He said, “Jesus teaches us another way: Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the word in body as well as spirit.”

That’s Annie–the word in body as well as in spirit.

Annie evangelizes wherever she goes, always on-message. Six months ago, she captivated a room full of med students who had gathered to hear how Annie’s mom “coped” with the “burdens” of her Down Syndrome child. After all, Annie’s medical trail was significant, her individuality buried under a litany of diagnoses. To their surprise, these students met a delightful little girl with a “match me” smile. They learned of her fiercely protective father and retinue of devoted siblings, all of whom delight in teaching, cuddling, feeding, diapering, and—best of all—playing with her. They listened to Annie’s feisty mom and heard, in her infectious laugh and passionate voice, great hope for her daughter’s future. Surely some of these doctors embraced the “good news” about children like Annie.

That’s one of the things Annie does best—spread the good news. Last weekend, she charmed two hundred people at an elegant dinner. Though a guest, she provided delightful, spontaneous entertainment, dancing with her cousins and brothers. Day by day, she stirs the hearts of ordinary people in chance encounters—in the produce aisle at the grocery store, at the snack bar during a local basketball game, and in smiles exchanged during Mass.

She’s cute, not scary. She’s lovable and loving. And she has that mysterious power to stir love in the souls of others, sometimes even in spite of themselves.

She’s “Annie,” not a dreaded Down Syndrome kid. Her life has value, and she’ll wrap you in love if you give her a chance.

That’s our Annie…the smiling evangelist.

3 Comments

Filed under Abortion, Children, Family, Lessons Learned, Moms and Motherhood, Parenting

Tagged as Abortion, children, children with disabilities, Down Syndrome, evangelism, love

January 27, 2013 · 11:58 pm

Abortion Stories: A Priceless Cup of Coffee

“It’s freezing out. Why don’t you c’mon in for a cup of coffee while you wait?”

The tall woman waiting alone outside the Germantown abortion clinic shivered. She’d taken a taxi to the clinic, and arrived early, a good half-hour before it opened. Standing, pacing, stomping her feet to stay warm, the tall woman stole a glance across the parking lot, towards the voice. It was a “sidewalk counselor” from the pro-life pregnancy center across the way, and she was gesturing to a warmly lit, friendly office. The tall woman’s fingers were already stiff with cold, and she wrapped her coat tighter around her belly.

The cold won. “All right. Thanks.”

Moments later, she was inside the pro-life pregnancy center, warming her frozen fingers as she gripped a steaming cup of coffee. Little by little her story came out.

She was three months pregnant and suddenly homeless. Her father was in jail and the baby’s father was unreliable. She was twenty-something, had one child already, and no job. Her own mother would tell her to get an abortion, if she knew, but her mother was knee-deep in troubles of her own.

Abortion seemed like her only option. The tall woman knew nothing about the clinic’s abortionist, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, nothing about his chilling defense of partial-birth abortion, and nothing about the women who had suffered serious complications, even death, from his abortion ‘care.’ Those issues meant little compared to her own overwhelming troubles.

But over coffee, and warmed by the volunteer’s compassion and energy, the tall woman changed her mind about the abortion. An hour and several phone calls later, she had a place to stay, a doctor’s appointment, and transportation.

In the following months, the volunteers became the tall woman’s support system, driving her to prenatal appointments and dropping everything to be there during childbirth. They helped her find a job and child-care and shared her worries and joys. These days, the tall woman stops by for coffee and conversation when she can, and even spent a morning doing sidewalk counseling outside the clinic. She empathized with the women who found themselves at the clinic’s door. Cradling her one-month old son, she became the voice across the parking lot, urging vulnerable women to choose life.

“Choose Life.” It’s been the pro-life movement’s cry for decades. And yet Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, has left a gruesome legacy after 40 years: 55 million tiny lives extinguished—poisoned, dismembered, stabbed, and suctioned into pieces.

But “life” will prevail.

In fact, the abortion landscape has changed markedly.

Courageous state legislators passed record numbers of new abortion restrictions in 2012.
Few doctors do abortions anymore, with only four U.S. doctors hard-hearted enough to perform barbaric third-trimester abortions.
Americans cannot deny the humanity of the unborn child as new ultrasound technology captures their breathtaking images in the womb.
Better pro-life media and investigative journalism have shaped public opinion favorably: Eighty percent of Americans believe third trimester abortions should be illegal, and 64% say the same about second trimester abortions.
Young people are driving the pro-life bus, confounding pro-choice elites. It’s hard to demonize a generation that’s passionate enough to travel hours by bus, sleep on church basement floors, and brave chilly weather to raise their voices against abortion at the March for Life. And this pro-life generation understands “the pain that abortion causes women,” and cares as much about women as their unborn babies.

But as important as those factors are, the pro-life position will prevail for a deeper reason.

At heart, the pro-life movement is about people, its message intensely personal: “You are loved. You have infinite dignity and value. And we will care for you.”

Resonating deeply in the human heart, this is the truth that vulnerable women need to hear, for themselves and their babies.

It’s a message best delivered person-to-person—and young people know this. Their generation, halved by abortion, shares its stories, feelings, and experiences of abortion in intensely personal language and images, in social forums from Twitter to Snap Chat to YouTube and Facebook. It’s powerful and effective.

So too is the work of pro-life pregnancy centers. Years ago, as a law student, I was part of the first team of counselors at the Women’s Care Center, a crisis pregnancy center in South Bend, Indiana. The Center opened in a tiny, donated house right next to the city’s only abortion clinic. Our small group of volunteers worked in a spirit of prayer, with a clear mission: to welcome each woman who walked through our doorway, offering care and support even if she chose an abortion next door.

From one tiny house, offering simple pregnancy tests, practical resources, and loving attention, the vision took wing. The Women’s Care Center now has 19 different locations in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin and serves nearly 22,000 women annually. Abortion rates in those communities have dropped and Women’s Care Center clients deliver healthier babies than their peers.

Today, U.S. pro-life pregnancy centers outnumber abortion clinics nearly three to one (twenty-two hundred pro-life centers compared to 724 abortion clinics). And because successful pro-life pregnancy centers threaten the abortion industry’s profits, abortion advocates have sued (unsuccessfully) to muzzle or close pro-life centers.

Remember the tall woman, and the cup of coffee that changed her life?

Abortion will end, because pro-life volunteers really care whether a pregnant woman stands cold and alone in front of a gritty abortion clinic. And they care enough to offer not only an easy-pour cup of coffee, but also hours of dedicated time and resources throughout her pregnancy and beyond.

Will you help pro-life centers reach women like “the tall woman”?

Please consider a donation, large or small. Because somewhere, standing in the cold, is another young woman who needs a good cup of coffee…and your support to do the right thing.

The Catholic Church and the Girl Scouts: A Scandalous Mess

Sometimes even the Washington Post gets it right.

Last week the pastor of St. Timothy’s Catholic Church in Chantilly, Virginia, made national news. He banned the Girl Scouts from his parish because of the Girl Scouts’ connections to pro-abortion groups, including the international scouting group, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS).

