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_{(This post is part of the series on postsecondary education.)}

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I want to lay out some more facts to consider before we delve into the question, "What makes a child emancipated?"  At what point is a child "on his own," no longer bound by the requirement of obedience to parents, and under the expectation to provide for his own material support instead of asking it from his parents?

The problem from a legal, secular sense, in the United States, is that we have a patchwork of overlapping standards when it comes to the question of when a child is "free" from his parents.  Let's take a look.

Legal Emancipation

Wikipedia:

Emancipation of minors is a legal mechanism by which a minor is freed from control by his or her parents or guardians, and the parents or guardians are freed from any and all responsibility toward the child…

Children are minors, and therefore under the control of their parents or legal guardians, until they attain the age of majority, at which point they become adults. In most states this is either 18 years old, or requires the person be either both 18 and out of high school or at least 20 years old. However, in special circumstances, minors can be freed from control by their guardian before turning 18.

Besides attaining the age of 18, marriage or entry into the military generally  legally emancipates an under-18-year-old.  There is some variation in state law.

We're going to keep it simple here, so for the time being we will not consider special circumstances, and for the purpose of our argument, we will say that at age 18, or marriage, or entry into the military, a child is freed from legal control by his parents and parents are freed from compulsory material support of the child.

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But besides the strict legal consideration of who can be forced to support whom, and who can be forced to obey whom, we have other standards in place that suggest "dependency" is more complicated than that.

Take the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) requirements for dependency.  The FAFSA is the form that prospective college students have to fill out so that the government and other institutions can figure out what are their  material resources available to pay for college.  This number is used to determine how much need-based aid the student is eligible for.

Recall that after a child turns 18, a parent is not legally required to provide any material support for a child.  However, when it comes to figuring out how much material resources the child has in order to calculate eligibility for need-based aid, the child is counted as a dependent (as if the parents' wealth is available to him) long past age 18.  Here are the requirements for dependency in the context of the FAFSA determination:

Dependency According to FAFSA

 According to the link above,

An independent is anyone who:

• is 24 years of age or older by December 31 of the award year.
• is an orphan or ward of the court or was a ward of the court until the individual reached the age of 18.
• is a veteran of the Armed Forces of the United States.
• is a graduate or professional student.
• is a married individual.
• has legal dependents other than a spouse.
• is [under age 18 and is] an emancipated child as determined by a court judge.
• is a student for whom a financial aid administrator makes a documented determination of independence by reason of other unusual circumstances.

Anyone who does not meet these requirements is a dependent.  

With regard to whether a child might be determined a non-dependent by reason of unusual circumstances:

Typically the FAFSA determines you are a dependent if you receive half of your income from your parents.

And note that you may still be a dependent according to the FAFSA even if you file a tax return as a non-dependent.

 This is very relevant, because it demonstrates that we have a social expectation that prospective students under the age of 24, even if legally emancipated, should be able to call on their parents' resources when paying for post-secondary education — that before they ask for a handout from the federal government, or from many institutions which offer need-based aid, they should use available resources from their families of origin.  

We don't, actually, compel the parents to provide those resources (that's what the legal emancipation at age 18 means).   But we take the existence of those resources into account, not just the resources that the 18-to-24-year-old actually controls.  

Now, if you've ever been an 18-year-old whose family is too wealthy to qualify for need-based aid, but whose family refuses to provide any material support for post-secondary education, this is going to feel pretty unfair.  But it's pretty clear, from the FAFSA definition of dependency and from the social pressure implicit in water-cooler conversations about college bills, that the onus to rectify that apparent unfairness is on the resource-rich but reluctant parents, and not on need-based financial aid programs either run by governments or by institutions.

In short, society generally expects parents to provide some material postsecondary educational assistance to 18-to-24-year-olds.   Some parents may disagree ("When you turn 18, you're on your own") but they seem to be in the minority, or at least not to have exerted enough political power to normalize this philosophy.  I think it's generally seen as a valid position to hold, but I don't think many people hold it.

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Health Insurance

There is no doubt that providing a means to pay for health care is a form of material support, and if you have to pay for your own health care out-of-pocket or pay for your own insurance policy, you are "supporting yourself" more than if you can remain on your parents' insurance policy.   Who's eligible to be a dependent for the purposes of determining who's covered by a health insurance policy?

