It saddens me to see pious traditional Catholic parents today, who have home-schooled their children with endless love and devotion during all their lives, just to see them lose the Faith completely once they grow up. The children become apostates, living completely secular sinful lives, not any different from the non-Catholics. What a cross and disappointment, after so many years of dedication!, like all these efforts were for nothing.  

As a parent of very small children, it brings me almost to the point of despair, to see this phenomenon all around me. Children brought up in Tradition...

What have the parents done wrong? How can you really pass the Faith on in the midst of a depraved, satanic society such as this? and how do you prepare yourself to bear this suffering of seeing your children in the way of eternal perdition?

There have been many traditional Catholics whom I have known who raised their children well, yet the children were taken in my the world and human respect as they became adults.  Our era is such a dangerous time to live in...

The best thing to do is to try and imitate Saint Monica, and follow Padre Pio's words:  "Pray, hope, and trust everything to God."

Keep fighting and may God bless you and your loved ones!  :-)

Sometimes the parents have not done anything wrong.  They have raised their children, preserved them from occasions of sin, taught them the faith...

I've told my children that according to all the statistics, at least some of them will reject God when they leave home--though I pray that this will not be the case.  However, I also tell them that if they do they will not be able to point to me and claim that I allowed them to stray or will simply go along with their chosen lifestyle.

If you live a Catholic life and raise your children in the Faith, you MUST tell them this very thing when they are mature enough to receive it. They will know that they are ultimately responsible before God, and those parents can let themselves "off the hook" instead of going to their graves feeling guilty of sin they did not commit.

I know children have free will, and that children apostatize even from good families. But you can increase your chances by doing a good job as parents, and being prudent.

My theory is that this phenomenon of "out of the blue apostasy" doesn't happen nearly as often as you might think.

For example, take these 2 Trad families. I knew both of them personally. Let's call them the Alphas and the Betas.

Mr. Alpha had a large Catholic family, and went to a Trad chapel every Sunday with his wife and children. But he also fell for Bishop Fellay's line of bull that we need to "get back in Rome" lest we all end up Schismatic. Also, one or more of his daughters started wearing scandalously short skirts, and started to run into trouble with fellow Trad parishioners. So for these two reasons (the SSPX slide towards the Indult, and his daughters getting criticized for how they were dressing) he took his whole family to the local Indult Tridentine Mass.

Mrs. Alpha likes this move, because she's all about socializing. She wouldn't like the Resistance, because there are less mothers there to socialize with.

Now they live in an Indult milieu, where short skirts aren't a problem. Let's face it -- you are going to find more worldly people at an Indult chapel than you would at a more serious Trad chapel.

Point #1: If Mr. & Mrs. Alpha suffer any of their children becoming apostates, can we really say, "Oh, what a shame! It was totally outside their control!"

I wouldn't.

On to the next example --

Mr. and Mrs. Beta are another Trad Catholic family. They have been Trad for decades. But this family has a different problem -- discipline. The children receive almost no discipline, at least before age 6 or 7. The parents don't agree on discipline, so the children all become master manipulators. By the time Mr. Beta is forced to start attempting some form of discipline, it's too late -- and half-hearted attempts are made at excessive spanking to make up for it. Empty threats, irregular enforcement -- all the usual parental mistakes when it comes to discipline. Even Mr. Beta has a real soft spot for TV and other material things, and his kids pick up on this. They crave smartphones, TV, movies, the beach, and all manner of worldly things. The parents are very strict in various ways, but they certainly fail to teach their children the WHY of Catholic morality and living. They are more about threats and appeals to authority. And, again, Mr. Beta probably causes more resentment than anything else. Imagine being a child raised from an early age to do whatever you want, then all the sudden you get beat for doing something "wrong". You'd feel it was unfair, and you'd be right.

Point #2: If any of these "Beta" children became apostates, could you really say, "Oh man, what a shame! That could happen to anyone! They were all raised Trad Catholic and everything!"

No, because a wise man knows that if you fail to teach MORTIFICATION, they will likely fall into sins of impurity which enslaves the Will, darkens the Intellect, and leads to apostasy. It's a simple pattern that you can observe happening millions of times over in the world.

It seems like a mystery of God to me. Some people are brought up by good traditional Catholic families who live the faith and instill virtue in their children and when the children grow up they leave the faith or worse, go to the Novus Ordo. And others are brought up by godless parents and when they grow up they become trads. I know I grew up Novus Ordo and then I converted to traditional Catholicism as an adult.

Mine accuse me of bringing God into everything, and my husband supports them in that, it does not make for a happy home, let alone Catholic.

Great post! Necessary!  I to can be accused of bringing up God.  My husband felt this way but did not show it, but he was uncomfortable.  He fell into sin, when he was truly sorry, he came back reborn.  Age 54, mid-crisis?  Probably but it did it's damage and hurt. But we came back and I saw how the Holy Ghost works when you have true sacraments of Penance and a good Confessor.

I for one made sure that our children (ages 24 -34) saw how God moves.  I wanted them to see the hurt as well as the beauty of a saved soul.  That dad was different and what that meant.  You take what you have and you work with it with the Holy Family to help you.

I don't get the uncomfortableness any more.  My husband wants to read more religious books and takes more interest.  He came from a family of 2, that is all they could have and were pampered.  I came from a family of 9 and we never had that  and never did I expect it.  

Of our 4 children, 3 were home schooled, Thank God!  As mom, I learnt alot and was excited for the truth in the curriculum about our heritage!  How Blessed and Graced we were to have truth while others hunt or don't care to hunt for it.

Of the 4, 2 stay with Traditional CMRI, and 1 fell but is trying to get back and we continue to use "carrots".  Another is Traditional and grandsons are being taught the Faith, the husband needs conversion.

We as parents, have had the tears and joys.  It is rough, BUT, Thank God the sacraments are still there and working for the evil is thick!

I Thank God for what we do have and know what we could have had if we were New Order and our children in public school.  I know that our family would have been lost!  Thank God for Our Lady.  As husband and wife, we do the Total consecration every year, for 14 years now.  

So, stay prayerful and watch as Christ told His apostles.  Christ had one, leave, Judas, and Peter who denied Christ.  His family hurt too, but it did go on!

At the end of the day, you can lead the horse to water but you can't make it drink.  That's the mystery of free will.

I do want to say that many Traditional Catholics are plagued with bitter zeal, which turns children off to the faith.  So they not infrequently rebel against this bad attitude.