A Washington Post writer, who called the parish decision “extreme,” rode to the Scouts’ defense, arguing that the “Girl Scouts say explicitly, repeatedly, at the neighborhood, regional and national level, that they have no stance on birth control or abortion.”

Now that’s not the part the Post got right. The Post columnist is dead wrong on the underlying facts because, while it’s true that the Scouts say they take no official position on birth control and abortion, it’s what they do that’s a problem.

Numerous sources—including former Girl Scouts, Scout leaders, and pro-life leaders—have documented hundreds of examples of the Girl Scouts promoting pro-abortion and LGBT resources, recommending sexually explicit books and movies, highlighting pro-abortion leaders and lesbians as role models, partnering with LGBT and pro-abortion activist groups, including Planned Parenthood, and referring girls to pro-abortion organizations to learn about “advocacy” (a pet word in the new Girl Scouts).

Consider: New York’s Real Life, Real Talk sex education program, “initiated by Planned Parenthood,” partners with the NYPENN Girl Scouts; The Girl Scouts’ curriculum (Journey books) promotes the Scouts’ “sisterhood” with pro-abortion WAGGGS (WAGGGS CEO Mary McPhail led the radical, pro-abortion European Women’s Lobby before joining WAGGGS, and a 2010 International Planned Parenthood Federation report (p. 13) credits Planned Parenthood’s “close relationship” with WAGGGS for Planned Parenthood’s success in promoting sex and abortion to youth); and in Chicago this July, GSUSA will co-host the Girls’ World Forum 2012 with WAGGGS, to “develop action steps” supporting the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDG #5 supports abortion and adolescent sex). See more here.

The Girl Scouts (GSUSA) has yet to refute even one piece of documented evidence. They can’t.

And the Scouts’ general denials highlight the contradiction between what they say and what they do. The bottom line: the Girl Scouts seem to have a truth-in-labeling problem. Parents—and sponsoring churches like St. Timothy–are right to protest the deception and pull their girls out of the organization.

So what, then, did the Washington Post columnist “get right”?

The Post columnist inadvertently shone the spotlight on why the Catholic Church has a Girl Scout problem: the National Federation of Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM).

According to the Post, “Another defender of the scouts is the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, a group that ought to have some credibility with Catholics. It’s an official church organization and has been actively investigating — and mostly refuting — the accusations for several years…The federation’s Web site devotes a page to knocking down rumors. Girl Scouts support Planned Parenthood? ‘Not true,’ the federation says.”

Thank you for shining that light on the NFCYM, Mr. Columnist.

But let’s get the facts straight. First, the NFCYM does not have a track record of “investigating” the Girl Scouts’ problematic ties and activities; it has a track record of whitewashing them. Second, resources promoted on the NFCYM’s website and in the NFCYM Executive Director’s book on Catholic youth advocacy suggest that the NFCYM has little “credibility” to speak to the Church on these issues.

First, the NFCYM track record. When parishes, dioceses, and parents want to know if the Girl Scouts support contraception, teen sex, or abortion (or partner with organizations that do), they ask the NFCYM, or its subsidiary, the National Catholic Committee on Girl Scouts and Camp Fire. Although the NFCYM has never conducted or commissioned a rigorous, independent investigation of the Scouts, it reflexively picks up its Girl Scout megaphone and shouts, “Not true!” It reports Girl Scouts’ denials as fact.

In its 2011 “Position Statement” on the Girl Scouts, the NFCYM declared itself “satisfied” with GSUSA denials. Further, the NFCYM decided that the Scouts’ “official statement clarifying their relationship with WAGGGS and Planned Parenthood…and emphasiz[ing] the primacy of parents’” authority on sexual topics sufficed to end the discussion. The NFCYM “investigated” no further than the words on the Girl Scouts’ printed page.

No sense checking the facts. (Scouts’ honor, right?)

Not one of the Google-topping websites created by former Girl Scouts, concerned parents, and troop leaders to document the Girl Scouts’ problems has received any inquiries or corrections from Bob McCarty, NFCYM’s Executive Director, or from the Scouts. Ever. Will McCarty specify which of their links, statements, or page scans are “not true?” Does anyone at NFCYM even realize how much evidence contradicts the Girl Scouts’ denials? Does NFCYM recognize the ideology driving the Scouts’ leadership?

The deep documentation on the whistleblowers’ websites is a damning indictment of the Girl Scouts. It’s also a damning indictment of the NFCYM—for its failure to investigate allegations about the Scouts.

Perhaps the NFCYM won’t address the facts because it thinks they don’t really matter. In my second interview with Bob McCarty (November 2011), I asked him about the Girl Scouts’ relationship with pro-abortion WAGGGS: the Girl Scouts fund WAGGGS (over a million dollars annually); the GSUSA website and materials routinely promote WAGGGS; Scouts typically wear a WAGGGS pin, signifying their sisterhood; and the Girl Scouts promote WAGGGS’ international “cabanas” and advocacy training programs as the ultimate destination for senior Girl Scouts. Bob was untroubled, dismissing those points because, “Catholic youth ministry is not in relationship with WAGGGS.”

It’s as if NFCYM’s priority is the paper trail that gets the Scouts off the hook and keeps the bishops out of their hair. One former Girl Scout mom wonders, “Why so little concern for the girls?” Girls who, for example, might innocently read the Girl Scout-recommended book, the Gate to Women’s Country, with its explicit descriptions of brutal sex and distorted relationships. Or who might be invited to attend a WAGGGS abortion-advocacy event as the culmination of their Girl Scout training.

In the Washington Post article, McCarty minimizes parents’ concerns about the relationships between the Girl Scouts and WAGGGS, Planned Parenthood, or other pro-abortion groups. “It’s the whole thing of guilt by association,” McCarty says. “Does one policy with which you can’t agree prevent you from being involved in broader coalitions?”

Yes, Bob, at times it should. I suggest that an organization’s pro-abortion stance is not just “one policy with which you can’t agree.” Respect for life—from conception to natural death–is so fundamental to the Catholic view of the human person and to Catholic moral principles that an organization that advocates against that principle should be disqualified from sponsorship by a Catholic parish—and from running character-shaping activities for Catholic girls.

The NFCYM disagrees. Which brings me to my second point: the NFCYM and its Executive Director, Bob McCarty, have little credibility to judge whether the Girl Scouts’ resources, relationships, and role-models offend Catholic standards. The NFCYM website and McCarty’s book contain similar problems.

McCarty’s book, Be a Champion of Youth: Standing With, By, and For Young People (co-authored with his wife, Maggie Wilson McCarty), draws on his NFCYM experience to promote “youth advocacy.” But Bob’s book relies on and recommends an organization that he says, “[P]rovides information on peer education, youth development, and youth-adult partnerships. It also provides excellent resources for actively involving young people in their own learning.”

The organization: the pro-abortion Advocates for Youth, formerly known as the Center for Population Options.