To simplify, let's just look at one set of standards:  those set by the PPACA ("Obamacare") and subsequent regulations.  I'm getting this from here (pdf).

Definition of “Dependent” Who is Eligible for Coverage:

An [insurer] must base eligibility for dependent child coverage in terms of the relationship between the child and the [subscriber] and may not deny or restrict coverage based on factors, such as financial dependency on the [subscriber], residency with the [subscriber], student status, employment, marital status, or [except for a grandfathered-in exception that ends in 2014] eligibility for other coverage…

Plans and issuers are not required to make coverage available for the children or spouse of a child receiving dependent coverage…

The terms of the plan or insurance coverage providing dependent coverage cannot vary based on the age of the child, except for a child who is age 26 or over.

So under this relatively recent legislation, an insurer must extend dependent child coverage to an 18-to-25-year-old son or daughter of a subscriber, exactly as it extends coverage to a subscribers' children who are younger than 18.   It doesn't matter if the young adult is married, or a student, or employed, or living somewhere else.  After 2014, it won't matter if he or she is eligible for some other employment-based health insurance.  

So here's a situation where, at least according to the evidence enshrined in national legislation, we no longer expect a 26-year-old to fend for himself or herself.  

Does this impose a choice on the parent to incur a personal cost in order to benefit 18-to-25-year-old offspring?  It depends.  If the parent already has an employee-plus-dependent-children insurance plan for other reasons (for example, because there are younger children living at home), it doesn't cost the parent any more money to provide coverage to the 18-to-25-year-old offspring.  But if there aren't any younger children around, the parent does incur a cost to keep the 18-to-25-year-old offspring on his or her insurance plan, because if the parent didn't do that he could probably switch to a cheaper employee-plus-spouse-no-dependent-children plan.  Or maybe he could retire and cover his health costs some other way besides employer-provided health insurance.  So we're looking at a situation where the parent might incur a cost in order to continue supporting 18-to-26-year-old offspring, or might choose not to incur that cost and force the offspring to fend for himself or herself.

 

Transportation:  Automobiles and Automobile Insurance

A common kind of support that is provided by many parents to their offspring over age 18 is use of a family car, which requires somebody to pay for auto insurance.  Unlike with health insurance, there is "no certain age set across the insurance industry at which offspring are no longer eligible to stay on a parent's policy."  Instead, the usual requirement to include offspring on a parent's auto policy is residency.  If the individual is living in the parents' home, she can be included on the policy.  If she has established her own household, she cannot be included on the policy.  Students who live away at college but who maintain the parents' address as their "permanent" address often still count as "living with their parents" for the purposes of determining eligibility to stay on the parent's policy.  Sometimes the car has to be in the policyholder's name; sometimes all that's necessary is that the owner of the car reside in the same household with the policyholder.

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So here we have a variety of different "standard" definitions of who is a dependent and who is emancipated.  One thing is certain:  at age 18, you are legally free of the control of your parents, and your parents are legally free of the requirement to support you materially.  

But other standards seem to imply that, even though we don't compel it, we have a social expectation that young adults require support, and we have a social expectation that parents provide some kind of support according to their means — until some combination of the following factors:

•     the offspring attains the age of 24 or 26
•     the offspring is married
•     the offspring moves out of the house AND is not attending college
•     the offspring enters the U. S. military
•     the offspring enters graduate or professional school
•     the offspring has children of his/her own
•     the offspring demonstrates self-support and that no support is forthcoming from parents

Other legal ages of majority

These vary a lot state by state.  Here are some for my home state, Minnesota:

• The age at which a person is legally competent to consent to sexual activity is 16.
• The age at which a person can be tried in criminal court is 14.
• The age at which a person can be married, with parental consent, is 16.  Without parental consent, it's 18.
• The legal drinking age is 21.

Subjective emancipation — The tricky question

Still, though, these are all rather arbitrary conditions.  Why 18, or 24, or 26 — and not 16, or 28?  Those are all just numbers.  Why entry into the military, and not landing your first full-time job?  There may be good reasons to pick some of these rites of passage over others, but they are not inherently determiners of the one quality that matters when it comes to the moral requirements of parents towards offspring:  readiness to embark on independent adult life and to fulfill the duties of one's vocation.

