When The Religious Teach Religion To My Non-Religious Children
I thought we would avoid religious lessons to my kids while we were on our recent Cancun trip because we returned on Saturday evening instead of Sunday. No need for them to go to church with the sitter while we were gone. I looked forward to that change, although I expected my brother and sister-in-law, who stayed with the kids in my home, to say prayers as they usually do. My kids are accustomed to witnessing prayer while with extended family.
I did not expect my children to receive a personal lesson, intimate instruction just for them, on why they should pray.
Let me first qualify this post with the explanation that, prayer-lesson or no prayer-lesson, I am so thankful for my brother and sister-in-law who cared for my three children (and our dog) for four long days. They refused the money we tried to pay them. They brought bags of games and activities. They made homemade play dough. They’re both mathematicians and taught the kids math.
We also came home to an immaculate and happy household. A spotless house on the return from a trip is highly unusual.
So please don’t mistake my story for a gripe. It is a story to share. I’d lose at least half my readers if I only talked about science and didn’t share my personal stories.
It wasn’t until we’d been home for a few days when Trinity informed us that their aunt taught them at a meal that, “we should always pray so that we can thank Heavenly Father for the food he gave us.”
I stopped what I was doing. I exchanged looks with my husband. And I noticed that Blake was watching me, waiting for a response.
I smiled at Trinity and asked her, “Does Heavenly Father give us our food? Or does Daddy work really hard everyday so that he can earn the money for us to buy our food?”
Trinity’s big, cute smile appeared and her giggly voice belted, “Daddy!” Her expression was as if to exasperate a comment like, “How obvious!”
I laughed with her and was glad to see how easy it can be sometimes to demonstrate reality to children.
Of course, I had to wonder if my in-law thinks we believe in prayer but are lazy and just never took the time to teach our kids about it. Or did she make the conscious decision to teach my children a concept she knows we reject?
I used to dwell on these types of experiences and let them work on my emotions and patience. In addition to my personal frustrations at such an invasion, I also worried that lessons of this nature would influence or confuse my children.
In the past year I have learned not to worry so much about these types of actions from others. They’re quite entertaining. I also realize that my own words, along with the reality that the kids observe around them, hold much more sway than the religious-speak of others. Though sometimes the kids are unsure and want to hear my opinion, they often think the religious statements people make are down-right absurd.
When the kids pass along another person’s admonitions that they should pray, a simple reinforcement from me such as, “Well, that’s their religion,” seems to be enough most of the time and they dismiss the idea.
In fact it was just yesterday that Blake’s friend (who I am distancing Blake from because his rude behavior hit its peak when I heard him make reference to certain anatomy on his mother) tried to convince Blake to become a Christian immediately after Blake told him I didn’t want them to play together any more. Blake giggled as he restated to me his friend’s lesson about the best heaven and the worst hell you can possibly imagine.
I realize these outpourings from the religious are inevitable. They will continue to happen. Now that I have observed my children’s confidence in their family’s beliefs and non-beliefs, I can look on these attempts with a little more humor and a lot less outrage.
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August 8th, 2006 @ 4:54 pm
I only hope I can show the same decorum and instill the same confidence and perspective into my own boys. I still live with the fear that leaving them alone for any extended period with my family will involve a clandestine priesthood blessing… Hopefully I can instill in them the ability to evaluate the situation as well as your kiddos seemed to…
… from one of your readers who recently became an “ex” mormon.
August 9th, 2006 @ 7:27 am
That’s really aggravating that your adult relatives would have such poor boundaries and so little respect for the values of your household.
As far as the kids are concerned, I wouldn’t worry too hard. I think it’s better to expose them to different perspectives and discuss them rather than trying to shelter them from different ideas.
August 9th, 2006 @ 11:56 am
We had a long (for us) discussion about “God stories” the other day. Apparently a 7yo cousin has been discussing heaven and hell with my 6yo. Kids will talk, and this cousin is very steeped in Catholicism. And this child tends to be a bit arrogant about his faith. We’ve talked about God stories before, so I suggested that maybe some storytellers put heaven and hell in their God stories to scare people into obeying them.
The 6yo asked me if I had believed a God story when I was growing up. So I told him that I had, because it was taught to me as the one truth. But that later I learned that there were many stories that were supposed to be the truth. This is the way we approach religion in our house: there are these old stories, with God or gods in them, and some people believe the stories, and some people go to church every week to talk about the stories and what they mean in their lives.