In contrast to McCarty’s sanitized description, Advocates for Youth admits it “champions” the right of “young people [to] make informed and responsible decisions about their reproductive and sexual health…boldly advocating for a more positive and realistic approach to adolescent sexual health.” Remember McCarty’s praise for the way Advocates for Youth “actively involve[s] young people in their own learning”? Their method: to train young people as peer educators, “helping” peers with concerns about “sexual orientation, gender identity, or sexual health,” and as “Youth Activists,” advocating for sex and abortion, unfettered by parents’ rules or religious beliefs.

Advocates for Youth, in case you don’t know, is the enemy. They actively oppose the Church on every sexual issue in the public arena, including abstinence education, same-sex relations, contraception, and abortion.

Let’s be clear: I am not saying McCarty is personally pro-abortion. But he doesn’t seem to think an organization’s policy on sex and abortion matters much, as long as there’s something arguably good about them.

In this case, McCarty likes the Advocates for Youth model of youth advocacy. That’s a problem in itself. Both McCarty and Advocates for Youth ascribe to the “youth-adult partnership” model of youth advocacy that rejects the “myth of adult wisdom.” They don’t believe that “adults know what is best” or that young people need protecting. See McCarty, p. 33. That’s baloney. The ‘learn-by-doing’ model has built-in limitations, particularly in the sexual and moral arenas. And the benefit of “youth advocacy” depends entirely on the values being advocated.

Besides Advocates for Youth, McCarty’s book recommends other gems like the pro-abortion Children’s Defense Fund, UNICEF, and the Youth Activism Project (which trains youth as mini-community organizers, agitating for things like Gay and Lesbian Student Rights Laws, an example McCarty notes with approval in his book).

The NFCYM website is more of the same. On the NFCYM’s “Healthy Adolescent Development” page, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry tops the list of “Key Resource Organizations.” The Academy promotes “comprehensive sexual education,” including school-based distribution of contraceptives, and opposes parental notification requirements in sexual and reproductive matters, including abortion. Further, the Academy supports same-sex marriage and adoption and affirms the adolescent’s ‘right’ to decide sexual orientation or gender identity without interference (like from parents). This is an organization parents should trust for guidance on “healthy adolescent development”?

The NFCYM website also recommends the Faith Trust Institute as a resource on preventing sexual abuse. The Faith Trust Institute is a Pope-bashing website run by a female, pro-abortion minister who signed a statement condemning the murder of late-term abortionist George Tiller, mourning the “untold number of women and families who have been deprived of his compassionate care.”

I could go on.

But here’s the point. The Girl Scouts have a demonstrable credibility problem. They have not been forthright with Catholics and other folks who support traditional sexual morality.

The Catholic Church needs to insist that if the Scouts want to recruit young Catholics, seek sponsorship from Catholic parishes, and sell cookies to parishioners, then the Scouts must make radical changes, including severing ties with WAGGGS and other pro-abortion, pro-teen sex, and LGBT activist groups. They must clean up offensive materials and quit elevating lesbians, gays, and pro-abortion activists as role models and convention speakers. Finally, they must champion a return to character, based on virtues and objective morality.

And the NFCYM? McCarty states that, “the only way you can advocate for the church’s position is to be engaged in the dialogue.” I submit that the NFCYM and Bob McCarty are the wrong folks to “dialogue” with the Girl Scouts on these issues.

Under McCarty’s leadership, the NFCYM’s premise seems to be that because Catholics are involved in the Girl Scouts already—as Scouts, leaders, and supporting parishes–the end goal is to stay in that relationship. So he elevates the cause of “dialogue” over fidelity to Catholic moral teaching.

But I think Denver Auxiliary Bishop James Conley gets it right. He writes, “Catholics involved in the Girl Scouting movement should make it clear to leadership that Scouting is only a means to an end—the proper formation of young character. It’s not an end in itself; and should Scouting ever fail in that proper formation, other groups can be found or formed to take its place.”

I think that time has come.

And I salute the Pastor of St. Timothy’s in Chantilly, Virginia, for his courage to do the right thing.

NOTE: Prior to the publication of this article, I contacted NFCYM head Bob McCarty numerous times by phone and email. He elected not to respond in any substantive way.

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Filed under Abortion, Catholicism, Children, Faith and Virtue, Family, Kids and Character, Lessons Learned, Moms and Motherhood, Parenting, Policy and Culture

Tagged as bob mccarty, boy scouts of america membership controversies, Catholic, Catholic Church, catholic parishes, catholic youth, catholic youth ministry, girl scout, Girl Scouts, girl scouts of the usa, nfcym, religion in scouting, social issues, the catholic church, world association of girl guides and girl scouts

January 15, 2012 · 1:22 pm

Down Syndrome? Meet Maddox…and stop fearing “the worst”

Have you seen this?

If only those parents facing a pre-natal diagnosis of Down Syndrome could look ahead and see the joy and love that awaits–from cuties like Maddox. In her video below, Maddox will let you in on her “gambling problem,” and how she’s winning every bet against her.

Maddox doesn’t say a word here, but her message is unforgettable.

Don’t stand by and do nothing while the world aborts 90% of girls and boys like Maddox, just because they are different!

Pass this on and bring hope to parents who fear “the worst.”

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Filed under Abortion, Children, Family, Fertility and Infertility, Health, Lessons Learned, Moms and Motherhood, Parenting

Tagged as abortion and birth defects, Down Syndrome, family, Maddox, Maddox McClintic, motherhood, parenthood, prenatal testing, special needs

January 14, 2012 · 10:30 pm

Girl Scouts Leadership: Pro-Choice, Pro-Gay Ideologues–Worlds Apart from the Families They Serve (UPDATED)

Who’s calling the shots over at the Girl Scouts? And where’s the organization headed?

The questions matter for two reasons. First, it’s cookie season. Any day now some cute little girls wearing green sashes and bright smiles will knock on your door and sweetly seek support for their projects, badges, and activities. Do you write the check or not? (Forget your craving for Thin Mints. Think rationally!) Should you support the Girl Scouts?

Second, the Girl Scouts organization (GSUSA) is in trouble again. In recent weeks, they’ve drawn scrutiny for promoting biased resources (the left-wing Media Matters) and pressuring an employee to muzzle her pro-life views. The latest events top the pile of controversies that has outraged parents and spurred some Scouts to quit the organization.

What’s going on? Are these merely quality control issues–or do the problems reflect an ideological divide between the Girl Scout leadership and the families they serve?

In recent years, the Girl Scouts have tacked left, and criticism has mounted–over their programs and their partnerships with America’s leading abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. (As an aside, the Scouts mislead families and churches into believing that they have no relationship with Planned Parenthood at any level; they maintain that “Girl Scouts of the USA [i.e. the national office] does not have a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood,” but say nothing about the many local Girl Scout councils that do partner with Planned Parenthood and its teen subsidiaries.

Concerned Scouts and their parents have publicized and documented the Girl Scouts’ liberal bent. And they’ve asked for changes.