Parents can't guarantee that their offspring (even assuming normal intelligence and physical/mental health) will acquire all the skills that an adult human being should, not even if they throw all their best efforts at the task.  That's because the young person is a person, with free will, and — news flash — persons with free will sometimes decide not to cooperate, or come up with their own lists of "necessary skills."  So even if there comes no point when a parent can say , "You are done, I did my job" — there must eventually be a point when a parent can rightfully say "I am done — I did the best I could, and now it's your turn to finish your growing and education on your own — if you choose to."

The question is, how do you know when either has happened?

(The introduction to this series is here.  An index of all posts is here.  The first part of this bit on fundamental Catholic principles is here.The second is here. )

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Okay, now, I've been through two posts in which I tried to summarize what the Catechism, Gaudium et Spes, and Familiaris Consortio has to say about certain questions:

1. What is the nature of the vocation that education must prepare us for?
2. What is the necessary content of education?
3. What are the responsibilities of parents toward their offspring?

Don't think I didn't notice that nobody commented on these posts in which I laboriously list church teachings. And at the same time, I got oodles of comments on several other posts (thank you), so I know you are all out there, just hoping I will get to the point.

The point is out there, but I can't see it yet.  I have to finish this bit first so I can see the big picture.  I'm really sorry it's taking me so long.  Hang in there.

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Moving on, what remains are these questions:

        3.  What are the responsibilities of offspring toward their parents?

        4.   How do things change when children are emancipated?

 

These are much shorter lists of answers.  Here we go.

What are the responsibilities of children toward their parents?

Children must honor and respect their parents out of gratitude for the gift of life and knowledge.  "The fourth commandment…shows us the order of charity.  God has willed that, after him, we should honor our parents to whom we owe life and who have handed on to us the knowledge of God.  We are obliged to honor and respect all those whom God, for our good, has vested with his authority" [CCC2197].  "Respect for parents (filial piety) derives from gratitude toward those who, by the gift of life, their love and their work, have brought their children into the world and enabled them to grow in stature, wisdom, and grace" [CCC2215] "'With all your heart honor your father, and do not forget the birth pangs of your mother.  Remember that through your parents you were born; what can you give back to them that equals their gift to you?'" [CCC2215]

A certain honor and respect, then, is owed parents unconditionally in recognition of the gift of life.

This is going to be a hard teaching for some whose mother or father has also caused them a great deal of hurt, but it is undeniable that the Catechism, as well as the Fourth Commandment, directs children to honor and respect parents in some degree regardless of the parents' failings.

I am reminded of our duty to be grateful to God for the gift of life even when the life we have is full of great sufferings.  Existence, even in fear and pain, is to be preferred over nonexistence, and preferred with gratitude, accepted as a gift.  This can also be hard, but I don't think we can get away with it.

But even though a certain honor and respect seems to be owed unconditionally, other degrees of honor are owed in response to the goodness of the parents.  Children "respond to the kindness of their parents with sentiments of gratitude, love, and trust" [GS 48].  The parents' kindness, then, is to be reciprocated by gratefulness, by love, and by trust.  Unkindness, maybe, doesn't reasonably earn this extra trust and love.

"As long as a child lives at home with his parents, the child should obey his parents in all that they ask of him when it is for his good or for the good of the family" [CCC2217].  Notice that this obedience is broad [in all that they ask] but not unqualified [when it is for his good or for the good of the family].  "Children should also obey the reasonable directions of their teachers and all to whom their parents have entrusted him.  But if a child is convinced in conscience that it would be morally wrong to obey a particular order, he must not do so."

"Obedience towards parents ceases with the emancipation of the children; not so respect, which is always owed to them."  "Children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life" [CCC2230].  "As they grow up, children should continue to respect their parents.  They should anticipate their wishes, willingly seek their advice, and accept their just admonitions.  They should assume their new responsibilities within a trusting relationship with their parents, willingly seeking their advice and counsel" [CCC2217].   Lot to chew on there — it looks like the children have a positive obligation to ask parents for their opinions and suggestions about the children's choices.

Finally, children owe their parents material and social support:  "Children should stand by [their parents]… when hardships overtake their parents and old age brings its loneliness."  They should esteem "widowhood, accepted bravely as a continuation of the marriage vocation" [GS 48].  

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Besides the things parents owe to children, and the things children owe to parents, it is also worthwhile to mention certain things which parents and children owe mutually to each other.  Oh, also siblings owe these to siblings.  Pay attention:  these are especially important when friction of one kind or another arises:

— All members of the family should "assist one another" "in a loving way" [GS48].

