by Nancy Chase - December 3, 2007
It’s Thursday night and I’m having dinner with my children. I start off the conversation with the usual; “So how was school today?” My 17 year old son replies with a smirk, “Well, theology class was definitely interesting …” and he and his brother and sister burst out laughing.
The junior class theology teacher is a young woman in her early twenties, just recently married and in her first year of teaching. After meeting her at an open house in September, I came away with the impression of a slightly geeky and still-green graduate student, not much older than her own pupils. She is the kind of teacher who mistakenly attempts to win class favor by being one of them, overly friendly, using their slang - the natural outcome being a constant struggle to establish authority. Lately she has been using her own personal life as a “teaching tool” in an effort to impart the hard lessons she learned from experimentation with drugs and sex during high school and college. Her juicy oral sex disclosures in Thursday’s class immediately swept through the high school and became the talk of the entire student body, setting off a firestorm with many parents. The fact that she was trying to convey the potential damage of teenage sex by weaving in her own personal experiences with the theological stance was lost completely. The sex part became sensationalized, (much like my deliberately sensationalized subject header above). If only she would have asked, I could have told her: Never talk about your torrid past to your kids, even if they’re only *your kids* during the school day. They’ll never let you live it down.
I send *my kids* (17 year-old triplets) to a Catholic high school. The tuition is an ever-present struggle, but I’ve always been a “Look at the Big Picture” kind of person. I think Catholic high school educates the whole person, blending learning with faith and faith with daily life. But teaching academics through a Catholic lens can often result in learning about things (IVF for example, which was how my triplets were conceived) that directly oppose or conflict with the Church’s teachings. Yet topics like these are very real moral issues these students will face in their own futures, and in exploring these issues they’re also learning to think. More often than not the very thing they’re being taught, albeit from the Church’s standpoint (homosexuality, divorce, birth control, abortion) is something they might be already living with in their own lives. A sensitive teacher realizes this and presents controversial subjects in accordance with the Church doctrine in such a way that is mindful of the dignity and self-worth of every one of their students. This inexperienced teacher may have missed the mark with her message but I think her heart was in the right place. Unfortunately, like Monica Lewinsky, she will go down in school history forever associated with giving oral sex.
I am a conflicted Catholic. I am also somewhat of a hypocrite because, even though I send my children to Catholic school, I find myself growing distant from the Church. I recently divorced after a long and unfulfilling marriage, one we held together as long as we could for the sake of our children. The whole Catholic annulment process is very disturbing to me; I have no inclination or intention to pursue one. Sexuality is always a touchy subject, especially living with teenagers. It is even touchier now because I am single again myself. How do I set an example for them while at the same time believing that, as a mature adult, I am entitled to a different set of rules when it comes to having a relationship that includes sex? I have only dated sporadically, and the way I have been handling it is to not handle it; never introduce them to anyone unless I feel the relationship is becoming significant enough to warrant an introduction.
So far I have not introduced them to anyone. I know they would prefer I remain a non-sexual being for the rest of eternity because, like their theology teacher, they really do not want to have to think of me in that way.
That is okay. I understand. I am in no hurry to rush into anything, and thankfully, so far, neither are they.
Nancy Chase is a writer from Pennsylvania. She also pens the Overheard column as topazz and can be found at topazz (with a zz).