The Girl Scouts consistently respond as if the reported problems are small brush fires that erupt sporadically because people are careless. And they project the impression that these brush fires would die out on their own, but for the hysterical bystanders—conservatives, of course—who shriek at the first wisp of smoke.

Offensive materials? Quality control issues, that’s all.

The official spokespersons’ carefully worded statements make small concessions, hoping to blow the smoke far enough away to divert attention from the incendiary truth: the leadership of today’s Girl Scouts is driven by a liberal ideology far out of step with the families and churches that support them.

Americans tilt right, increasingly so. For the third consecutive year, according to Gallup, conservative Americans (40%) outnumbered both moderates (35%) and liberals (21%). Interestingly, over the same three year period, the Girl Scouts lost half a million members and operated at a loss (In 2010, for example, GSUSA reported a $4.9 million loss.)

That’s a lotta people and a big chunk of change out the door.

You’d think the Girl Scouts leadership would consider a right turn or two, maybe even circle back around to their founding principles, like promoting “virtues” and “womanhood.”

But still the Scouts turn left. They can’t help themselves.

The Girl Scouts have filled their National Leadership Team and Board of Directors with unwavering ideologues whose careers, non-profit work, and philanthropic choices reflect a hefty commitment to liberal causes—same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian rights, abortion rights, comprehensive sex education, and ‘girl power’ feminism.

Their liberal ideology drives everything–from program materials to themes to partnerships–even their view of leadership.

It’s who they are. And it’s who the Girl Scouts organization has become.

A few examples tell the story.

A pro-abortion bias

The Girl Scouts imagines itself the “thought leader and voice for and of” American girls. But the only “voice” the Scouts hear is a liberal one. The Girl Scouts’ own research shows that the voice of American youth is strongly pro-life: just nine percent of 7^th through 12^th graders would advocate for abortion if a friend sought advice on an unexpected pregnancy. And only 25% believe it’s “all right” to have an abortion when a baby seriously disrupts life plans.

But the GSUSA refuses to allow pro-life advocacy to count towards badge work or program requirements, even within faith-based religious recognition programs. It’s “not an option,” they say. Yet their leadership program objectives consider advocacy for “reproductive health” in school or neighborhood as a sign that a Scout has mastered the desired advocacy skills.

In addition, the Girl Scouts’ curriculum (Your Voice, Your World: The Power of Advocacy) instructs girls to explore five pro-abortion advocacy organizations, including the Population Council, to see “where and how they are promoting change.” Pro-life advocacy groups? None.

The pro-abortion bias reflects the core convictions of the Girl Scouts’ National Leadership Team and Board of Directors. These individuals, who frame and implement the Girl Scouts’ mission, maintain tight connections with Planned Parenthood, other abortion advocates, and foundations that support them.

Consider:

GSUSA CEO Anna Maria Chavez collaborated* with Planned Parenthood as head of Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas;
GSUSA National President Connie Lindsey has donated to the pro-abortion, pro-LGBT Chicago Foundation for Women;
GSUSA Board Member Barbara Krumsiek is the Board Chair of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation which funds Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington;
GSUSA Board Member Monica Gil is a volunteer and former Board Member (through 2011) of the Saban Free Clinic in L.A., which provides “free and easy” birth control, emergency contraception, and abortion referrals to teens over 12, without parental notice or consent;
GSUSA Board Member and Executive Secretary Debra Nakatomi is International Commissioner to the pro-abortion World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and promoted contraceptives to Asian teens through California’s Get Real program;
Laurie Westley, GSUSA Senior Vice President of Public Policy, Advocacy & the Research Institute, previously worked for the National Women’s Political Caucus, a group dedicated to electing pro-choice women.
Joan Wagnon, the GSUSA Treasurer, Board of Directors, accepted large campaign contributions from late-term abortionist George Tiller while she was Secretary of Kansas’ Department of Revenue and praised Tiller’s “social conscience and…big heart;”
Ellen S. Fox, GSUSA Board Member from 2008 through 2011, serves on the Investment Committee of the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s Board of Directors.

The list goes on. (Click here.)

The new normal: homosexuality and sexual promiscuity

Pro-life views are not the only ones given short shrift by the Girl Scouts. Traditional sexual morality takes a hit, while lesbians enjoy good press in required Girl Scout materials. These books— the “Journeys” series—generally push global environmentalism from a feminist slant; certain books go further, normalizing homosexuality and degrading sexual behavior.

For example, the Journey book Your Voice Your World: The Power of Advocacy spotlights numerous lesbians and LGBT advocates as “Voices for Good”–role models for young Scouts.

And the 4^th and 5^th grade Journey book, Agent of Change, highlights author Marjane Satrapi, a young Iranian woman with “real moxie,” whose life–detailed in her comic book-style autobiography, Persepolis–will “inspire” Girl Scouts. But in Persepolis, Satrapi crudely discusses men’s genitalia (even with her own father), calls nuns prostitutes, gets explicit lessons about sex from a promiscuous friend, lives with eight homosexual men, and attempts suicide twice. Offensive illustrations and shocking sexual dialogue complete the picture. For ten-year olds?

It gets worse.

Another Journey book, GIRLtopia, encourages 9^th and 10^th graders “to imagine a perfect world—for girls.” It recommends the book, The Gate to Women’s Country, by Sheri Tepper (former Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood), as a utopian journey into “a future world where women spend their lives learning and discovering lost knowledge.” That’s a deceptive gloss on a book laced with obscenities, revolting dialogue, and lewd descriptions, and which presents men as violent barbarians. The book graphically describes women having sex with random warriors at a semi-annual Carnival, undergoing brutal, demeaning genital exams, and breeding out violence by compulsive sterilization and selective prostitution. The only good men are castrated men. This is Girl Scout utopia?

Juliette Low, the Girl Scouts’ founder, would be aghast.

Why would Girl Scout Execs and Board members approve this material?

Because they don’t find it shocking or radical at all.

It reflects their worldview—sexual promiscuity is a given and homosexuality is normal. And indeed, key players at the Girl Scouts have a history of advocating those very positions, particularly on homosexuality.

Timothy Higdon, for example, holds a pivotal position at GSUSA: as Chief of External Affairs, he oversees marketing, fundraising, advocacy, and research. Higdon’s official bio on the Girl Scout website touts his earlier work for the Army, a fundraising firm, and Amnesty International. It even mentions he’s an Eagle Scout. But it doesn’t mention that, spurred by his decision to come out as a gay man, he’s a “seasoned gay rights activist.” (For example, in 2002 he headed a Florida gay rights organization working closely with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.)

In 2011, Higdon welcomed another homosexual activist to the Girl Scout team: Deborah Taft, Senior VP of Fund Development, sits on the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Board of Governors. (HRC pushes same-sex marriage and is an adoption bully, pummeling religious adoption agencies that prefer married heterosexuals to homosexual pairs.)