— All members of the family should maintain "a ready and generous openness of each and all to understanding, to forbearance, to pardon, to reconciliation" [FC21].

— "Respect and love ought to be extended also to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political, and even religious matters.  In fact, the more deeply we come to understand their ways of thinking through such courtesy and love, the more easily will we be able to enter into dialogue with them" [GS28]

— Finally, with respect to parents considering their daughters' vocation and with respect to sons and daughters appreciating the gifts of their mother:  "The work of women in the home should be recognized and respected by all in its irreplaceable value" [FC23].   (I don't think this is meant to exclude the work of men from recognition, it's just a reminder because women's work in the home has been and continues to be historically undervalued.)

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What about emancipation? 

Some of what's written above deals with the change when children are emancipated — for instance, when children no longer live at home and they are emancipated, they no longer owe obedience to their parents — but they do owe them respect, honor, the courtesy of asking their advice and opinions, and the courtesy of accepting their just admonitions.  Basically, they owe it to their parents to accept that their lives continue to be the parents' business, even if they don't any longer have to do what they say.   And they also owe their parents material support in hard times and social support in lonely times.  

Regardless, it's clear that a major change in relationship occurs when the child is no longer at home and is "emancipated." It isn't too hard to determine whether a child is living at home or not.  A harder question is:  When is the child "emancipated?"  How do we know he is ready to be "launched?"  

I will start considering that question in another post.  For now chew on this:

Man achieves dignity, which "demands he act according to a knowing and free choice…from within, not under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure…when, emancipating himself from all captivity to passion, he pursues his goal in a spontaneous choice of what is good, and procures for himself through effective and skillful action, apt helps to that end" [GS15].

This and a small number of the other passages quoted in this three-part post will be a jumping-off point to consider the event of "emancipation."  Stay tuned.

(The introduction to this series is here.  An index of all posts is here.  The first part of this bit on fundamental Catholic principles is here.)

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Hmm, now where was I?  Oh yes, at the end of this post, when I got tired and stopped.

So, as I was saying, I have been digging into the Catechism, into Gaudium et Spes, and into Familiaris Consortio to find answers to these questions:

1. What is the nature of the vocation that education must prepare us for?
2. What is the necessary content of education?
3. What are the responsibilities of parents toward their offspring?
4. What are the responsibilities of offspring toward their parents?
5. How do things change when children are emancipated?

I got through questions 1 and 2, and then I needed to go to bed.  So now I'm continuing.

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3.  What are the responsibilities of parents toward their offspring?

The responsibilities of parents toward their children are implicit in the Fourth Commandment:  Although "the fourth commandment is addressed expressly to children in their relationship to their father and mother…, it includes and presupposes the duties of parents, instructors, teachers, leaders, magistrates, those who govern, all who exercise authority over others or over a community of persons" [CCC2199].   Parental authority is "unrenounceable" and should be "exercise[d]… as a ministry…, a service aimed at helping [children] acquire a truly responsible freedom" [FC21].  The primary way that parents express respect and affection for their children is in the care and attention devoted to their upbringing and in providing for physical and spiritual needs; later, in educating them in the right use of reason and the right use of freedom [CCC2228].

"Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons" [CCC2222].  "A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea which an alleged 'right to a child' would lead.  In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights:  the right 'to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents,' and 'the right to be respected as a person from the moment of conception'" [CCC2378].  Parents have a responsibility to "maintain a living awareness of the gift they continually receive from their children" [FC21].

The good of the children imposes total fidelity and an unbreakable oneness on the spouses [GS48].  Parents owe their children the duty to make decisions together, "by common counsel and effort" [GS50].    "The active presence of the father is highly beneficial to [children's] formation" [GS52].  "The children, especially the younger among them, need the care of their mother at home" [GS52].  

"Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children" [CCC2223].  Parents have the duty of putting into practice in the home "the demands of a love which forgives and redeems" [FC13].  They should cultivate "a simple and austere lifestyle" to promote the correct attitude towards material goods [FC37].  Parents should create a home "where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule" [CCC2223].  It is their duty "to create a family atmosphere so animated with love and reverence for God and others that a well-rounded personal and social development will be fostered among the children" [FC36].  Parents must make decisions carefully and wisely for the good of the family:  they must "reckon with both the material and spiritual conditions of the times as well as of their state in life," and they must "consult the interests of the family group, of temporal society, and of the Church," in order to "thoughtfully take into account both their own welfare and that of their children, those already born and those the future may bring" [GS50] Parents should practice the means of sexual self-control in order to have a deeper and more efficacious influence on their children [FC33].  