My 6yo (as he often does when we discuss religion) expressed contempt for so many people’s belief in God. I reminded him that when we care about people, we can accept that some of their beliefs are silly, and we don’t have to try to change their minds. If they say something nice about their God story, like promising to talk to God for us, or how great God is, we can always just say “that’s nice.” But if anyone tries to say their God story makes them better than us, we shouldn’t feel bad about calling it nonsense.
August 9th, 2006 @ 4:56 pm
I’m glad you see the humor in those situations, because I’m not sure I would. Especially if I was as upfront as you are about my beliefs. You are a good person!
August 9th, 2006 @ 10:14 pm
There is an appropriate parable in the New Testament. Jesus told of a man who asked his two sons to go to the field and labor for him. One son agreed to do it, but didn’t; the other said he would not go, but did in fact go to the field and do the work required. Which one got the approval of the father?
I think kids should be told that there are many ways people use to try to get others to exhibit good behavior, but the most important for us to understand is the one that Confucius first wrote about: Act towards other people, do them favors and good deeds, as you would like them to do favors and good deeds for you. That also happens to correspond to the summary of the scriptures attributed to Hill-el, and to preachings of Jesus. So, because it has been taught in so many different traditions, the secular Confucian to the most religious, it must be a rather universal way for members of a social species like ours to behave.
I used to get the “Yeah, but you gotta know Jesus” stuff quite a bit, when I was in school. Ultimately, if kids or adults pushed it, I’d ask them where they thought I fell short of the behaviors they want to see — and since I was such a silly goody two-shoes most of the time, they’d have no answer. So then I’d ask them if they truly could recognize someone who knows Jesus, if they thought I didn’t while I was demonstrating what they wanted me to manifest.
My father avoided organized religion, but I don’t think he was agnostic in any way. He was also kind, gentle, avoided profanity and courseness, and was in every other way the model “Christian” man. I often used him as an example, to people who knew him. Eventually everybody left me alone on the issue. I was grateful for the long conversations I had had with my father about virtue, about the value of doing the right thing.
And that’s where true ethics education starts, I think. Kids understand at a very early age that it’s not a good idea to hurt others, physically or mentally. Kids also understand hypocrisy, when people claim adherence to a deity who orders them to respect others, but they don’t.
Questions I’ve often asked of those who wished to “convert” me are these: Is it more important in your mind for people to profess love of Jesus, or is it more important that they seek justice and establish peace? Which way would be more important to Jesus? To God?
I find kids know the answers to those questions instinctively, and only after years of battering it out of them will they suggest that it’s more important to profess love of Jesus than to show it.
But it’s also important that we get kids to respect the views, opinions and faith of others. Another question I had occasion to use as a teen was this: Would you be offended if I told you your faith is entirely misplaced, and that in order to be a virtuous person you must abandon it? They’d usually answer that they would be offended. Then of course, I’d ask them why I should not be offended by their attempts to convert me.
Only, don’t try that with recently-returned Mormon missionaries. They have a world view that doesn’t treat virtue as a virtue as valuable as having been dunked correctly. They suffer from PMSD — Post Mission Stress Disorder — they need time to relearn what it is to live outside.
August 10th, 2006 @ 6:44 am
WENDY–
I saw that you submitted a comment for this post and I thought I approved it, but now, having come here to respond it didn’t show up. I may have accidentally deleted it with all the spam. Sorry! I do remember the gist of what you said, and I hope to respond in a separate post later. I am learning not to make real promises, though, as I am backed up with about four other posts I mean to write as responses to comments. And I just don’t have much time right now.
August 11th, 2006 @ 4:43 am
Wow! I have so much to look forward to when the girls are a bit older! LOL.
I don’t think I have the ‘grace’ to handle it the way you did.
August 11th, 2006 @ 1:17 pm
You have some well-padded nerves!
I can’t imagine trying to undo the teachings of someone else’s parents if I were given responsibility (and the honor) to watch their child.
Here’s a question for you, Noell – how did leaving the church affect plans you had for your children to be cared for by others in the event of you and your husband’s untimely death? Did you ‘un-godparent’ anyone? My wife and I are sweating it – we don’t feel we know anyone we’d want in that role.
August 11th, 2006 @ 3:57 pm
Ron,
My husband and I feel the same way. We have been trying to decide who we would want to raise our children if we were unable to. At this point, we are trying to decide between the lesser of two evils.