Other LGBT activists fill prominent GSUSA positions or Board seats. Consider GSUSA Media Spokesperson Joshua Ackley. By day, he writes the Girl Scouts’ blog. By night, he frolics in unsavory places reminiscent of his homopunk career. He’s the former lead singer of the Dead Betties, a queer band whose music videos feature masturbation, prostitution, and sexualized violence against women. Ackley’s past activism suggests he’s not likely to flinch over a sexually inappropriate book or lesbian role models. He’s not alone.

The LGBT advocates in the Girl Scouts’ inner circle help set the organization’s trajectory: GSUSA emphasizes diversity and tolerance, applauds adolescent acceptance of LGBT behavior, promotes lesbians as role models, and allies itself with the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

Forget character. Think advocacy.

I opened this article with two questions. First, who’s calling the shots at the Girl Scouts? The answer: incorrigible liberals–unbending proponents of abortion, homosexuality, and teen contraception.

Second, where’s the organization headed? The Girl Scouts’ vaunted leadership programs have morphed into liberal training grounds. While the Scouts’ founding vision promoted “the virtues of womanhood;” today’s Scouts strive for advocacy-oriented objectives.

The new “Girl Scout Leadership Experience” is less about the person a girl becomes and more about “taking action” aligned with the liberal agenda. GSUSA trains girls to be “advocates,” mini community organizers who see themselves as “agents of change,” rather than young women of virtue who exercise leadership with an eye towards “personal honor…and the public good.” (Girl Scout Mission, 1917).

Indeed, it’s hard to find the language of virtue in the Scouts’ program materials. Patriotism? Self-sacrifice? Humility? Self-control? Nope. The new Girl Scouts focus on diversity, “environmental justice” (they’ve got a whole book on it), and liberal advocacy.

But don’t expect the Scouts to ‘fess up. Though they’ve gutted the meanings of “character” and “leadership,” they continue to snow member families and sponsoring organizations (like the Catholic Church) with their institutional history as a character-building, leadership organization.

Bishops, pastors, ministers, and parents, don’t be fooled. If the Girl Scouts’ leadership–toting the same pro-abortion, pro-gay, environmentalist, feminist baggage—showed up today as a new organization and sought your sponsorship to shape girls in their image, would you say yes? I doubt it.

So…should you support today’s Girl Scouts?

My answer: a resounding “No!”

What’s yours?

—-
NOTE: *The word “collaborated” replaces the verb “partnered” that appeared in an earlier version of this article. Although “partnered” has a range of meanings including an alliance or collaboration, the author has replaced it in order to preclude suggestion that a contractual, business partnership existed. The significance of the relationship remains, in the author’s view.

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Filed under Abortion, Children, Faith and Virtue, Family, Kids and Character, Moms and Motherhood, Parenting, Policy and Culture

Tagged as american girls, character, families, girl, girl power, girl scout, girl scouts of the usa, leadership, membership controversies, Parenting, plan parenthood, Planned Parenthood, pro-choice, pro-life, scouting, scouts, social issues, world association of girl guides and girl scouts

November 20, 2011 · 10:56 pm

Catholic Youth Ministry under fire over Girl Scouts’ pro-abortion ties.

The Girl Scouts “100^th Anniversary” Convention in Houston last weekend sparked a firestorm of protests from conservatives and pro-life advocates over the Girl Scouts’ speakers: an A-list of entertainers, journalists, and philanthropists that included many champions of pro-abortion and LGBT causes.

The speaker lineup was but a symptom of a deeper pathology, according to current and former Girl Scouts. Behind the badges, slogans, and cookies is a deadly reality: the Girl Scouts’ ongoing partnerships with U.S. and international advocates, like Planned Parenthood and affiliated organizations, which sell a distinctly un-holy vision of sexual empowerment secured by contraception and abortion.

Particularly troublesome is the Girl Scouts’ relationship with WAGGGS, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, an international agitator for abortion, contraceptives, sexual diversity, and “comprehensive” sexuality education. WAGGGS delegates, for example, helped draft the controversial 2010 World Youth Conference NGO document demanding global support for “abortion” and “LGBTTIQ issues.” (See the excellent links at 100questionsforthegirlscouts.org, girlscoutswhynot.com and honestgirlscouts.com.)

It’s a situation that’s unconscionable for Catholics. And a growing number have left the Girl Scouts, embracing a mission to tell other families what they’ve uncovered.

Christy Volanski, a former Scout leader, and her daughters Tess and Sydney are prime examples. They left the Scouts in 2010 when they saw evidence—materials, resources, and partnerships–that their Girl Scout dues promoted an agenda of abortion, contraception, explicit sex education, and homosexuality. Their website, speaknowgirlscouts.com, tells their story and offers details, screen shots, and web links that lay the facts bare. “We felt so hurt and betrayed when we found out about this agenda…There is no reason for other families to…be deceived,” says Christy.

So where’s the Catholic Church in all this?

Not where you’d expect.

It’s quite literally in the Girl Scouts’ camp. The National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry (NFCYM), the Church’s representative and “advocate” for Catholic Girl Scouts, occupied Booth 932 in the Girl Scout Exhibit Hall in Houston. The NFCYM, which connects some 700,000 Catholic Scout members with the Church and provides Catholic materials for the Girl Scouts’ religious recognition program, set up shop near the official Girl Scouts’ booth and the large WAGGGS exhibit—a great space to “meet and greet” as they promoted their religious recognition materials.

Nary a public word about the Girl Scouts’ links to groups promoting abortion, homosexuality, and sexual “rights” for teens. Or about the controversial speakers.

For parents like Christy Volanski, the NFCYM’s cozy relationship with the Girl Scouts creates a smokescreen that obscures a disturbing reality. The NFCYM website and FAQs, along with the NFCYM-GSUSA position papers, gloss over the Girl Scouts’ involvement with pro-abortion advocates, suggesting erroneously that parents need not worry. As a result, parents who do see problems with the Scouts find themselves stymied by pastors, bishops and laypeople who interpret NFCYM’s relationship with the Scouts as unqualified approval.

Rochelle Focaracci, a former Scout leader from Georgia and the co-founder of girlscoutswhynot.com, believes that the NFCYM posture simply “confuses the youth they are there to protect.” Her Florida-based co-founder and sister, Lisa Larsson, puts the problem simply: “We need NFCYM to speak out, to acknowledge that there is a problem with the Girl Scouts.”

They’re not holding their breath.

In spite of the documentation on websites like speaknowgirlscouts.com and 100questionsforthegirlscouts.org, the NFCYM and its Executive Director, Bob McCarty, have failed to acknowledge the extent of the Girl Scouts’ problems—and they’ve failed at least in part because the NFCYM’s fact-finding process is seriously flawed. Instead of insisting on rigorous, independent investigations of credible complaints, the NFCYM states in its position statement that questions will be resolved by “directly contacting GSUSA” for answers.

This first step, however, is typically the last, as the NFCYM seems willing to accept GSUSA answers as gospel truth without independent factual corroboration, parent interviews, or consultations with knowledgeable experts (including former Girl Scouts).

It makes no sense, says Rochelle, from girlscoutswhynot.com “If we had to investigate a robbery, we would not ask the robber if he robbed the bank.”