Fathers have a special responsibility to give good example, I suppose because of their status as head of household.  In fatherhood, "a man is called upon to ensure the harmonious and united development of all the members of the family… by exercising generous responsibility for the life conceived under the heart of the mother; by a more solicitous commitment to education, a task he shares with his wife; by work which is never a cause of division in the family but promotes its unity and stability; and by means of the witness he gives of an adult Christian life which effectively introduces the children into the living experience of Christ and the Church" [FC25].

Parents owe their children discipline [CCC2223].  The catechism implies strongly that parents should not require obedience except for the good of the child or the good of the family, and that instructions to the child should be reasonable [CCC2217.]  Parents must not provoke their children to anger [CCC2223].   Parents should know how to acknowledge their own failings to their children so as to better guide and correct them [CCC2223].  Parents must not force a person "to act contrary to his conscience" or "prevent him from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters" [CCC1782].

 Parents must inculturate their children into the Church and to a life of prayer.  "Parents…receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children… They should associate them from their tenderest years with the life of the Church" [CCC2225].  They should belong to a parish [CCC2226].  Parents have a responsibility to bring to family prayer, offered in common, the concerns of family life itself:  "joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments, births and birthday celebrations, wedding anniversaries of the parents, departures, separations, and homecomings, important and far-reaching decisions, the death of those who are dear, etc…. [family prayer times] should be seen as suitable moments for thanksgiving, for petition, for trusting abandonment of the family into the hands of their common Father in heaven" [FC59].  Fathers are exhorted to pray with their children [FC60].  Mothers are exhorted to teach children the Christian prayers, to prepare them for sacraments, to encourage them when they are sick to think of Christ suffering, to invoke the aid of the Virgin and of the saints, and to say the family rosary together [FC60].

Parents must educate children or delegate that education responsibly.  Married couples fulfill the duty to educate children as they do the duty to procreate them, "with a sense of human and Christian responsibility," and are cooperators with and "interpreters" of "the love of God the Creator" [CCC2367].  "As far as possible parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators" and that correspond "to their own convictions" [CCC2229].  "Parents have a serious duty to commit themselves totally to a cordial and active relationship with the teachers and the school authorities." If "ideologies opposed to the Christian faith are taught in the schools," parents ought to "join with other families and … help the young not to depart from the faith" [FC40].  But some education cannot be delegated:  The parents must exert attentive guidance in the child's sex education, under the law of subsidiarity [FC37].  They have the duty "to present to their children all the topics that are necessary for the gradual maturing of their personality from a Christian and ecclesial point of view… taking care to show… the depths of significance to which the faith and love of Christ can lead" [FC39].

Parents should actively ensure the moderate, critical, watchful, and prudent use of the media [FC76].   They have "the duty to protect the young from the forms of aggression they are subject to by the mass media."  They must not "evade the duty of education by keeping children occupied with television and certain publications."  Instead they must "seek for their children other forms of entertainment that are more wholesome, useful, and physically, morally, and spiritually formative."  To the extent that they can influence the selection and preparation of the programs that are made available, they should [FC76].

 Parents have duties even when their children rebel or reject the faith.  Parents must "face with courage and great interior serenity the difficulties that their ministry of evangelization sometimes encounters" "when the children… challenge or even reject the Christian faith received in earlier years" [FC53].  They have the responsibility to seek help from pastors and from the Church during difficult times, such as "disturbed, rebellious, or stormy adolescence" and also at faith-trying times such as when there is lack of understanding or love on the part of those held dear, or abandonment, or death of a family member, even the children's marriage which takes them away from the family [FC77].  In any case, parents must not force a person "to act contrary to his conscience" or "prevent him from acting according to his conscience, especially in religious matters" [CCC1782].

