How our young people date is problematic; and I’m not talking about the mainstream habits of a ‘hookup culture.’ I mean young people from families with traditional values, where preparing for marriage and waiting for marriage are implicit, accepted goods.
It is not surprising that we have a problem. I think we have a perfect storm in the combination of three things: a legitimate desire to emphasize and pursue marriage; the extraordinarily bad societal habits and examples regarding romance; and, the fallen inclinations of human persons. Allow me to explain.
In being around college aged young adults from good families, I’ve had occasion to notice and reflect on these things for some three decades; and I still have much thinking to do. But here are a few thoughts regarding romance and dating in the teen and young adult years. The matter of adult dating requires separate treatment.
The first ingredient in the perfect storm arises both from human nature itself and from a legitimate response to our age: we need to prioritize marriage while others are setting it aside. Parents want their children to think in terms of the great good of marriage, and well-raised young people are often ready and excited to oblige. So far so good.
Then enter the second factor. When a young person asks himself what dating looks like, he cannot but look around and take note. Now a well-formed, intentional soul immediately recognizes that he should do things differently. But here is a key moment. In short, while he resolves to do things better, he is in fact poorly positioned to do so for two reasons. First, his notion of dating (often even in the best-case scenario) is formed negatively, in reaction: i.e., I won’t do it the way others do it. Second, despite having received a good upbringing, our teens and young adults as a rule have notably less maturity and responsibility than prior generations even in recent memory. This last point is, in my judgment, often overlooked.
The third factor in the perfect storm always has been and will be at work in this realm. Yet it behooves us to take special note of it in view of the just mentioned second factor. I will be direct. What we can call concupiscence, a complex reality heightened by hormones, is seriously aggravated by both the bad customs of our age and the immaturity of our young people, which often includes lack of self-esteem and a craving for affirmation.
What, in my experience, is the upshot of this perfect storm? I do not want to overstate the problem. I have seen many young people—albeit rarely below the age of twenty—engage in mature, honorable courtship. Here I use ‘courtship’ and ‘dating’ interchangeably to mean a sustained relationship pursued as discernment and preparation for marriage. But my experience has likewise shown the difficulty and serious dangers of pre-mature or immature dating.
I want to be clear: while maintaining chastity is of course a central concern it is far from the only one. My focus is broader, namely, what it takes for dating to be precisely what it can and should be–a fitting discernment and proximate preparation for marriage. Sure, perhaps the course of true love never did run smooth. But it is our task and indeed solemn obligation to do all we can to form young people such that the course be as honorable and fruitful as possible.
Here I want to open what I hope will be a sustained discussion. Allow me again to emphasize that this reflection is specific to communities that prioritize marriage and appropriate preparation for it. My contention is that we are notably failing our young people in forming and guiding them toward optimal courtship.
I will simply note two aspects in view of my earlier comments. First, we are not giving them the tools to know when they are ready to date, and so too many commence too soon, e.g., even while still in high school. In my experience, it is in fact rare that even students in the first year or two of college are really ready. Second, we are not giving them a positive vision of how to date, and so too many go about dating with little sense of what they’re supposed to do other than avoid unchastity.
I understand this makes for a serious problem; indeed, that is my point. One might well ask: But when young adults are physically ready—i.e., at an age that arguably they should be psychologically and morally ready too—how can we ask them to hold off? There is of course no easy answer to this question, and certainly less-than-ideal solutions might just be in order. Yet in any case this much is clear: we need to come to grips with these realities. And we need to step up and give much more attention to this situation both in our daily interactions with our young people and in our communal deliberations and discussions.
It is neither realistic nor fair to assume that these things will work themselves out simply because young people are generally well-formed, well-meaning and prayerful. The storm to which I referred above indicates the need for concrete measures, which will include setting rules and boundaries, giving specific directions and encouragement, and other forms of close mentorship. This is an issue of civilizational and deeply personal significance, and it is ours to take it up. We were made for this, and we can do better in addressing it, especially for their sake. ~ ~ ~
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Just an observation:
Dating/Courtship was simpler until contraception and abortion became secular and societal icons. Many other things contributed to our situation but these were two seminal events. Before then, certain guardrails were up even if you came from a non-religious family. Those guardrails made dating easier for the simple reason that everyone knew that “sex” was a biological act very likely leading to pregnancy. Further, most people referred to the act in the context – real or not – that the couple was in love. Bad Company’s song in 1975 even referred to the act as it was conventionally understood when it recorded, I Feel Like Making Love. Today’s music often refers to the act in far less prosaic terms.
The guardrails often acted to cool down the hormones thereby keeping a couple more focussed on forming a friendship and possibly a marriage. Hence, it was possible to meet more people and start to get to know them (and yourself) with little or no pressure to engage in untoward physical activity.