McCarty’s July 2011 interview with Our Sunday Visitor added insult to injury for these Girl Scout activists. McCarty dismissed out of hand the possibility that the Girl Scouts might advocate or partner with pro-abortion groups. “Most of the concerns I hear from parents are about what they heard or saw written on blogs and websites engaging in misinformation. It’s never anything they saw themselves.”

Perhaps McCarty needs to look more closely.

For example, the NFCYM FAQs flatly state that it’s “not true” that national and local councils support Planned Parenthood. In an interview last week, McCarty referred often to the “position statement” in which GSUSA promised that no Girl Scout “monies” will flow to organizations like Planned Parenthood—as if written assurances settled the matter.

Even Girl Scout spokeswoman Michelle Tompkins (who deferred comments on these topics until later this week) has distinguished between partnerships by the national organization and those of local councils. “We have not and do not partner with Planned Parenthood on the national level,” she claimed. However, ”local councils are free to partner with whomever they choose…”

And they do. For example, a quick web search yielded 2011 evidence of a Girl Scouts of NY PENN partnership with a Planned Parenthood initiative (with links to explicit websites) for the Scouts’ body image project.

Susan Riedley, a current Girl Scout leader who created the site honestgirlscouts.com “challenges” McCarty to go directly to source materials—on her website and others–and “investigate the links for himself.” McCarty says he’s “clicked around” a few times to address concerns but feels that the grievance procedure established with the GSUSA bears better results. He insists that, “We need to be in these conversations [with the Girl Scouts]…You can’t even raise the questions if you are not in relationship with them.”

True enough, but the follow-up question is, “Then what?”

The point of raising questions with the Girl Scouts isn’t to prompt technical compliance as they sanitize websites and books. Similarly, the narrow scope of the GSUSA-NFCYM position statement—whether the Girl Scouts directly fund or partner with Planned Parenthood, through dues versus cookie profits, locally or nationally, with parental permission or without, etc.–misses the point. And it deftly redirects attention away from the enmeshed relationship between abortion-promoting-WAGGGS and the Girl Scouts USA.

In my view, McCarty’s failure to commission a thorough, independent review of the facts behind the Girl Scouts’ affiliations—while taking the Girl Scouts’ denials at face value–betrays the trust of Catholic youth and their parents.

While McCarty insists NFCYM must “stay in the conversation” with the GSUSA, concerned parents find themselves on the outside, rarely consulted and with little opportunity to present their evidence or see it taken seriously. And, they wonder, when does the desire to “stay in the conversation” morph into playing the willing dupe, providing “Catholic” cover for the Girl Scouts’ complicity in feminist and liberal causes?

“Process” isn’t the only reason why NFCYM needs a push to address the seriousness of the Girl Scouts’ issues. McCarty also disagrees on the relative importance of certain Girl Scout affiliations, including the WAGGGS relationship. McCarty’s current focus is not on the WAGGGS relationship, but on getting buy-in from the Girl Scouts for an approval process for materials, plus an initiative to establish relationships between diocesan youth ministers and local council leaders.

Reasonable goals, certainly. But they strike me as the scouting equivalent of fiddling while Rome burns.

He doesn’t see it that way. McCarty believes that the WAGGGS influence is “fairly far removed from our kids” and “doesn’t filter down.” As for the millions of dollars that flow into WAGGGS coffers from GSUSA? McCarty likens the WAGGGS dues (a head count based on a country’s number of Girl Scouts) to the U.S. taxpayer’s support for the United Nations.

The analogy limps. Girl Scouts’ membership is voluntary. The Church doesn’t have to sponsor troops. (In fact, there’s even an excellent alternative that’s exploding in popularity—the values-rich, American Heritage Girls.) And the Church’s voluntary participation looks like an endorsement.

Jane Petry, a 67-year-old Girl Scout veteran, spent last weekend at the Houston convention distributing flyers highlighting the Planned Parenthood—GSUSA connection. To her, the money flow is a repugnant cooperation with moral evil. Volanski calls it “mind boggling” that, through GSUSA membership, “Catholic Girl Scouts are supporting this global agenda to bring sexual rights (including emergency contraception and abortion) to all young people.”

Volanski says WAGGGS’ influence does have “a real impact on the local Catholic girl in a local troop in many different ways,” from the WAGGGS pin girls wear to express global sisterhood, to the problematic Journeys project books that routinely plug WAGGGS, to WAGGGS-related fundraising activities, to international visits to WAGGGS chalets, to WAGGGS global advocacy.

Even so, McCarty doubts that the influence “is as pervasive as you think.” Besides, he maintains, “We can pretend that we can protect our kids from this stuff or we can prepare them…”

In spite of the disagreement between NFCYM and the Girl Scout activists over the significance of the Girl Scouts’ issues, McCarty did intimate that while he’s committed to dialogue, lack of “movement” by the Girl Scouts on these issues may trigger “decisions” in the future.

The Church has financial leverage, if it’s willing to use it. McCarty estimates 700,000 Catholics are members of the GSUSA. At $12 per year, Catholic support delivers roughly $8.4 million to the Girl Scouts, not including funds earned by Catholic Girl Scouts’ fundraising or cookie sales, or the millions of volunteer hours donated by Catholic adults.

How to move forward?

I strongly urge the NFCYM, or the USCCB in its oversight capacity, to create a focused working group with a mandate to assess the extent and impact of the Girl Scouts’ connection to WAGGGS’ and other groups.

That working group should include at least three leaders from the Girl Scouts watchdog websites. They know the issues, have spent hundreds of hours on their own time tracking down facts, and have been overlooked by the NFCYM for too long. If the NFCYM can spend hours in conversation with the Girl Scouts, it needs to engage these committed Catholic parents as a resource to be taken seriously.

The project should have a short deadline, delivering a report in advance of Bob McCarty’s planned meeting Anna Maria Chavez, the new CEO of the Girl Scouts. (Reportedly Catholic, in 2009 Chavez spoke at a women’s event co-sponsored by the local Planned Parenthood.)

Finally, the end game must be clearly defined, more than vague “movement.” GSUSA has stonewalled its critics by splitting hairs, arguing narrow points, with semantics about official or unofficial relationships with Planned Parenthood, national versus local level, parental permission or not, whether monies flow from membership dues, cookie sales, or other funds, etc.

In my view, either GSUSA severs its ties to WAGGGS and creates an explicit policy forbidding partnerships, affiliations, and resources from Planned Parenthood-like organizations—or the Catholic Church should withdraw its sponsorship of all Girl Scouts troops (convert to American Heritage Girls) and recommend that individual Catholics withdraw from the Scouts as well.

It’s time. Catholic families deserve clarity, delivered with courage.

Mary Rice Hasson is a Visiting Fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C

(Permission granted for reprints and republication, with attribution.)