Parents must allow their children freedom to choose their vocation, profession, and spouse, but they have a role as advisors.  "Parents should respect" the "unique vocation which comes from God" and that "asserts itself more clearly and forcefully" "as the child grows to maturity and human and spiritual autonomy" [CCC2232].   "Parents should be careful not to exert pressure on their children either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse" or in the choice of a state of life [CCC2230 and GS52].  But they still ought to give "judicious advice, particularly when [the children] are planning to start a family." The Church documents especially caution parents not to try to steer their children away from a vocation to celibacy:  Parents "must be convinced that the first vocation of the children is to follow Jesus:  'He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or  daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me'" [CCC2232]. "Parents should welcome and respect with joy and thanksgiving the Lord's call to one of their children to follow him in virginity for the sake of the Kingdom in consecrated life or priestly ministry" [CCC2232].  They should remember that some children can "contribute greatly to the good of the human family" by "forgo[ing] marriage in order to care for their parents or brothers and sisters, to give themselves more completely to a profession, or to serve other honorable ends" [CCC2231].

The Church documents specifically spell out responsibilities that parents have toward daughters.  It is implied that parents must not constrain a young woman from the right to choose a husband freely, the right to embrace a state of life according to her vocation, or the right to an education equal to that available to young men [GS29]. The legitimate social progress of women should not be underrated on the account of safely preserving women's domestic role [GS52].  Young women are fully justified in access to public functions [FC23].  "Clear recognition [must] be given to the value of [young women's] maternal and family role, by comparison with all other public roles and all other professions" and to the principle that "these roles and professions should be harmoniously combined" [FC23],

Parents have specific responsibilities towards sons too.  It is their job to restore the conviction that the place and task of fathers in families are uniquely and irreplaceably important, and to remove the "wrong superiority of male prerogatives" [FC25] — basically, to cure their sons of both extremes of chauvinism or of the demeaning belief that men are unnecessary.

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I have to go to bed again.  I will continue this next time with what children owe their parents…

_{(This post is part of the series on postsecondary education.)}

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There are some really great comments on the original post about post-secondary education.  If you haven't been there yet, check it out and add your two cents.  

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Yesterday and this morning I dug into the Catechism and two other Catholic documents:  Gaudium et Spes (a Vatican II document "On the Church in the Modern World") and Familiaris Consortio (an exhortation by Pope John Paul II "On the Role of the Family in the Modern World").  The Catechism is, of course, a sort of handbook of Catholic doctrine, while the other two are basically practical application of Catholic faith to particularly modern problems.  

I was seeking some guidelines to these questions:

1. What is the nature of the vocation that education must prepare us for?
2. What is the necessary content of education?
3. What are the responsibilities of parents toward their offspring?
4. What are the responsibilities of offspring toward their parents?
5. How do things change when children are emancipated?

I took copious notes all morning, with the intent of assembling my findings into neat bulleted lists.  The point was not, by the way, to find the answers to the question of how parents should support postsecondary education — just to see if there existed some lines that should not be crossed, or duties that should not be neglected.  (Gaudium et Spes says:  "The Church guards the heritage of God's word and draws from it moral and religious principles without always having at hand the solution to particular problems" [GS33].) 

Without further commentary, let's jump into this.  If it gets too late, I'll hit "publish" and finish another time.  Numbered citations labeled "CCC" come from the paragraph of the same number in the Catechism of the Catholic Church; those labeled GS, from Gaudium et Spes; those labeled FC, from Familiaris Consortio.  I paraphrased quite freely.

What is the vocation that education must prepare us for?

The point of education is to enable the human being to live out his or her vocation, so it's sensible first to ask what this vocation is.

We can think of vocations on several levels.  Our ultimate vocation is to heaven.  "God put us in the world to know, to love, and to serve him, and so to come to paradise." [CCC1721]  

But there's also the dyad of state-of-life vocations, marriage or celibacy:  "Either vocation is, its in own proper form, an actuation of the most profound truth of man, of his being created in the image of God" [FC11].  Each requires a certain specific preparation.

And the vocations of men and women are different, implying some difference in their respective preparatory educations.  The vocations are equal in rights and dignity.  The documents stress that equality does not mean that women must renounce femininity or imitate the male role, and that femininity can and should be expressed in all activities, not just domestic ones [FC23].

Christians living in the world have a political vocation too [GS75]:  

• to set an example of responsibility and service of the common good;
•  to show the compatibility of authority with freedom, of personal initiative with social solidarity, and of unity's advantages with diversity's fruits;  
• to recognize the legitimacy of different opinions about solutions; 
• and to respect citizens who honestly defend their points of view. 

