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Author Topic: Let's talk about age gaps  (Read 40875 times)

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Änσnymσus

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Re: Let's talk about age gaps
« Reply #405 on: Yesterday at 08:50:37 PM »
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  • My girls are still too sheltered at that age. They aren't "out in the world" yet. They don't know the birds & bees yet. Also, their homeschool workload gets pretty serious around age 15 or 16. We're talking college classes, advanced AP classes, etc.
    In our particular family (due to genetics, etc.) we are very high IQ, so my wife and I decided to have some decently high standards for our children's homeschool education.

    In modern day America, the culture and country in which we live, it is EXPECTED for a person to complete high school. That is one thing that has changed from the Middle Ages.
    I'm not saying they have to go to college (that is the next step many people take -- they want the girl to not just have a HS diploma, but a college degree as well "just in case")

    But I think having a high school diploma isn't too much to ask. The young man can have some patience. She'll still have some fertility left at 18, come on now. (I'm being facetious here, but actually pregnancy under the age of 18 isn't even ideal from a biological standpoint. And for Trad Catholics, marriage = likely pregnancy).

    As for honorable courtship at 14 or 16, that would totally distract a girl from what she needs to be learning, studying, and doing during her "finishing off" period before she comes of age. But the finishing off period is something I never thought about until a few years ago.

    Try to consider the parents point of view. You have children. You are responsible for them. You want them to be happy. You love them. You want to teach them the important things you know about the world, so they don't have to learn things the hard way. HOW DO YOU DO THAT IF THEY COULD BE GONE AT 16?
    Just for starters, MANY topics you can't introduce until you've cleared the prerequisite course, "Birds & Bees 101". And do you REALLY want to take a totally innocent girl and introduce things to them they REALLY don't need to think or worry about?
    I'm not going to introduce deep adult topics too early just so they can grow up a few years early. That's not necessary at all.

    I don't just throw my kids into the deep end of knowledge, or the world, and hope they swim. I allow them to be kids when they're kids. (except I do teach them to work and practice self-mortification -- doing what you don't want to do -- from an early age)
    I insist they learn all the basics, including knowing how to cook, clean, etc. Both boys and girls. But I allow them time to play, have fun, and be kids. I'm preparing them for a REALISTIC future -- which, let's be honest, will be mostly work and certainly not all fun & games.

    But no, I don't teach my daughters to have a GenZ-like attitude towards age. As homeschoolers, my kids aren't obsessed with limiting all socializing to a narrow age range plus 2 years and minus 2 years from their own age. That's not realistic at all. Just look at any office or workplace. Or convent, monastery, etc. Nowhere in the real world are you sectioned off with 30 or 50 people born in the same year as you. Public school is artificial as hell, designed to create mindless drones for corporate offices, and destructive in every way.

    I'm all for preparing my children with the proper information at the proper age. But until they have to go study/work/etc. out there in the world, they don't need to know all the gritty details about men and how the world works.

    Maybe the answer would be different for some public school girls whose innocence was taken away years earlier -- both in terms of knowledge and experience -- but neither of those things apply to my Trad, homeschooled daughters.
    Matthew if you don't mind answering. How do you control/limit your childrens online/screen time? Something I am thinking of in regards to my future children.

    Änσnymσus

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    Re: Let's talk about age gaps
    « Reply #406 on: Yesterday at 10:43:41 PM »
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  • . My oldest is going on 10 and starting to notice boys. 
    What does it mean to 'notice'?


    Offline Matthew

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    Re: Let's talk about age gaps
    « Reply #407 on: Yesterday at 11:49:59 PM »
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  • You said you only started thinking about this a few years ago. Is this because they were too young to seriously think about it or because the topic didn't occur to you?

    I was surprised by a lot of things I thought I knew (but didn't) about being a father, being a Trad Catholic father, having a large family, homeschooling, etc.

    For starters, I envisioned homeschooling as much more "do it yourself" whereas we ended up doing the typical drop-kids-off-for-music-classes almost every day of the week. When I was a kid we had 0 extracurricular activities, and we all liked it that way. Also the huge number of online classes and other scheduled classes (for example, online college classes). I thought it would be more "self teaching" or something at that age. My mom homeschooled a bit (she started when I was 16) so I really don't have much experience with it. The whole thing was an adventure for me. But I've learned a lot through raw experience, I'll tell you that much!

    But my oldest, a boy, I thought I would have more time once he was "old enough" -- say at age 16. But to my shock, he was basically "gone" at 16. He was either doing SERIOUS school classes, gone to college classes, or working a job (full time when school was out). And then right after high school he actually went to college. I feel like I got gypped out of 2 years of "finishing" time I thought I would have.

    Again, I had no clue about this before I had a 16 year old -- because my parents (Boomers) didn't have that issue. They did the typical 80's parenting thing -- basically the super-independent, throw them in public school, throw them in the deep end tactic. Which has its advantages, sure -- but also plenty of disadvantages. I suppose I learned a few things from how they (we) reacted to various news stories, what they shouted at the TV set, etc. Which was good, I suppose. And we had a lot of conversations (again, why not? we were practically adults at 13 or 15). Plus, I wasn't from a "college family" so I wasn't on a college track. I spent a lot of time at home writing computer programs and games as a teenager. Just a completely different experience compared with the family I'm heading up now.



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    Offline Matthew

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    Re: Let's talk about age gaps
    « Reply #408 on: Yesterday at 11:54:29 PM »
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  • Quote from: Änσnymσus 11/14/2025, 8:50:37 PM
    Matthew if you don't mind answering. How do you control/limit your childrens online/screen time? Something I am thinking of in regards to my future children.

    Well, both parents are home all the time, so it's easy to keep tabs on that. We don't have TV(s), but we do have a ridiculous number of computers (which we need to, due to homeschooling. They actually each need their own computer or laptop, believe it or not).

    We keep an eye on things. We have mostly girls, so that's obviously different from having boys. They're also very "good girls".
    We also have a big family. But not just a big family -- we're a big family in an average sized house. 3 bedrooms and a game room (no closet, no door). Each bedroom has several roommates. So they get less chances to "try to hide from God" and get into trouble, even if they wanted to. Which they don't -- but just saying.

    Fortunately I know the intrinsic evils of social media, so we don't do that around here. We socialize with each other, and also try to find friends from within Tradition, even if they are long-distance friendships.

    I want to be open with them, and share with them what I know, for example the danger of "the blind leading the blind", the evils of bad companions, etc. We have a lot of good Catholic literature around here, and they've read a lot of it.
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