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Tagged as Catholic, catholic youth ministry, girl scout usa, Girl Scouts, girl scouts controversies, girl scouts of the usa, GSUSA, Planned Parenthood, WAGGGS, world association of girl guides and girl scouts

June 24, 2011 · 8:44 am

Are You a Good Dad? (Or Mom?)

Father’s Day made me think: what do I know about being a good dad? After all, I’m a mom.

Motherhood gives me a certain perspective on what good dads do. But only a dad can offer the inside-out perspective on being a good dad.

So I tapped into wiser heads than mine and asked some really good dads, “Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give a younger dad on what it takes to be a good dad?”

Charlie, a father of three teens (two boys and a girl), says this:

“First, learn patience—with the kids and their mother. Second, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

He paused.

“And third, realize that you are not guaranteed happiness in being a father. It requires self-sacrifice—in terms of sleep, money, etc.—but only through that self-sacrifice can you be happy.

“I always tell people that the greatest moments of fatherhood are not at Disneyland or at some sporting event. I remember one time the whole house was sick for a couple of days. The place was a ‘vomitorium.’ I’m doing all the nursing and janitor functions while feeling like crap. I’m nauseous and exhausted, rinsing out a vomit bucket in the bathroom, and it hits me—THIS is what it means to be a father.

“It felt good.”

The heart of a Dad–progressively emptied of selfishness, bucket by bucket, becomes a heart overflowing with love.

But it doesn’t happen by itself. Would any of us empty ourselves so willingly, day after day, if we didn’t have to?

A friend of mine lives a wealthy, power-couple lifestyle. Long-married, but with no children, she once told me, “It’s hard for us, with no children, to learn how to be unselfish towards each other. Everything’s negotiable. His turn, my turn. It’s not the same as being unselfish. I watch you with your children and I’m envious. They teach you to give out of love—to give simply because they need it, even when there’s no benefit to you at all.”

Her wistful words remain fresh in my memory, even after several years. I think of them when I struggle to give freely–when meeting a child’s need creates a momentary sense of “loss”—lost privacy, free time, sleep, or opportunity. In my better moments, I remember that it’s not “loss” at all, but a gift, to have the chance to love more deeply, less selfishly.

Charlie experienced the blessing of necessity. I say “blessing” because ‘necessity’ has the power to change hearts, if we are willing. God, fortunately for us, doesn’t unfurl the scroll of our selfish habits all at once, demanding that we march through the list and methodically rid ourselves of self-centeredness before the sunset of life.

He leads us by the grace of necessity. Our response ‘in the moment’ turns loss into gain and selfishness into love.

All He asks is a heart willing to love.

And humble enough to do the job in front of us.

That’s what it takes to be a good Dad.

And, come to think of it, that’s what it takes to be a good Mom too.

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Filed under Children, Family, Men, Moms and Motherhood, Parenting

Tagged as a good, best dad, charlie, dad, God, grace, human interest, loss, love, mom, moments, music, necessities, selfishness

May 11, 2011 · 12:10 pm

Sudden Death. Life Perfectly Timed.

Sudden death.

The loss of a beloved friend, without warning, rips a gaping hole in the memory-rich fabric of life.

Mary Murphy Hamann, my college roommate, longtime friend, and one of the most cheerful people I’ve ever met, died on Good Friday in a remote village in Paraguay.

Her plan? To attend her daughter’s wedding there and meet the Paraguayan in-laws. But God planned otherwise. Mary hemorrhaged unexpectedly from a hidden, life-threatening tumor, just one day before her daughter’s wedding.

Nothing could have saved her. Even if she’d been stateside, the end result would have been the same. Her close-knit family–husband, four adult children, seven surviving siblings, in-laws, and dozens of nieces and nephews–reeled from the blow, in shock and grief.

But the days that followed found them steadied by the mercy of God’s grace and the hope born of faith.

It was her time.

I remember once, thirty years earlier, when Mary told me, “It’s time.”

Only then it was “time” to marry her high school sweetheart, Mike—a decision that seemed as ill-timed (to others) as her death now thirty years later.

Just 19 when Mike slipped the engagement ring on her finger, Mary married at 20. No shotguns involved, just a young couple in love and ready to team up for life. “He’s the one,” Mary told me, “It’s time.”

So she married and left school, taking a job that would support them both while Mike spent his last two years at Notre Dame.

The young feminists in our dorm sizzled with outrage. Clearly appalled, one driven engineer-to-be expressed her indignation—on Mary’s behalf–to me. “She’s got a 3.9! Why is she leaving school? Why doesn’t he leave school so she can finish?”

Mary’s decision made no sense to the career-oriented, high-achievers of the 80’s. Forget the balancing act. Marriage and motherhood were obstacles to career success.

Some imagined a he-versus-she wrestling match over dominance and ambition, with Mary finally yielding. Others carped that Mary’s conservative beliefs and traditional Catholicism must be at fault. “What a waste.” They lamented their friend’s all-but-certain future: talents undeveloped and opportunities lost, all sacrificed at the altar of marriage and motherhood.

Poor Mary.

“Poor Mary” never looked back. Her sureness emerged from a prayerful heart intent on one question: ”What is the Lord’s will for me?”

The answer didn’t come instantly. She prayed for months, her rosary often slipping from her sleeping hand, down from her top bunk onto mine below. The Lourdes Grotto at Notre Dame held dozens of candle stubs lit by a young woman in search of God’s will. And her commitment to daily Mass—at noon or 5 pm—often meant the ultimate sacrifice for a college student: settling for the dregs of cafeteria food. Limp lettuce and rubbery burgers, at best. (One long-winded homily and she’d miss the meal entirely!)

God must have been tickled to see a young heart madly in love, but so willing to ask what He wanted. And Mary delighted in His answer—yes, marry Mike.

It was time.

More importantly, her question, “What’s your will for me, Lord?” wasn’t a one-timer. It was the recurring theme of her life. (Mike’s life too, for that matter.)

And indeed, it’s interesting how life turned out.

Mary’s first job gave way to full-time motherhood, with one girl and three boys in quick succession. Unfazed by muddy feet and shoes gone AWOL, Mary’s contagious laughter bubbled over in daily life. As her peers got big jobs and even bigger signing bonuses, Mary changed diapers, hugged toddlers, and shrugged off thoughts of what-might-have-been.

Then, supplementing Mike’s teaching job, she resumed part-time work, often from home, with stints in copywriting, advertising, and political campaigns. In short order, resourcefulness paired with economic necessity and gave birth to a successful family business in marketing and communications.

Funny how God works. As Mary followed the thread of God’s will, woven among family needs and life’s opportunities, her creative talents flourished, her professional skills sharpened, and her entrepreneurial spirit grew. She picked up the classes she needed, then came full circle, landing back at Notre Dame in a job she loved—Director of Communications in the Mendoza College of Business. For ten years, as her children moved into adulthood, she edited an award-winning magazine and played a central role in her husband’s successful entre into politics.

Even by feminist standards, it was a quality resume for a mom of four.

But her accomplishments aren’t the real story.

When Mary died, God didn’t read her obituary. He read her heart.