In short, Paul VI was indeed prescient when he warned about the separation of the two ends of marriage, reproduction, and conjugal unity.
Well observed, Bob. Indeed, a great point.
Thank you for this interesting article on such an important topic. As someone who dated in college and was married at 23, I especially relate to the way that dating is viewed in a negative sense among more devout Catholics.
All I knew about dating as a well formed 21 year old was what not to do. I even remember discussing this with my then boy friend. All the dangers and negative outcomes had been drilled in my mind, but no one had ever discussed with me the healing and growth in virtue that could come from a pure and genuine and loving relationship. No one had ever modeled for me or told me what to do when dating/courting. And I think this is a very common problem.
Honesty is always the best policy, which includes educating young people about avoiding sin and near occasions of sin in dating. But this mindset that focuses so sharply on the negative suggests a lack of trust in young people and also does not align with a young person’s experience of falling in love, which can be much richer than merely a physical attraction.
It’s such a complex issue, but I think we can begin by sharing honestly as married people about the beauty and growth we experienced during the time that we dated our spouse.
Wonderful points, Angela. I especially appreciate two things you note: first, how young people’s falling in love can and should be a beautiful experience that calls them to seek a rich kind of dating, and second, that it is important that married persons share their experiences, including problems they had, so the young can learn from a broader experience. Thanks very much.
In my experience, Catholic teens are pressured either to become sexually active or to treat dating as an implicit promise to marry. Both factors are too much pressure. It makes asking courtship into a proposal and tends to make it harder to just get to know each other, commitment free.
In addition to the usual conversations around chastity, I think they should be given simple rule:
You cannot go on a date with the same person twice in a row.
Once upon a time, you would “date” multiple different people without commitment (“going steady”) to any one of them until a certain threshold was reached.
By placing this rule, both your child and their date know that any given outing isn’t a guarantee of “progressing” because they have to go on a date with at least one other person before getting together again. This diffuses the expectation of getting something “more” at the end of a particular outing and helps foster the practice of simply getting to know each other.
After a significant number of “dates” with a variety of people, the child should then be in a good position, with advice, to decide to become a committed boyfriend or girlfriend and will have had practice simply being with someone without physical expectations.
Thank you! This is very interesting. Since you say that adult dating requires separate treatment, will you also write a post about that?
I am a single woman in my 30s, a convert to Catholicism, not raised in a family with particularly traditional values…and a bit at a loss! I can find plenty of reading material about how to be the wife and mother I hope to be, God’s will be done, but not so much about how to meet a man, or what to share with him, when.
I do believe I have a vocation to marriage, but besides waiting for God to send a man am not entirely sure where to start. Online Catholic dating is a bizarre world of trying to stand out (without coming across as a show-off) and advertising details about yourself that wouldn’t come up for months in a normal relationship.
Help! (And thank you for your beautiful blog.)
I hear you, Anna! First of all, be assured of my prayers. And, I do plan to write something about ‘adult dating.’ Thanks for asking, and God bless you.
Honestly, as a young adult Catholic, this totally hit the mark. I have definitely seen how dating, even for devout and well-meaning people, easily becomes a list of “do nots.” On the other hand, I agree that young people can be part of the problem as we generally are less mature than previous generations and not always ready to shoulder the responsibility of dating and marriage at the age our parents and grandparents were. As you said, just because a young person is (as I am, thank God) traditional minded, wishes to embrace marriage, and is a faithful Catholic, that doesn’t mean they will just magically find someone like them and it will all work beautifully with little to no effort from anyone. If our world was a rom-com movie, then that might be the case. Unfortunately, young people, including Catholic ones, are frequently exposed to that false image of romance, even if unconsciously, and it can be very harmful, leading to immaturity in dating. Like everything in life, we must find the thin line between the simplistic movie version of dating and romance and the damage-control type sometimes espoused by more traditional people. It is not easy to find, but incredibly rewarding for parents, children, and their future spouses when it is followed. For me, the best thing has been learning personally from my parents (and other adults whose marriages I admire) about their dating and what led them to each other.
Thank you for this, Monica. It is indeed a real challenge. I hope that I might be able to provide some more resources for you here; but in any case do be assured of my prayers. We are all in this together!
My oldest daughter is often mistake as my sister, I was 20 when she was born. My husband and I initially had been advising her to major in some sort of science, to obtain a degree and then marry. That seemed to be the game plan for a good successful and fruitful life. That is until I read an article that got me questioning if that was really the best advise to give her. The article made the argument that when young ladies have the goal of working towards a career, they often pour themselves into this pursuit for many years putting on hold things that can get in the way such as marriage and children. This can put on an enormous amount of pressure and risk for many years of falling into temptation and being afraid to maybe commit to anything that they might not feel ready for until they finish school or begin their career.