Noell,
I admire the way you handle yourself. I have a difficult time with this because our families constantly disrespect our wishes. I sometimes feel that if I ask them not to do something they do it to spite us. We are teaching our children to respect other peoples’ beliefs and that includes being respectful during prayers. However, I have a very hard time with people “teaching” our children about their beliefs. I try to look on the bright side and realize that it is a good conversation starter with my kids. I’m happy that they come and talk to me about things that other people tell them. Hopefully, that won’t change much as they get older
August 12th, 2006 @ 8:42 am
I have a feeling that, like most instances in dealing with children, your kids did not portray the real picture of the situation. What I imagine really happened is that your kids saw your relatives praying and asked why they were doing so and that is when your sis-in-law made the comment about prayer. I really wish that you would talk to your relatives about what happened (it does not sound like you did) before painting this most-likely inaccurate picture to all of your readers. Kids perception often differs from reality.
Your post about the situation was polite and respectful but still it may have painted an inaccurate picture and your readers took it negatively even though you tried not to portray it that way.
August 12th, 2006 @ 12:19 pm
Does it really matter whether the “lesson” came because the kids asked “why are you praying?” or not? If the answer was “You should pray…” and not “we believe…” it was interference. Of course, it’s the kind of interference believers feel is completely justified, if not obligatory, and there’s no way to make them see otherwise. Anything you say to them is rebutted with “But this is different; this is True and we’re Right.”
Disclaimer: I don’t have kids – and I don’t have relatives who’d preach to them if I did. So the situation has never come up for me. But I think Noell handled it well, whatever prompted it.
August 12th, 2006 @ 2:34 pm
I’m glad that you remained so calm about it. I find it offensive when anyone speaks to my children about religion. It’s my job, not theirs. I’m an Atheist, but I have enough respect for others to NOT force my disbelief on others…so I expect the same respect.
August 13th, 2006 @ 7:32 pm
This is my first time posting here. I just recently found this site and am so glad to know I’m in good company, being a mom and Agnostic!
We have some friends of our family who are Baptists. The “rapture-is-coming-soon” types. What they believe is about 180 degrees away from what my husband and I believe (or, not believe).
Recently however, the man of the couple “Tony” took his two nephews (10 and 14) and my son (8 years old) out to lunch recently. We were a little concerned that he would talk about religion with them, but since we’d previously been clear about our feelings, didn’t think he would.
Later that evening, the 14 year-old confided to his mother that “Tony” spoke not about religion so much, but about his feelings on homosexuality to them. How gay people are “dirty”, “sinners” and “like to have sex with 10 year-old boys”.
Needless to say, my husband and I were fit to be tied when we found this out. When the mother of the other two (his sister) confronted him about it, all he could say was, “Well, we believe homosexuality is a sin”.!!!
We’re trying to find an appropriate time to tell him in very clear words NOT to EVER talk about religion or his beliefs again in front of our child. Since he’s a very good friend of my mother and father, it’s a delicate situation.
It just amazes me that people feel it’s their “duty” to educate young children about their hatred of fellow human beings. There’s so much more to this story, but I’m sure those who read these posts can pretty much understand how I feel.
Thanks for your posts, they’re very enlightening and comforting!
August 14th, 2006 @ 8:25 am
AnneA,
That a grown man (of any faith) would talk to (or even in front of) an 8-year-old about men having sex with 10-year-olds is beyond offensive. Even without the sinfulness and dirtiness attitudes, the subject matter is not appropriate to his age. A grown man should realize this without having to be corrected. If it was just a lapse in judgement, I wonder what the next lapse would be.
I would strongly recommend not letting Tony be around your child without you or your husband present.
August 14th, 2006 @ 4:03 pm
Karen -
Exactly. I think it was “we believe.” But my point is that since this was not clarified I don’t think anyone should be making any kind of judgment whether it was interfering or not because we don’t know what was actually said.
August 15th, 2006 @ 8:31 pm
I agree with Sadie’s comments. You talked about your “personal frustration at such an invasion” in regards to this event, but I would think the most important thing to do would be to find out what really happened first, before making any judgements and becoming frustrated. It’s always important to first seek to understand (borrowing a line from Steven Covey). My guess is that your relatives understand your take on religion and had no intentions of frustrating you or your husband by sharing their beliefs with your children. They were probably asked about why they prayed and so responded with what they believe. I would recommend talking to them about the event and letting them know how you feel. I think they would prefer that over discovering your frustrated feelings themselves by going on to your website. I have little doubt that they would be respectful of any future wishes you might have in regards to witholding their religious beliefs from your children. I would also bet they would even agree to baby sit again!