That’s the story too easily missed. Her heart had grown more in love with Him over the years, not by adding up achievements but by asking that question, “What’s your will for me, Lord?”

It’s a question that I, for one, ought to ask more often.

Because that simple question—“What’s your will for me, Lord?”—purifies the heart. And our sincere (though surely imperfect) response to that question, over and over, defines a life well lived.

In hindsight, Mary’s life was not only well lived, but perfectly timed.

And so was her death. It was her time, because it was God’s time. It’s the only way Mary would have wanted it.

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Filed under Catholicism, Faith and Virtue, Family, Lessons Learned, Marriage, Moms and Motherhood, Parenting, Prayer and Spirituality, Women

Tagged as deaths, family, God, gods plan, heart, jesus, life, mary, mary murphy, mary murphy hamann, nobility, notre dame, Parenting, Relationships, royalty, sudden death, unexpectedly

January 20, 2011 · 11:54 am

Why Tiger Mother is Wrong (And Her Critics Are Too)

Amy Chua, the now infamous “Tiger Mother,“ delivered her parenting manifesto last week in a Wall Street Journal article headlined “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.” The article, excerpted from her book, “The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,” outraged American moms.

Circling about, sometimes snarling, American mommy-cats pounced on the Tiger’s arguments, shredding them with sharpened claws. Bewildered and a bit scratched up, Chua has been in defensive mode ever since, appealing for parents to see her book as a “personal memoir about her own struggles with child-rearing” not as “judgment on anybody else.” Chua’s daughter even came to her beleaguered mother’s defense, publishing a warm letter thanking her mom for parenting her, Tiger style.

One thing’s for sure. Chua’s book has sparked an American conversation about children, their parents, and the elusive notion of “success.”

What have we learned?

First, that we are utterly confused, as a society, about what “good parenting” means.

And second, following from the first, we don’t really know what defines “success.” What do we really want for our children?

The Tiger Method

For Amy Chua, her children’s success is all about high academic and musical achievement. Her “Tiger” method produces nothing less than perfection, in classroom and concert hall.

What ignited the firestorm surrounding Chua’s book is her thesis: she asserts that, unlike “Western” mothers, “Chinese” mothers produce successful kids—perfect students and musical prodigies—because their parents expect perfection and force the habits that produce it. She scorns the permissive parenting model where children make their own decisions and quit when things get tough (like when they need to practice or study more).

In fact, Chua sneers at how Americans’ preoccupation with a child’s “self-esteem” prevents parents from correcting the child or insisting on better results. In contrast, the Chinese “solution to substandard performance,” is “to excoriate, punish, and shame the child. The Chinese parent believes that their child will be strong enough to take the shaming and to improve from it.”

Chua also argues that parents must firmly control their child’s upbringing: require hours of music practice and rote drills, limit leisure and friendships, and reject interest-driven extracurriculars to ensure more time for music or studies.

The bottom line: rules and more rules, work and more work, breed success. In the end, the thinking goes, Chinese children will be forever grateful to their parents.

The Western Pushback

What do Western parents want? Happy kids. Kids who feel good about themselves and who achieve their full potential. It’s a model that has its own problems.

Not surprisingly, Chua’s critics reject her methods as brutal and off-base. Business executives deride her approach, saying its emphasis on individual achievement and solitary pursuit of perfection stunts leadership abilities and fails to instill teamwork. The Tiger Method, they argue, also stifles initiative, independence, and creativity–qualities highly valued by Americans. As workers, then, her children’s potential may be limited.

Chua’s socio-economic assumptions drew fire as well. Parents note the costs of lessons and tutoring—options unaffordable for many families. Similarly, the time commitment is an impossible luxury for single parents or parents of large families.

Back in the mommy world, Chua earns scathing criticism for the harsh rebukes and insults she hurled at her daughters. She rejected their gifts–homemade birthday cards—because they represented less than the girls’ best efforts. Appalled, her critics wonder how can Chua’s daughters possibly feel good about themselves?

The Tiger mindset also minimizes legitimate human needs—like friendship. Chua adamantly refuses to let her girls have playdates and sleepovers. Fatigue and frustration are simply obstacles on the way to perfection, whether that’s a perfect test score or a flawless performance. The Western mind worries, however, that she’s creating robots.

Finally, on the lighter side, Chua’s demand for three hours of music practice brought laughs from one mom I know, who shook her head knowingly, “Chinese kids clearly don’t play the trumpet. Mine do. Three hours? I’d go mad.”

Flawed Assumptions

Is the measure of successful parenting whether our child achieves her full potential? If so, then both Chua and her critics have something to teach us.

Western parents often fail to set high expectations. Or they may deliver a steady diet of unearned praise and instant gratification, undercutting the child’s ability to persevere through tedious or difficult work. And parents who abdicate their authority create underachieving kids. Chua is right on those points.

At the same time, my heart cringes at Chua’s reported harshness. Berating and belittling injure relationships. Encouragement spurs achievement more powerfully than criticism does, in my book. So too do good friends. And allowing a child to follow her interests may ignite her strongest passion yet, leading to her greatest achievements. On these issues, the critics are right and Chua is wrong.

But the real flaw in Chua’s manifesto–and in her critics’ responses–is how they define parenting success. Achievement is great, but it’s not the end game. It’s an inadequate measure of human success or flourishing.

I remember a few years back when an Olympic swimmer graced the front of my Wheaties box. The back of the box listed interview questions and her responses.

One stood out:

Q: “Who’s your hero?”

A: “I am.”

Here was a champion swimmer who had pushed herself to reach her full potential, winning an Olympic medal in the process. Admirable, certainly. But she could think of no greater hero in her life, in history, than herself?

In my book, her arrogant self-absorption represented a huge parenting failure, no matter how great her Olympic achievement. Great achievement, without an underlying vision for character development and deeper human purpose, can be the product of narcissistic drives, greed, or self-absorption. And there’s nothing good about that.

The Ultimate Goal

Missing from Chua’s work—and the comments of her critics—is any sense of a fuller purpose to human life. The measure of our parenting success is not what our child does or achieves, but what kind of person he or she becomes. It’s more about “being” and less about “doing.”

So what should successful parents strive to do?

Raise a child who is determined to be a good, moral human being
Teach the child right from wrong, grounding her in the rules that limit and govern human behavior
Teach her the virtues (Habits of doing good.)
Help him forge strong relationships, built on love, service, and respect
Help him orient his talents, decisions, and achievements towards others (“the common good”) rather than selfish goals.
Model love, humility, forgiveness, and respect for all.

Amy, a word of advice from a fellow mom….We’re all far from perfect but love makes all things new again. You’ve loved your girls fiercely. Perhaps this is the season to love gently.

7 Comments

Filed under Children, Family, Kids and Character, Lessons Learned, Moms and Motherhood, Parenting

Tagged as : family, amy chua, asia, cai, child rearing, childhood, children, chinese mother, critics, environment, mother, motherhood, Parenting, single parents, successful parenting, tiger, tiger mother, tiger style, why, zoology

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