My daughter wasn’t passionate about anything in particular she wasn’t dreaming of being a doctor or engineer or anything really at all. She wasn’t driven to do something in particular, in fact she was trying to figure out what exactly she wanted and might be good at. She had played softball for many years but didn’t see herself wanting to pursue that into College. So one day I told her that as she thought and prayed about her future she needed first to decide if she felt called to married life. If that was the case she needed to also think about what she wanted that to look like, did she want to try to balance a career and her responsibilities at home? Did she want to have others watching her children while she worked, did she want to put them in school in some form, did she want to homeschool. I wanted her to think about how she imagined that would look. I also wanted her to know that it was not just ok if the only thing she wanted to do was stay at home and be with her kids and serve her husband, but that it was a life filled with merit and beauty and virtue, and oh so rewarding. I encouraged her then to prepare herself now for the kind of mother she wanted to be and the kind of wife she wanted to be for her future husband, and to pray for him. Her goal then was to study the art of homemaking and growing in the virtues particularly needed for such a vocation.
As a little girl I had been instructing her in many different ways about dating. She knew that dating was something that was meant for the purpose of courting someone to see if they were a good match for marriage, that it was specifically directed towards marriage. She also had many examples of what marriage is. First and foremost she has the witness of the marriage of her father and I. It is not perfect, and it was even less perfect in her earlier years, but we have always both understood that this is for better or worse. She has seen us work through our problems and seen us love each other with our entire hearts when it has been hard to do so and when it just comes so easily. She has grandparents who have also showed what for better or worse means. One set loves each other with an obvious and outward affection. The other set of grandparents seem to be more resigned to carry their marriage as a cross, but with a full commitment to live it out for God and also because they know this is their path to sanctification, and although they might not show it they do love each other.
In the summer of the year that our daughter was to turn 17 she met a boy from our church whom was interested in dating her. This boy was driving to the parking lot of our Church when the masses had been canceled due to 2020 and he was praying the Rosary in his truck on Sundays at the church, even though there was no mass. When he asked if he could date our daughter we talked with him and explained to him what the parameters of that would be. They were allowed to call it dating if they wished but they had to understand that what we were giving permission to was the begging stages of courtship which would be to allow them to get to know each other and to grow in friendship understanding that they had the intention to see if they were a good match for a future together. We were very clear that the only way that we would allow this is if they understood that what they were trying to see was if they would be a good match for marriage. We also made it clear that because they were so young the only way we felt comfortable with such a relationship was if it was very slow. We asked them to if they felt prepared to marry within a few years.
So with certain boundaries, they were allowed to talk on the phone a certain amount of time about 20 minutes with the door open of her room or a room not to far from our ears a few days a week. We made efforts to allow them to hang out together by having him over to family outings and events. They were not allowed any type of privacy or alone time. This was the price of dating at this age, and they agreed to it. After over a year of this we allowed them to go out to a restaurant on a “date” but she had to bring along her younger brother. As soon as this young man graduated from Highschool he entered a trade school, but before leaving for a few months to earn his certifications he proposed to her and they were betrothed. After they became betrothed they were allowed more time together without little brother for dinner on days when he would come back in town. They also spent more time alone because they were actively preparing for their wedding. The got married about 8 months after he got back from trade school They both saved all their money and she worked two part time jobs as well as having income coming in from starting her own photography business during her last year of high school. A little venture which my husband encouraged her in an taught to her. He had required her to have some sort of business plan and work towards it before he would allow her to get a job. We also highly discouraged jobs where she would be around crowds that were not going to benefit her, and she was very blessed to have had two wonderful opportunities right out of High School working for a financial advisor and a chiropractor. They paid for their wedding all without taking any loans out, and it was a beautiful wedding. They now live in an apartment and she just received her real estate license. She continues to work and build her avenues of income that she can continue to do from home or with a schedule she can build herself if she wants to or needs to once the Lord blesses them with children.
These two started off young, my husband and I positioned ourselves as mentors and as their guardrails during those early years, fully explaining to them the why emphasizing that it was to help them with the goals they themselves had for their relationship. They spent the first few years gaining our trust and showing to us their maturity and when the betrothal time came it was natural and easy to give them more space and the rest is a story that is still unraveling . My daughter had always wanted a best friend that stuck by her side, (and that wasn’t mom or dad, her next sibling is 10 years younger than her), so she really longed for a buddy and she found that truly in her husband they are the best of friends, and we are so grateful for God’s answered prayers in her life. We still have 4 more to go, so lots more praying to do 🙂
Also when her now husband proposed to her and she became engaged one of her uncles who at the time was almost 40 advised her AHG she should play the field and see what else was about there before making such a decision. She found it interesting that people in their 40s still didn’t seem to understand what the purpose of dating is. They were both aware that they were young but they also both truly felt that this was all Gods plan for them. They also had the benefit of a wonderful spiritual director who checks in on them often. He is a priest who had seen them mature in their relationship because both of them were actively involved in our parish her in choir and my son in law as an altar server. They both are still involved in this way although not as often.
