Trust your intuition—healthy communities depend upon a jealous friction between the authority of the parents in the home and the authority of community leaders outside the home.
Doing a lot of reading of your substack today! My 15 year old has a fashion substack that addresses her attempts to be within the spirit of the Catholic School uniform and not homely, so this is a constant topic around here.
We also host women from the Bruderhof regularly, so again, lots of talk about dress and dresses!
My kids went to Catholic youth summer camp and the girls got special modesty talks, and yes, there was ick. Annie decided not to go back and to try out Youth Theological Initiative this summer instead. I've never considered that idea that the institution is prone to sacrifice my kids for the greater good and then my job is to protect them both from (and for) the institution. It does make one feel like your in a game of parenting whack a mole, like "Not that, not that. You don't have my child's best interest at heart, and you don't either."
What do you take of the desire for young women to join cloistered convents with full habits? I do find that, often, modesty policing is something women are doing to themselves and others in a desire to be set apart.
That’s interesting; thanks for the link I will check it out.
I think ideally the less communities spend thinking and talking about what the girls are wearing, the better. But that relies on dads doing their job, and raising their daughters to present themselves appropriately in public.
Middle aged women have used dress and modesty as a tool to control younger fertile women for eons. In general, any community where young fertile women are forced to dress exactly like post menopausal ladies, beware. It is a sign of bad things in both the men and the older women in the group
"Our efforts at holiness and indeed the true states of our souls are hidden, tempting us to fashion outward signs to convey just how holy we are."
I suspect that this comes into play when a representative of an institution violates the virtue the institution tried to enforce in place of the parents. After the violation, The institution thinking more about maintaining its image, and about protecting its role as promoting a virtue, has a weapon meant to help it repair its "sense of self": encouraging the silence of others.
Its possible that whenever an institution or community overfocuses on promoting modesty, its main move after a representative goes wrong is to say, "It couldn't be!" and "what will the outsiders think?" and sometimes "She should keep her mouth shut instead of destroying his reputation!"
Doing a lot of reading of your substack today! My 15 year old has a fashion substack that addresses her attempts to be within the spirit of the Catholic School uniform and not homely, so this is a constant topic around here.
Here's her post responding to the rule that they can't wear skirts because girls have not been modest in wearing them: https://ourladyofstyle.substack.com/p/our-lady-of-style-pray-for-us
We also host women from the Bruderhof regularly, so again, lots of talk about dress and dresses!
My kids went to Catholic youth summer camp and the girls got special modesty talks, and yes, there was ick. Annie decided not to go back and to try out Youth Theological Initiative this summer instead. I've never considered that idea that the institution is prone to sacrifice my kids for the greater good and then my job is to protect them both from (and for) the institution. It does make one feel like your in a game of parenting whack a mole, like "Not that, not that. You don't have my child's best interest at heart, and you don't either."
What do you take of the desire for young women to join cloistered convents with full habits? I do find that, often, modesty policing is something women are doing to themselves and others in a desire to be set apart.
That’s interesting; thanks for the link I will check it out.
I think ideally the less communities spend thinking and talking about what the girls are wearing, the better. But that relies on dads doing their job, and raising their daughters to present themselves appropriately in public.
Middle aged women have used dress and modesty as a tool to control younger fertile women for eons. In general, any community where young fertile women are forced to dress exactly like post menopausal ladies, beware. It is a sign of bad things in both the men and the older women in the group
Some good food for thought here!
"Our efforts at holiness and indeed the true states of our souls are hidden, tempting us to fashion outward signs to convey just how holy we are."
I suspect that this comes into play when a representative of an institution violates the virtue the institution tried to enforce in place of the parents. After the violation, The institution thinking more about maintaining its image, and about protecting its role as promoting a virtue, has a weapon meant to help it repair its "sense of self": encouraging the silence of others.
Its possible that whenever an institution or community overfocuses on promoting modesty, its main move after a representative goes wrong is to say, "It couldn't be!" and "what will the outsiders think?" and sometimes "She should keep her mouth shut instead of destroying his reputation!"