When my son moved back home after college, he started attending church again — but a different one from mine. I felt rejected.

When my son moved home after college, I was surprised he chose to attend a different church. His choice felt like a rejection of me and our family's tradition. I realized that he was not pulling away from us, but rather forming his own path and future. "Are you coming to the 9 o'clock service with us?" I asked my 22-year-old son. It was a Saturday night, a month or so after he had moved home after graduating from college . "Actually, I'm going to check out the Catholic church," he replied. I paused. The fact that he wanted to attend the Catholic church was somewhat surprising, but not shocking. After all, his girlfriend of three years was Catholic. She lived a few hours away, having moved there to attend graduate school. I felt disappointed that he would rather attend the Catholic church alone than go to our Protestant church . I wondered if he had rejected his father, me, and our traditions. I've been excited to have my son back home again When my son moved back home after graduating last spring, we welcomed this bonus time with him as we readjusted to sharing a house again. Gone was the gangly teen who left home at age 18, replaced by a young man focused on his new career. It struck me as surreal that we could chat about work like peers over the dinner table , then seconds later, I'd be nagging him to hang up his towel from the bathroom floor. It felt like I had my son back, but something had changed. He was never interested in faith as a teen While our family had always attended church, finding support and meaning there, my son had not been enthusiastic about going, especially as a teenager. He never wanted to attend the youth group , saying he didn't click with the other kids. Later, when we dropped him off at college armed with a list of local churches and student fellowship groups to check out, he didn't speak of them. He seemed to wander away from his faith for a while, or at least let it simmer in the background. That changed when he moved home after college. He started coming to church with us again. It felt like another way my son came back to me. But after checking out the Catholic church in town, he started attending mass there regularly. I saw that my son was taking his faith journey more seriously, and it made me quietly pleased. Still, it continued to bother me that he was no longer attending the same church as my husband and me. I realized he's charting his own path as an adult "Where's the big guy?" our pastor inquired about our son a couple of months ago. When I shared the news that my son was attending the Catholic church in town, our pastor nodded thoughtfully. I followed this up with the happy news that my son had proposed to...

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