Vocations of Christian work in the modern world, it seems, include [GS15]:  

• by intellect to surpass the material universe, sharing in the light of the divine mind; 
• to employ human talents, making progress in sciences, technology, and the arts; 
• to observe data, but also to attain to reality itself as knowable, even if obscured; 
• to acquire wisdom that "gently attracts…to a quest and love for what is true and good"; 
• to humanize the discoveries made by man; 
• to assimilate the wisdom of the nations; 
• to contemplate and appreciate the divine plan; 
• to join with other men "in fidelity to conscience" "in the search for truth" and in the solution to human problems
• to care for truth and goodness, and to avoid habitual sin that obscures the light of conscience

More practically, the vocation of all men and women is "to provid[e] the substance of life for themselves and for their families," thereby "performing their activities in a way which appropriately benefits society…unfolding the Creator's work, consulting the advantages of [others], and are contributing by their personal industry to the realization in history of the divine plan." [GS 34]

(If I recall correctly, you could go to Laborem Exercens if you want to read more on human work and perhaps relate this to vocational preparation.)

 To sum up, then, education must prepare the human being to support a family or community; to enter the responsibilities either of marriage or of celibacy; to choose good ways of serving the human community; to participate properly in civic life; to express authentic and unique masculinity or femininity; and to attain heaven.  No small order, that.

 

What is the necessary content of education?

I think I'm particularly interested in teasing apart education within the family and self-education.  That is, the education that parents owe their children, and the education that people have a duty to seek for themselves.  Both are mentioned in the documents, but it isn't always clear where one starts and the other ends — in some cases the process must be begun by the parents and completed by the grown young person (or even continuing throughout life).  I'll try to distill out the themes as I see them.

The "most basic element" of parental education is parental love.  The task of education fulfills parental love, completing and perfecting the service of that love to life.  "All concrete educational activity," in fact, gets its inspiration and guidance from parental love, and be enriched by love's "kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness, and self-sacrifice." [FC36]

 Education must put "subjects" in proper perspective:  "We must learn that true happiness is not found in riches or well-being, in fame or power, in any science, technology, or art, but in God alone, the source of every good" [CCC1723]   Education must "oppose the mentality which considers the human being not as a person but as a thing, as an object of trade, at the service of selfish interest and mere pleasure" [FC24].  In the family atmosphere of love, "children learn the correct order of things" [GS61].  "Parents should teach their children to subordinate the material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones" [CCC2223].  Training must include "the correct attitude of freedom with regard to material goods… that man is more precious for what he is than for what he has" [FC37]

Education must integrate the person into solidarity and communal responsibilities.  The family is a community, an initiation into life in society, "a complex of interpersonal relationships… through which each human person is introduced into the human family and into… the Church."  [CCC2207, 2224; FC15] "The family should live in such a way that its members learn to care and take responsibility for the young, the old, the sick, the handicapped, and the poor" [CCC2208].  Education must develop "a sense of true justice, which … leads to respect for the personal dignity" of persons, and "a sense of true love, understood as sincere solicitude and disinterested service" [FC37].

Education must pass along human culture, but teach how to discriminate between good and bad influences.  In the family atmosphere of love, the developing adolescents learn "proper forms of human culture" [GS61].  "Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies" [CCC2224].

Education in the home must teach virtue.  This "requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery–the preconditions of all true freedom" [CCC2223]

Parents must teach their children to pray and worship and to make use of the sacraments. "Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith" [CCC2226].  Parents must pray with their children, read the word of God to them, and introduce them through Christian initiation into the Body of Christ [FC39].  They have the responsibility of introducing children to personal dialogue with God, and should teach children to know God, to worship, and to love their neighbor [FC60].  Parents announce the Gospel to their children [FC2].

Education is the development of the right use of reason and the right use of freedom [CCC2228]; conscience, a judgment of reason [CCC1778], enables one to assume responsibility for the acts performed [CCC1781].  Thus parents must begin the formation of the child's conscience:  The education of the conscience "from the earliest years" "awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law" [CCC1784].   But the development of conscience is a lifelong process.  The person must be "sufficiently present to himself in order to hear and follow the voice of his conscience," so the person has to have cultivated a skill of interiority:  reflection, self-examination, introspection [CCC1779]  A formed conscience "enjoins" the person "to do good and to avoid evil"; "judges particular choices, approving…good and denouncing…evil"; "bears witness to the authority of truth in reference to" God; "welcomes the commandments" [CCC1777].

