Keeping Kids Faithful in Secular Schools

Pray for me.

For the first time since my children were in kindergarten, some of them will be attending secular schools this fall. We will soon find out how deep the formation is; if our indoctrination worked.

One will be a freshman at a large state university in California. There are transgender students in some of his classes—which is probably true for every school in America outside of Thomas Aquinas, Hillsdale, and the University of Dallas, but is a new one for him.

The other is transferring to a new high school, which is technically Catholic, but it’s like most Catholic schools in California: filled with children who are not Catholic. This means she will be one of the very few students who actually goes to mass every Sunday, and this is a kid who is accustomed to seeing her entire school and most of her teachers at mass on Sunday.

Both of these kids are weird religious fanatics compared to their classmates. They will be in the extreme religious minority, with all that that entails.

They are going from a school day that starts with reciting prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance to schools that don’t. If religion comes up, it’s going to be in the context of social justice, helping immigrant communities, and embracing our gender-diverse brothers and sisters.

They may also be in social situations they’ve never been in. I know some of you won’t believe me, but neither of these kids has ever been at a teen party where alcohol was available. Both are firmly ensconced in teenage peer groups that value chastity. They are fanatically pro-life and love going to confession once a week—on their own!

Will it last? Will their beautiful and true faith be dulled or diluted in any way? Or will it be sharpened by fire? My college kid only brought two things to hang on the walls of his dorm room: a framed vintage print of a medieval suit of armor he received as a gift from his brother, and his cross. My daughter told me she wants to start the first pro-life club at her new school.

But kids want to fit in. They will go to extreme lengths to fit in. They don’t like feeling different or alone; who does? So I’m sure some aspects of their new environments will be absorbed. My kids are exposed to pop music, the internet, memes. They’re not strictly censored when it comes to their media diet, with reason of course. But they did grow up in cultural bubbles around people just like them.

They have spent little time with people who have different ideas about God or abortion or gay marriage. And if they did meet those people, they would be friendly, kind, and polite, the way I taught them to be. They treat everyone they meet with the same level of respect, no matter what. But the one thing I haven’t prepared them for is how other people in the real world may treat them when they find out my children are religious “extremists.”

No one has ever called them out in real life for having the wrong ideas. They’ve never had to deal with someone calling them a misogynist for being pro-life, or a racist for supporting Donald Trump.

This is the one downside to raising right-wing children: you are raising people who will be the natural enemy of mainstream society, especially if you live in a blue state. My kids and all their friends think of themselves as the good guys: they love God and hope to be saints in heaven one day. But they are entering a world full of people, a vast majority of people, who think that belief makes you a bad guy, or at the very least, a stupid misguided hick. They are woefully unprepared for the simmering fury that lies fallow in the hearts of some of their liberal classmates, or future professors. One wrong word, one inadvertent admission, and they’re going to face the mob.

And yet: each of them chose this path. Each for different reasons elected to embark on a path outside the familiar comfort of their lovely childhood bubble.

I have to trust that their souls are fortified. That their minds are sharp enough to do battle. And that their hearts are big enough to love their new friends; and even their most vocal interlocutors.

I had a talk with my college freshman about how to avoid needlessly provoking liberals on campus.

He told me “Mom, Jesus said if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If Jesus can do it, so can I.”

Maybe they’ll be okay after all. Maybe the only one stressed out about this is me (as usual).

Have any of you faced this situation? If you have, share any tips in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

—Peachy