This selection appears courtesy of EWTN Publishing. The full book is available here.

Dear Dr. Ray, 

I’m the mother of three children, ages 28, 23, and 15. The oldest has left the Church. The middle one is lukewarm about religion. The jury is still out on the youngest. We so much tried to teach and live the Faith. It’s hard not to feel like a failure. 

—“D-” Parent

Do you live on a farm or in a small town? Is the year 1880? If so, your children’s drift is not so common. For much of Christian history, what children were raised in, they stayed in. The family, clan, or tribe was the unchallenged teacher of beliefs, morals, and attitudes — in short, its religion.

Do you live in the United States? In the 21st century? Have you raised your kids here — in the past 40 years or so? Then your experience is not so uncommon. Surveys confirm: Young adults are moving away from the Church in distressing numbers.

As repeated in this book, the soul-misshaping forces of our irreligious society are everywhere and relentless: television, movies, music, celebrities, academia, advertising. Even when homes try to lock the ugliness out, it can seep in like a vapor and shape how someone inside thinks, feels, and believes — often quite counter to what is being taught in the home.

Of course, young people are not equally influenced. God’s grace, free will, personality, and circumstances — all interact to move a child to hold more or less tightly to the Faith. Nonetheless, many fine parents feel what you are feeling: a profound disappointment and a sense of failure that their offspring don’t have a deeper sense of God’s presence.

Today’s parenting has been muddled by “psychological correctness.” That is, there are psychologically correct ways to talk to children, reason with them, discipline them — in short, raise them. Reflect an empathic I-message, apply well-timed positive reinforcement, construct a win-win scenario, design a one-of-a-kind sticker system — and a child can be shaped like clay. A good psychological outcome is foreordained.

While useful for some kids — mostly those who could raise themselves — psychological correctness pulls many well-meaning moms and dads into a futile cycle of tentativeness, second-guessing, and guilt. In the end, it offers no guarantee of a well-adjusted youngster.

Among religious parents, a parallel notion is spiritual correctness. It says: Do the spiritual good things — attend daily Mass, say the family Rosary, confess regularly, pray together, read the lives of the saints — and you will raise a saint.

Don’t misread me. All these are faith-nurturing practices that raise the likelihood of raising a saint. But they are not guarantees. And when a parent believes they are, if a saint doesn’t ultimately come to be, the doubts do: What more could I have done? What did I miss? Where did I fall short? Did I compromise too much with the culture? Was I too Catholic? How could I go so wrong?

Many, if not most, conscientious parents did little or nothing wrong. They imparted the Faith as well as they could. Not having God’s omniscience, they lived and taught as fallible humans.

Suppose, though, that God had been beside you every day, whispering precise instructions into your ears. That would guarantee a God-seeking young person, wouldn’t it?

During presentations, I often ask parents to answer a series of questions with a simple yes or no.

Is there a God? Yes.

Is Christ God? Yes.

Was He sinless? Yes.

Could He perform miracles? Yes.

Did He have perfect understanding of human nature? Yes.

Pausing, I then ask: Could He get most people to follow Him?

As a pensive silence drifts through the group, they answer no.

My last question: If the God-Man himself didn’t convert most, why do we think we can do better?

In the television miniseries Jesus of Nazareth, Mary Magdalene meets Jesus in the garden immediately after the Resurrection. He instructs her to go and tell His disciples that He is risen. Upon arriving at the room where the apostles are hiding, Mary Magdalene, barely able to contain herself, reports, “He is alive. I saw Him. He told me to tell you.”

Mary receives a flat stare from St. Peter and a “women’s fantasies” comment from St. Thomas. Whereupon she erupts, “Was His death a fantasy? I saw Him die.” Regrouping, she finishes, “He told me to tell you, and I have done so.” Slamming the door, she storms away.

The scene offers a lesson for faithful parents. Jesus told you to raise your children in the Faith, and you have done so. Now it is their life and their free choice to believe. God asks us to be faithful, not necessarily successful.

Though you have no assurance that all your faithful years will add up to a faith-filled young adult, you do have other assurances:

• The more faithful a parent, the more likely the kids will follow.
• Of those who leave or outright reject the Faith, some will one day return, more believing than ever. They were given truth to return to when finding society’s ways deficient.

So you’ve given yourself a D-, but the semester is far from over.