I am counting my blessings as I write this for it is truly Gods goodness that has been active in all of this. It would be to much to explain further all the little and other big ways in how God was worked in this union of these two coming together and they way it all happened.
God bless.
Thank you for sharing this, Selene! It is beautiful how you and your husband were able to stay close and involved in your daughter’s life and to help her move toward independence and starting her new life with her husband. God bless each of you!
Just listened to the embedded podcast: riveting! As a former nutrition professional, I was particularly interested in the correlation between manners and eating habits and chastity. Wonder if “discipline” might be a more focused and positive term than “restraint” for what we want to foster in both of these realms. I have personal and professional experience with the disorder that is often precipitated by over-emphasizing restraint in eating…thoughts?? Thank you for your excellent work!
Nicole, I’m so happy to hear this. I really appreciate your point–very well taken. Choice of words is always really important, and I must be aware that how other people hear words might not be how I experience those words, coming from my philosophical background. The notion of ‘restraint’ has for me a connotation of ‘noble restraint,’ that is all positive. However, I can completely understand how it can have negative connotations. I’m very open to using the term ‘discipline’ instead–another word that has positive vibes for me. In short, this feedback is very helpful. And I’ll always be grateful to you (and anyone else!) for such feedback. Thanks again. One more thing, I’d love for you to leave such a comment at the Youtube version of the podcast, if you’re up for that.
A path forward to navigate away from the “perfect storm” is nothing more than to mature yourself in the world.
Pursue your passion with every ounce of your energy, and soul.
Let your soul be ‘cured’ or aged by the world. A military career can help with this. Prove yourself worthy of the trust of another.
Teach your boys to be men: face the day, work hard, pay for your things, be honest, be accountable. Become a provider, Be generous. Give to the church.
Worldly wisdom is acquired in time. You can’t just read about it in a book.
Bloom where you are planted. Endure hardship. Trust in God.
These lessons and virtues take time.
The young well formed men and women go too fast into a life long relationship with out the propering curing of true love and friendship.
“The young look like saints, but they are not. The middle aged do not look like saints, and are not. The older ones do not look like saints, but are.” St. JoseMaria Escriva.
I think the entire article could be succinctly summed up to your sentence of: “The storm to which I referred above indicates the need for concrete measures, which will include setting rules and boundaries, giving specific directions and encouragement, and other forms of close mentorship.”
i.e. in plain speak, “we live in totally screwed up times and it is obvious that the young people of these recent generations need the direct assistance & mentoring of us older generations in the areas of match making, dating, social event planning, and social facilitation.”
Good sir you could have saved all the hemming and hawing, word count filler, beating around the bush, gotten right to the point, and written an article suggesting practical and various courses of action towards your recommended ends.
“Ends, Ways, and Means.” Etc.
Thank you, Patrick, for your comment. I agree with your choice of a particular sentence that sums up my main point. In my estimation the rest of the piece was attempting to make that sentence understandable; if you did not find the other points helpful I hope that perhaps some other people did. I have every intention of continuing this discussion and offering more concrete approaches to this problem. The podcast embedded at the end already offers many concrete suggestions; but it too is just a start, and I welcome any input.
I’m just starting to get into the broader conversation on marriage issues. This is a helpful contribution – namely, that there is actually a positive good to be pursued in pre-marital romantic relationships, rather than just bad things to be avoided or delayed. Teaching young people about this is definitely not done well or hardly done at all. After all, counsel is part of prudence, and it is an act of prudence to choose a spouse. It’s been made difficult – well after the fall of the extremely stable but decidedly sub-optimal arrangements of feudalism (where one – who was above the level of a serf – “married a farm,” IF the lord of the fiefdom allowed it), we had “courtship,” where families actually sat down together with the couple and helped them figure out if it made sense. (Think The Godfather scene in Sicily.) Couples were hardly ever alone during traditional courtship – how could they be expected to remain chaste, or know if it was a good fit for each other OR *for the families and community*? What changed everything seems to me to be the invention and mass production of the car… Now one can go anywhere and be anonymous in another village or city – pursuing one’s own existential fulfillment without care for the whole social body. That was the switch… the stack of dry hay that the pill lit ablaze after the artificial stability during WW2.
Thank you, Eamonn. I too think often about what can be done to have more involvement of parents and other elders in the marriage discerning process. If nothing else, and at least as a starting point, it seems to me the key is to have a relationship with our children so that they want to come to us for counsel. That, already, will go a long way. But there is much to be done.