Education prepares for vocation.  "Children should be so educated that as adults they can follow their vocation… with a mature sense of responsibility and can choose their state of life; if they marry, they can thereby establish their family in favorable moral, social, and economic conditions" [GS52]  "The family must educate the children for life in such a  way that each one may fully perform his or her role according to the vocation received from God" [FC53].  Education helps to discern vocation [FC2].  Education must help the person understand "the meaning of work in the Christian life… the fundamental bond betweeen work and the family." Work is originally in the home and originally to the purpose of rearing children, and that has not changed.  Education must "make it clear that all people, in every area, are working with equal rights and responsibilities," and eliminate at the root "discrimination between the different types of work and professions" [FC23].  "Clear recognition must be given to the value of [young women's] maternal and family role, by comparison with all other public roles and all other professions" and to the principle that "these roles and professions should be harmoniously combined" [FC23].

Education should include sexuality education in the context of self-giving:  a clear and delicate education, aimed "firmly at a training… that is truly and fully personal; for sexuality is an enrichment of the whole person…and it manifests its inmost meaning in leading the person to the gift of self in love" [FC37].  Every effort must be made to render knowledge about licit means of family planning accessible …to all young adults before marriage, through clear, timely, and serious instruction and education given by married couples, doctors, and experts.  Knowledge must then lead to education in self-control; hence the absolute necessity for permanent education in the virtue of chastity.  Chastity signifies spiritual energy capable of defending love from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and able to advance it towards its full realization. [FC33]  "Special attention and care" must be given to "education in virginity or celibacy as the supreme form of that self-giving" [FC37].  Education must include "a knowledge of and respect for the moral norms" for "responsible personal growth in human sexuality."  

Education also includes remote and proximate preparation for marriage and basic home economics:  "Remote preparation begins in early childhood, in training which leads children to discover themselves as being endowed with a rich and complex psychology and with a particular personality with its own strengths and weaknesses… when esteem for all authentic human values is instilled… for the control and right use of one's inclinations, for th manner of regarding and meeting people of the opposite sex…, also necessary is solid spiritual and catechetical formation that will show that marriage is a true vocation and mission, without excluding the possibility… of priestly or religious life."  Proximate preparation "involves a more specific preparation for the sacraments… [and] a preparation for life as a couple… This preparation will present marriage as an interpersonal relationship of a man and a woman that has to be continually developed…." It includes the nature of "conjugal sexuality and responsible parenthood, with the essential medical and biological knowledge connected with it."  "It will also acquaint those cocerned with correct methods for the education of children, and will assist them in gainig the basic requisites for well-ordered family life, such as stable work, sufficient financial resources, sensible administration, notions of housekeeping" [FC66]

Part of education is in the proper use of leisure.  Leisure is properly used "to relax, to fortify the health of soul and body through spontaneous study and activity, through tourism which refines man's character and enriches him with understanding of others, through sports activity which helps to preserve equilibrium of spirit even in the community, and to establish fraternal relations among men of all conditions, nations, and races"  [GS61]

Education in the proper use of media and social communication:  Parents must "train the conscience of their children to express calm and objective judgments which will guide them in the choice or rejection of programs available" [FC76]

 Most of that had to do with the kinds of educational preparation one could receive in the home.  A few notes seemed to be about self-education.  One might assume that education in the home, here, prepares one to prepare oneself:

If the vocation is to a lay profession or to secular politics, education must prepare them to gain expertise in it while retaining perspective.  Laymen should "keep the laws proper to each discipline, and labor to equip themselves with a genuine expertise in their various fields" [GS43] .  Although people's skills and knowledge are becoming more specialized, "it remains each man's duty to retain an understanding of the whole human person in which the values of intellect, will, conscience, and fraternity are preeminent" [GS61].  "Great care must be taken about civic and political formation… Those who are suited or can become suited should prepare themselves for the … very noble art of politics, and shold seek to practice this art without regard for their own interests or for material advantages" [GS75]

 

More on this topic next time, when I take on the mutual and reciprocal responsibilities of children and parents, and how these change as the children grow into adulthood.  UPDATED:  I continue here.