August 15th, 2006 @ 8:51 pm
Anne A –
That this guy would paint a picture to a ten year old of grown men having sex with children his specific age sounds like a sexual offense in and of itself. Doesn’t sound like you are apt to make the mistake of letting him watch your son again.
Sadie –
Seems to me that you are more distrusting of children than is in their best interest. Its not appropriate to assume a child to be untruthful until their story is verified by an adult, let alone the offending party. Note the account that Anne gave – adults act in their own interest, rather than that of the child, more often than we’d like to think.
August 16th, 2006 @ 6:19 am
Ron –
Seems to me you are too untrusting of adults. Let’s see if you will accept this statement: No one should publically insult their family without even talking to them about the situation. Don’t you think that if Noell’s relatives were to read this they would be offended religious or not? She publically insulted them without their knowledge going off of what her daughter said only. I wasn’t by any means saying that Trinitiy was lying, just that she MIGHT have misrepresented the situation. How can you argue with that?
August 16th, 2006 @ 9:18 am
[...] I need to clear up some misinformation. After publishing my post, When Religious People Teach Religion To My Non-religious Children, Sadie made the following comment: I have a feeling that, like most instances in dealing with children, your kids did not portray the real picture of the situation. What I imagine really happened is that your kids saw your relatives praying and asked why they were doing so and that is when your sis-in-law made the comment about prayer. I really wish that you would talk to your relatives about what happened (it does not sound like you did) before painting this most-likely inaccurate picture to all of your readers. Kids perception often differs from reality. [...]
August 16th, 2006 @ 10:20 am
AnnaA–I agree with Ron and the others. That conversation topic with someone else’s children is quite disturbing.
Ron–There is a difference between distrusting children and being realistic about their perceptions as well as their ability to relate the whole story. Sadie was right.
Sadie–Lesson learned. Thanks for your honesty.
September 15th, 2006 @ 10:19 pm
The “being grateful” thing gets me, too.
He grew up in the Philippines (which, you know, is a poor country with teeming masses yearning to reach our soil) and spent his college years almost starving. But he worked hard at his full time job and on his more-than-full-time school and he got his degree and got to the US.
My husband believes in God and is lightly religious. Light enough that we still get along.
He was telling me awhile back how we should teach the kids to thank god for all the things we had, for the fact that we had food and all that.
Um. I’ve never received a check from god in the mail. He didn’t buy us food, that’s for sure.
I prefer to thank my husband, who actually got his ass out there and did the work. I mean, where was god when my husband was almost starving?
Thanks for NOTHING, god.
It’s like the former drug addict I saw on Miami Ink..the guy was all praise jesus and he saved me and all that, and the owner of the place was like, man, give yourself some credit.
Hear hear.
February 11th, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
I’m an “agnostic” dad with 2 kids, 9 year old girl and 5 year old boy, I bring my kids up to understand reality, humanity and spirituality as best as I can. I’ve reduced it all to Love & Fear.
These 2 ruling emotions that make up most of our waking and sleeping experience, with hopefully a little, detached, pure – bliss making up a small balance ( when in trance or in alpha state ).
Now it seems to me that when in a state of love, reality is directly experienced as bliss, it’s time spent as a God. Now I have to validate the G word
God or as I like to think Universal Intelligence, is Love, there’s a bible passage that states that, but that’s not what I’m using as a reference, I’m using my direct experience of that Love as a reference.
When my kids ask about god and say what does He look like, I always correct them and say, “What does She look like ?” this forces them to consider an alternative to the assumed identity of God the Father, why not Mother – then you see the absurdity of the idea of a Being or Force that defies understanding, could possibly be Male or Female.
When you think of God as a human, you think that God must function like a Male or Female. God would love us like our fathers or mothers did, conditionaly. God would punish us if we didn’t follow God’s rules, just like our mothers or fathers did. God is not human, God is Everything.
God is Love! and the only other emotion that we care about is Fear, the oposite of Love, Satan ( as religion would have you believe ). So I try to keep Fear away by making sure there’s a lot of Love around, my logic is that Fear cannot live where Love is, and Love is Powerful.
Love is the juice that drives the universe, the lubricant of creation, think about how anything grows, thrives and blossoms when Love is around it, when it’s Loved unconditionally.
