I don't know for sure what I would say if I were the parents in that situation, but I do know this - that is probably not the best way to respond.My first thought was to be critical of Catholics, since the mom can be heard telling her son that he must believe in God, because he got confirmed and he said so to the Bishop. As you may remember from my previous post (and comments on Amanda's blog), I'm not very fond of the Catholic church and its practices. Generally (not always, mind you) Catholics aren't very knowledgeable about the Bible or general theology, nor are they encouraged to be. So it's not too surprising that these people can't rationally explain to their son why they do believe in God and/or reasons why he should also.
The funny thing though is that while Protestants can more often tell you what they believe, many (most?) still can't tell you why they believe in God. In fact, I wasn't able to get an immediate answer to this question even from a few Christians whose faith and Biblical knowledge I greatly respect.
Going back to the video, instead of talking to her son about why he now thinks or believes this way, the mom blows up and starts cursing at him. This makes me wonder, how well does she or has she listened to her son? Has she ever talked to him rationally before? Does she even respect or care about his opinion? Or does she just tell him what to do and expect him to obey?
Then I thought "What the heck is the dad doing?" Sitting there keeping his fat mouth shut, which leads me to believe that he's not much of a leader or a role model for his family, spiritually or otherwise. But then again, maybe he's being wise and waiting to talk until he's had a chance to think about what he really wants to say, instead of just blowing up like the mother is doing.
The clip is pretty short, so maybe these parents' reaction improved after the camera turned off. Truthfully, these people got hit upside the head with some news that was obviously upsetting to them (as it should be), so they were probably at their worst and therefore easy targets of criticism. I'm actually really glad to have seen this video though, because it gives me the chance to ponder exactly what I would do and/or say, instead of potentially being blindsided one day.
1 comment:
Wow, that's really sad. I thought my parents handled my period of questioning when I was a teenager really well. They didn't really respond much at all, but were very encouraging of any questions. Being the teenage drama queen I was, I would have pulled further away if they had responded at all like this. I thought it was funny too that the mom in the clip was so upset, but they weren't religious enough to go to church regularly. She said, "we are going to start going to church EVERY Sunday." Like that is the ultimate religious sacrifice.
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