agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR SOMEONE ELSE’S MOM: As soon as I graduate next spring with my bachelor’s degree, I intend to enter the convent of the religious order that taught at my high school. I had wanted to enter at the end of my senior year there, but my parents insisted I go to a four-year-co-ed college at least 100 miles from home, so I would have to live there so I would have “the full college experience”.

I have not liked having to wait, but since my vocation came to me when I was 15, I have known what I must and will do and I do not resent my parents’ asking this delay of me.

I know my parents continue to hope I will meet some nice guy and fall in love with him and decide I do not want to enter religious life. But I dated a couple of those nice guys, and there were zero sparks. All this entire experience did was to confirm my devotion to my chosen life.

It is obvious this all greatly bugs my parents, and I hate that part of it, but I have a calling, and that ultimately cannot be pushed aside or denied. Life outside the order would be miserable for me.

I know my parents are praying this will be the year I change my mind, but I will not. I know that.

What more can I do to convince my parents I am doing what is best for me and what will make me happy? --- HAVE MY CALLING

DEAR HAVE MY CALLING: The path you’re committed to taking isn’t an easy nor a very common one, and I can certainly appreciate your parents’ wanting you to be sure before you moved fully into it.

That said, you and they struck a bargain that entailed you going to college to see what else is out there. I think that was a smart thing to do and it sounds like you were open to the experiences that come with the territory.

Your strongest argument now may be to remind them of your willingness and follow-through on taking a few years to explore a more conventional life. So far it obviously hasn’t changed your mind.

If that remains the case, as you’re certain it will, then hopefully your parents will accept the fact that you tried things their way and come next spring, it’s your turn to pursue your own convictions and passions.

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Unlike most disapproving parents of adults, I don't think LW's parents are in the wrong here. It is reasonable to ask your child to wait before making a major life decision, their idea of waiting was sensible and within cultural norms, and from LW's own description it doesn't sound like they're actually exerting undue pressure at this end of things. They're just unhappy.

Well, the truth is that sometimes our decisions are not going to make our loved ones happy. The only thing to do is to accept that.

Now, if LW is concerned that she's somehow not meeting her obligation as a Catholic to honor her parents then she should bring that up with a priest before taking further steps on this path. I think, though, that she's acted in good faith for these past four years, even going on a few trial dates, and everything ought to be clear in her conscience.

This seems like good advice.

AFAIK, these sort of religious organisations also require a period of experiencing life within a convent before making a commitment and have processes for leaving later if you choose to. So it's not all or nothing for the LW.

Yes, though that's not really something I'd tell LW's parents to pin their hopes on. Lots and lots and lots of people who feel called to a religious life in their teens and early twenties decide later that perhaps they weren't called forever, just for a time, no matter how sincere their feelings were.

But you won't make anybody happy if you obviously are just waiting for your daughter to give up.

Seeing you contented and fulfilled in your calling is probably going to do more than any verbal argument you can muster.

Not if they have their heart set on grandkids. But LW cannot control her parents' emotions. She'll have to live with them, and so will they.

'Those were not the aspirations that we sent our daughter to a convent school to acquire' - I guess it's the risk that comes with that.

“They don’t reproduce—-they have to recruit!”

Hysterical 🚫

I would think LW's commitment to upholding their end of the bargain - did the whole four year undergraduate thing away from home - and continued determination to pursue this path - unusual tho it sounds like it might be within their family's community - should probably help allay some of their parents' fears?

If fears is the correct word. If the real word is, ahem, "the baby rabies" then nothing's gonna work and the parents ought to consider having another before it's too late.

Ooh, good point. I think there are legitimate reasons for LW's parents to worry about their child taking such a huge (unusual and potentially difficult to get out of) decision like joining a convent but if their problem is that they want a grandbaby… you're right, it might not be too late for them to have another child but it's weird and inappropriate to put that on LW - especially if they're being "subtle" about it.

I'm wondering if LW is secretly gay, and not willing to admit that to herself.

Gay people can also be nuns.

The majority of the nuns who taught at my high school were queer in some degree. Mostly butches, but there was one who I suspect had some Gender Stuff going on and another who maybe would have gotten some use out of essays on asexuality. (They mostly were administrative or did things like supervise the yearbook and newspaper.)

Could be asexual and not aware of the term, but I still think LW has the right to make her choice. If it turns out to be something that doesn't work for her in the long run, life is like that.

I feel like there's going to be infinite goalpost shifting here if it's something the parents really don't want her to do. "Try college. Oh, try life after college. Things will be different in your 30s, you'll really feel different when your friends are having babies...."

I feel very sympathetic towards LW here but in some ways she doesn't actually have a problem. I mean, it's understandable that she wants to "convince her parents" but she probably can't. There isn't a magic formula if she's already tried waiting for several years, taking a degree she didn't care about, going on dates and using her words with her parents throughout this whole thing.

So she should follow her calling, and her parents will be sad, but them's the breaks. In some ways she will have things easier than many adults whose parents disapprove of their life choices. She doesn't have to decide whether to cut them off altogether or shield her partner and children from people who resent their existence. She isn't dependent on her parents for money or housing or anything like that. She can have the level of contact with her parents you'd expect for a nun, and they'll either come round or they won't, and it won't affect her life much either way.

Yeah, she just wants to have her cake and eat it too, which is understandable, but from this letter it doesn't even sound like they're trying to pressure her some more, just that they're unhappy. And they're gonna have to be unhappy if they can't get over it, and she's gonna have to live with it.

LW should talk to their priest about this, obviously, and with the sisters in the order. It certainly isn't the first time parents have been unhappy, despite all the teachings of the Church.

It doesn't come up in the LW's question, but if the parents have only one child and a daughter at that, they will have very likely had expectations around grandchildren and late-life care that LW is not playing along with.

It certainly isn't the first time parents have been unhappy, despite all the teachings of the Church.

One of the reason cloistered orders had grilles, originally, isn't it, so parents didn't steal back their daughters (and, I guess, their dowries).

LW, you convince your parents you're doing the right thing by entering the order and thriving there. If my understanding is correct, you'll still have a few years before you take final vows; that's plenty of time to confirm, for yourself if not for your parents, that this is your calling.

For a lot of orders it's ten years from entering the convent until life vows. It's a slow process.

This really isn't any different from any number of people who are going to graduate from college and go against their parents' wishes by becoming doctors or novelists or farmers or young parents or whatever. All any of these young adults can do is act like adults -- that is, do what they choose, accept the consequences, and not waste energy trying to persuade other people to agree with them.