Why I Don't Force My Daughter To Veil

 

We have been attending the Traditional Latin Mass for about five years now, and my son has been serving Low Mass for the past year or so. We have a great, pretty main-stream community, which includes both those who attend the English Mass, and of course the TLM crowd. 

When we first started attending, my daughter had just turned five, I think. Wanting to fit in with the crowd, I began wearing a blazer and tie, and we bought some lace from Walmart for veils for the girls--black for my wife, white for my daughter. She looked adorable, a little cherub.

But as a dad who knows his daughter, I can tell she isn't especially "religious" in the pious sense. She is a good, sweet, innocent girl, but now that she is a little older she doesn't feel the need to 'play the part.' She prays the family rosary with us, goes to Confession when we go as a family, but part of this is a little bit of 'going through the motions.' She may be 'religious' in her own way, but she is private and introverted, so it's not on display if she is. 

A few years ago she conveniently lost her veil. Initially, I would get a little perturbed, and insist she find it and wear it. But it was clear she wasn't especially wedded to it. She also has extremely long legs, and her dresses were always a little on the shorter side (at the knee). Eventually, I stopped making a point of it, feeling like I was forcing something that had the potential to turn her off completely from the trappings of religion (that are not bad things, mind you).

The family that invited us to our first Latin Mass at our current parish five years ago are special to us. They have a large, beautiful family; the husband is a lawyer, super pleasant and also a little brusk at the same time. When we were at dinner, while we still attended Mass a different (non-TLM) parish, he asked me as soon as we sat down, I think: "So, why do you attend the Novus Ordo?" He said it with a sincere smile, so even though the question was direct it wasn't meant to be mean-spirited. The honest truth is I didn't really have a reason why--I stammered something about having started an apostolate at that parish, that it's near my parents, yadda yadda. The fact is, I didn't really know there was an alternative to what we were doing. 

So, a few months later, they took us out to lunch, and invited us to attend their parish (where we currently attend). The wife is as sweet and gentle as can be. As I learned later, she had grown up in a very strict, very end-times focused traditional family, and had a bit of trauma I suspect from that. Her husband, for his part, had some very negative experiences with the Novus Ordo and a particular religious order. None of this was enough to drive them from the Church. But I will say if I had to describe them, they are very joyful, beautiful, balanced, common-sense people who are doing a wonderful job of raising faithful, happy, beautiful kids.

I mention this because I think of them a lot when it comes to the temptation to 'force' religion with regards to my own children. My son has a beautifully sensitive conscience, without being scrupulous. He knows what it means to be contrite, is affectionate, knows right from wrong. My daughter, too, has an innocent faith that she keeps private. My five year old will go to the butter knife drawer when he gets angry at his siblings and attempt to exact retribution on them with silverware, but we will deal with him when the time comes to meet with his probation officer, haha (I jest).  

I've had conversation with our friend (the wife) about a fear-based religious upbringing, and my impression is that she is raising her kids intentionally antithetical to that. The emphasis is on love, mercy, forgiveness, gentleness. It shows in the light that shines from within them. Her two girls now veil, but I think there was a time when she and her girls did not. I suspect they didn't feel they had anything to prove. They were a large, faithful, homeschooling Catholic family whose children all held the faith. They certainly didn't have to act more pious than anyone else, because they were confident in their identity as Catholics. 

Like our friends, my wife and I have nothing to prove, nothing to show-off; we are secure in our identity in Christ. We love God, love the Church...we're not perfect, but we do have faith. My dad, for all his faults, raised me to not care what people think (as he does not care what people think of him). 

I've kind of resigned to the fact that my daughter at this point in her life simply doesn't want to veil for whatever reason. No one in our parish is shaming her, especially not her father (me). We do not have the "veils of shame" basket in our particular parish, and no one ever says anything to any woman who doesn't. I am very averse to any whiff of cultish behavior, and I can confidently say as a more mainstream diocesan TLM parish, that's not really an issue. If it was, we might not be there. 

St. Antony the Great had a saying, "I no longer fear God...but I love him." I have that icon of him with those words at my prayer station. I think that is the spirit of our friends, as well. Fear, shaming, coercing...these are the things that tend to have the opposite effect when it comes to religion: it pushes people away rather than than draws them in. What does draw people in is gentleness, charity, not judging (all qualities St. Paul admonishes believers in Christ to exhibit). 

I can appreciate objectively the desire for women to veil, as long as it comes from a willing, modest, sincere spirit. My wife has taken to the habit, of her own, though it took a little while to get to that point. Why does she veil? I couldn't tell you. Part of it seems religious-cultural. Yes, the Apostle talks about it as well in scripture, that women should cover their heads. Yes, it is a matter of modesty. But it's also a bit of an "extra-catholica" issue, ancillary in my mind. 

So, I have decided I will respect my daughter's decision not to veil at Mass, because I respect my daughter and want her to choose this for herself out of devotion at the proper time (which doesn't seem to be now). She is a beautiful girl, inside and out, and I don't want to subject her to any degree of religious trauma, however remote. I want my kids to love God and love each other, and know that God loves them as well. The basics, the essentials. As we catechize them, we do so gently, encouragingly, making clear it is okay to ask questions. 

There is a tale in Aesop's fables that might illustrate my position here better than I can:

"The North Wind and the Sun had a quarrel about which of them was the stronger. While they were disputing with much heat and bluster, a Traveler passed along the road wrapped in a cloak.

"Let us agree," said the Sun, "that he is the stronger who can strip that Traveler of his cloak."

"Very well," growled the North Wind, and at once sent a cold, howling blast against the Traveler.

With the first gust of wind the ends of the cloak whipped about the Traveler's body. But he immediately wrapped it closely around him, and the harder the Wind blew, the tighter he held it to him. The North Wind tore angrily at the cloak, but all his efforts were in vain.

Then the Sun began to shine. At first his beams were gentle, and in the pleasant warmth after the bitter cold of the North Wind, the Traveler unfastened his cloak and let it hang loosely from his shoulders. The Sun's rays grew warmer and warmer. The man took off his cap and mopped his brow. At last he became so heated that he pulled off his cloak, and, to escape the blazing sunshine, threw himself down in the welcome shade of a tree by the roadside."