The minute you label your beliefs, agnostic, atheist, jew, muslim, Krisna, Budhist or any other label you want to give your beliefs, you do so to differentiate yourself from others, not in a good or bad way, you just are differentiating yourself.
It doesn’t nurture, grow, feed anything, it just drains, takes away and causes Fear, fear of rejection, fear of change, fear of confrontation, fear of anihilation, FEAR. Love and Fear cannot live in the same space at the same time. Love and Fear cannot live in the same space at the same time.
So no matter how good your intentions are to encourage your kids to have a different view about God than the masses, be wary not to create any drama around the issue. I love the story of Jesus, I love Jesus, I believe Jesus brought this message of Love to us, I believe that living a Christ-like life is more important than living a life believing in Christ.
It’s not the believing that’s important, it’s not the label that’s important it’s that we ponder God, it’s that we accept the principals of unconditional Love, God’s Love. It’s important to Love, it’s essential to Love.
Praying whether by talking to a frient or kneeling next to your bed, singing whether hymns or love songs, and praising whether it’s complimenting a colleague or giving testament at church, it’s all good.
Gratitude and setting your intention are fantastic life management tools. Recreation and social interaction are essential to happiness. Expressing joy and sharing is great for bonding with other people.
If you stop defending your position, you’ll remove more Fear and give yourself more time to Be Loving, not that you aren’t, everyone is either Fearing or Loving, just not both at the same time, I just want to be Loving a lot more than Fearing and if ranting about semantics of whether your kids believe in God or not, or will they get ostrasized or not, causes drama, then I say, why does it matter.
The solution to nulifying this issue is to believe in God, not just a superficial, “ok whatever” belief, but ask them to prove that God doesn’t exist, I ask you to try prove it to yourself, prove it or just accept it and move on, don’t worry about the details, Father, Mother, Jewish, Christ, Muslim, Krisna, just see the beauty in their intention, and yours – then move on.
I or anyone else on earth can’t prove or disprove God, but Love works, Love creates, Love nurtures, Love is all there is, except for Fear. Just remember Love and Fear can’t coexist, one or the other, which one do you want your kids to be feeling more of ? Do you think that if you labour them with the flag of “God is dead, but I can’t prove it” is ensuring more love in their lives ?
What’s wrong with a “thank you God for the food, I don’t know what you are, but something is at work here, I feel it when I Love, so thanks”? What’s wrong with unconditional gratitude ? Who does it hurt ? Who does it help ? Everyone, specially the person giving thanks, and that can be proven, ask any psychologist.
If you really want to give your kids the gift of a better spiritual experience than you may of had, encourage them to accept things others can’t prove, but you can’t disprove. God is real, not a Man or Woman, but there’s something out there, there’s a lot of Love in the Universe, man is the one that adds Fear because of details, just remember there might be an ounce of truth in the cliche; “the Devil’s in the details”
Good luck with your kids, you sound like a really cool mom.
August 9th, 2007 @ 3:33 pm
My daughter, at the age of 9, is being molested. Her sister and a local bible study group is instilling their personal value system into her along with the fear of hell and guild of sin. Because I choose not to be a theist they have been telling her I am the bad guy, the confused one and the evil person. I see her less than 100 days a year, I do not have custody. These other people are in position of authority as is her older sister. The mother simply does not care and views it as “OK”. An invisible being in the sky that gives her what she wants through magic when she folds her hands and asks for it is more powerful than dad. It makes me sick and hurts me. She is a child, my child not theirs. I am not sure what to do. If it were up to me children would not be allowed to discuss religion in a public formal setting that was ‘looked over by adults’ until they were old enough to carefully think about, consider and learn about all religions…. Probably about the same time they learn about sex. However, theists know if they can rape her now she will be easier to keep. I have noticed the exact same thing with her sister. Initially church had her saying she only went to, “Hang Out/Have Fun/Meet People”. Now she is just as toxic, confused and delusional as an adult. At 14 she talks to invisible people, dislikes homosexuals, knows she is a sinner. Can someone write and offer some advice? The sister is not mine…….
October 14th, 2007 @ 8:33 am
I am looking for a non-religous statement or poem of thankfulness to replace a prayer at a school event. Any ideas?
October 14th, 2007 @ 8:34 am
I am looking for a non-religous statement or poem of thankfulness to replace a prayer at a school event. Any ideas?
August 31st, 2008 @ 2:27 am
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