Dress as a Detachment from the Perils of the Modern World?

One thing I found interesting is, no matter how bad the secular trend had sunk into, the muslims, or more specifically the muslim girls, don’t seem to be affected by it. Most of them actually go to public schools, and still cover themselves up, pray several times a day no matter where they are, and fast for a whole day according to their religious holiday. When they get to college, they don’t do those crazy partying and drinking and hooking up with random people - actually, according to their religion, they don’t drink alcohol at all. They’re there solidly to get their degrees so that they can provide for themselves and their families. 

Is it because they’re not tempted by the secular world at all? Or do they have divine help and supernatural graces from Heaven? Obviously not. While reflecting on this, I start to think maybe there’s something about the way they dress. And it should be a good lesson to our fellow catholics.

It seems to me that many catholic parents, while trying to be traditional, worry excessively about having their children to blend in with the world. And then followed by these kinds of worrying is a whole series of compromising: 

“I’ll not have my children isolated with homeschooling, I’ll send them to the ‘catholic’ schools instead and they have peers…”

“I want my children to have fun and play with other children, so yes they will wear sleeveless shirts and shorts for tennis and swimming suits for swimming…”

“I’ll not wear my ankle length skirt to the parent council so that I don’t look out of place with other parents…”

They don’t want their children and themselves to look “different”. At the end, they want their children to look EXACTLY THE SAME as the people from the secular world. And why would it surprise them when they also end up behaving EXACTLY THE SAME as the people from the secular world?

On the contrary, the muslims don’t care about blending in with the people in the western world at all. Their sense and identity of religion is so overpowering that they most likely take pride in being different from this degenerate world. They don’t care about “oh so are you saying us girls can’t show our skin and swim with boys?” No. The muslim girl I know would avoid presenting herself “not covered” in front of males like avoiding plague. And because they practice such modesty so commonly, they could actually afford to rent a public swimming pool so that they can have female-only swimming sessions, and they enjoy it! They don’t see their religious practices as a burden that they have to bear because they would look different from other people, but naturally as a part of their life. They don’t mind being different. They probably don’t ever even think about how they should look more like their peers from the western world. More importantly, they have the community, they know even if they’re secluded from their degenerate peers one day (which is not happening, they seem to be socializing with their peers just fine without giving up any principle), they still have each other! On the contrary, as a traditional catholic in public school, I couldn’t even find ONE catholic girl that would dress slightly more modestly than their secular peers. The only ones I saw in our school that dress according to Christian standards belong to some other protestant sects. And it’s so hard to find other catholics that would even make a sign of the cross before meals. All these make it harder for people that actually want to follow the traditional teachings. How many times have you heard our fellow trads complaining about feeling lonely in this world?

I know it probably sounds “ecumenical” to suggest people learn from other religions. Then how about learning tactics from our enemy so that we know why we are losing the cultural war? I will argue that the muslims are very powerful enemies for us to think about.