I have a friend who has 100% accepted his father's Baby Boomer values, which makes him quite rare among his peers today. It got me thinking about how we all NEED to reject Baby Boomer values (a.k.a. The American Dream) on a worldly level, and sometimes even for higher reasons.

Baby Boomer culture or values consists of the following:

Go to public school, get good grades, go to college (even if you have to get student loans for it). Work a part-time job to pay for part of it.

By age 18, you should be enrolled in a traditional college, not living at home.

College will bring you a good job (working for a company) with health insurance, 401K, job security, etc. Upon getting your first job, immediately begin investing for retirement in the stock market.

Don't work for yourself, or do anything unconventional. Work for the man! Get hired by a company and work 40 years for them, and then draw a lifetime pension from that company.

As soon as you can, buy a house! No apartments, living with friends/family or getting creative with your living arrangements. Once you have a house, get married and have several children, in a hospital of course using a traditional obstetrician (no midwives!)

And that house you bought? Pay monthly payments on that house for 30 years. No sending in extra payments to pay off that mortgage early! Extra money should be put into a savings account (earning 1%, while you pay 5.5% on your mortage) or in a college fund for your children.

If you end up having several C-Sections, no matter because it's God's will for you to only have 4 children. (NOTE: How many Baby Boomers do you know that had more than 4 children -- Catholic or otherwise?)

Besides, how can you "afford" more than 4 children anyhow? You have to put them all through college. Good thing Catholics have NFP and Protestants have birth control...

When the children start coming along, make sure they get all their shots and then send them off to public school (what is "homeschooling"?)

But above all else, always try your best to fit in with the world around you!

Later, rinse, repeat!

I think Baby Boomer values are anathema.

Sure, I'm all for hard work, but that's about where our similarities end.

Here's the reality for life in 2012:

Homeschool your children. Make sure your children know the material, because your homeschool "diploma" might not carry much weight with some.

College is NOT a guarantee of a lifetime income stream. One must be able to deliver actual WORK, not just be a cog in some company. Since you are doing actual WORK, why not do it for your own company? If you can't do it for your own company, you're probably not doing actual work!

Instead of expensive college, try apprenticeships, trade schools, or learning on your own. Being able to "deliver the goods" is much more important than having a piece of paper (=degree).

Above all else, avoid debt! The modern economy requires this. That goes for mortgages, car payments, student loans, and credit card debt. Do without, or get creative, to achieve this end.

Who cares if Ward Cleaver wouldn't have done it? This isn't the 1950s!

When you get married, buy a house if you can afford it, but don't buy too much house. Also, buy some land -- it will be necessary going forward. And when the children come along, find a good midwife. Modern obstetricians have NO CLUE how to deliver babies -- the 35% C-section rate says it all!

Avoid most vaccinations. They are unnecessary, often don't work, there are WAY too many of them compared to the 1980s, many use aborted fetal cells, and many contain cancer cells, heavy metals, etc.

Moreover, they are often given in "cocktails" which were untested (they test each vaccine separately, but not as a "cocktail") and they give them to babies and children who are too young for them.

And above all else, do your best to NOT care what the messed-up modern world thinks of you, which is insane on both a natural AND a supernatural level.

And so forth.

The rise in c-sections is actually about malpractice insulation. To protect themselves from lawsuits, as soon as there are any non-reassuring indications during labor (e.g., fetal hypoxia, which in turn could cause cerebral palsy), OB-GYNs will go straight to the c-section. Blame the filthy tort lawyers.

...And above all else, do your best to NOT care what the messed-up modern world thinks of you, which is insane on both a natural AND a supernatural level....

That piece may be the most important, actually.
They are both very important.

What is necessary is for Catholic parents to hold fast to the Faith, and to keep traditional Catholic Family values.

And NEVER make the mistake of believing that somehow your children will not lose the Faith in public schools.
  You run a serious risk that your children will lose the Faith in most Catholic schools.

The CMRI schools are actually the only schools that I can recommend.

If you cannot send your children to the CMRI schools, then homeschool them.

PS. Was your wife even given the option of laboring with the twins? I think most docs schedule c-sections for multiples as if it's a given that delivering them is impossible.

I don't know the details. But I think not. Something about the position of the twins (not flipping?). I know she has what is called a 'heart shaped uterus', which places her in a 'high-risk' type of pregnancy; its not high risk in the sense that everyone freaks out, just that she gets extra attention during the pregnancy. It somehow obstructs the babies from being able to flip.

My Mom had six children and all by C-section.  My wife's latest child was born via C-section (9 lbs).  

My quote notwithstanding, baby boomer values are pretty banal.

My Mom had six children and all by C-section.  My wife's latest child was born via C-section (9 lbs).  

My two 9 lb children were born via c-section (among other things, the doc said they were too big). My 9.5 and 10 lb children were delivered naturally by midwives after those c-sections! With two uneventful vbacs, my midwife doesn't have a problem with us having a home birth with our next if we choose to do so.

You can't accurately compare c-section policies a generation ago with those of today as the incisions were done differently. It used to be that one c-section meant all of your future children would have to be born that way, but that isn't true anymore. Each woman has a unique set of circuмstances which might or might not make a VBAC a good choice for her. But, the standards of most doctors / hospitals for what would make for a good VBAC candidate is WAY TOO RESTRICTIVE -- some hospitals flat out disallowing them altogether.