Are You Raising a Religious Child?

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Wed, 2010-03-03 18:46

What an interesting topic. I married a man who has the same background/religion as me and one reason is because I thought it would be important should we decide to have kids. Now that we're trying to get pregnant, I'm so glad that we both have the same views - I can't imagine having to deal with that issue in addition to all the other things you deal with. Not to say that we agree on everything, but the basic foundation is the same.

Yes, I plan on us raising our children with religion. I grew up as a religious person (Mormon) - attended church every Sunday, participated in church events, and held various positions, all my life. Even though there were times in my life that I didn't attend, it helped develop who I am and I am grateful for it and believe in it strongly. I think it's important to give children that structure and belief system and that it helps them to develop socially as well. They will have to decide as they get older whether they want to continue, of course, but I hope that it will be an important part of their lives.

Tabitha
http://www.fromsingletomarried.com

Sat, 2009-01-10 06:54

Wow from the intro I was expecting Dana to be a serious atheist... but after watching the video, she's actually a lot like me. I grew up in a brethren church, but not from the Southern US. Just a very relaxed Canadian one... so not too much damage done. LOL

So now I do try to raise my family with Christian values and we try to attend church... I'm hoping we'll be more regular once it stops interfering with nap time.

One tough issue I have is with teaching little kids about Bible stories. A lot of the stories in the Bible are brutal and I have a tough time reading even the kid versions to my 3 yr old. I mean Noah's Arc??? Not actually a happy story. Jonah? Oh my goodness. It kinda makes me laugh how we put a cute spin on these stories for kids, but seriously... these are not cute stories.

But regardless of the details of how often I get my kids to church or what age I'm really going to emphasize Old Testament tales, it is hugely important to me for them to grow up learning about a loving God.

Mon, 2009-01-05 16:22

Here is my two cents based on my own life experiences and this is meant to be read as just one parent to another. I am 47 yrs old and I have two children:16 yr old girl and 13 yr old boy. My husband is a non-practicing Catholic but the idea of going elsewhere is a big no. I was brought up as a Methodist and went through the whole "born again" experience back in 9th grade. In high school I was taught that you must 'save people' and there were answers for everything (lots of finger pointing etc). I never felt comfortable in that way of thinking and although I felt I had a relationship with God I couldn't be that way. I was very confused.

Through my twenties and thirties I did a little searching, got married, had children. I think my turning point was watching my mother suffer with Alzheimers (died in 2006) and coming to terms with God in my life and His plan. I went from being vague to being angry. Now I am at peace - this is my background.

Parenting - I brought my children (by myself) to a few different churches then my daughter found one she liked in our area. They are very focused on the youth so I went along with it. I had told my children that I wanted them to have a belief in God and how about starting out with Christanity and when they were adults they could do what their heart told them to do.

I want my children to feel they are not alone ever, that they can talk to someone (ex. during a test, in gym class, scareds in a peer group). I want them to feel there is a power stronger then my husband and I that love them. I also wanted to be a part of a community that focused on love and caring; that had children and adults together. I feel very fortunate to have found this very casual, nonjudgemental group that tells kids that God is there and wants to talk to them and that it is just that simple.

As for me, I have recently had some close friends ask me about my faith who are of a different religion etc. This is bascially what I have told them: I know, based on my experience, that having a relationship with Jesus is a very real thing but I can't say that is the only way (religion) to get to God. I don't think it is my job to decide that. I know I am not alone and I have had too many 'coincidences' in my life to say otherwise. I no longer believe I need to be the 'closer' for God. I just need to be loving, kind and let people see my faith from my life. What an honor it would be for someone to see a part of God through me. Talk to him - he is there.

So in closing, I have caught pieces of my daughter's conversations with friends and she is close to where I am now (but at a younger age). She invites kids to activities and if the opportunity arises, she will share a sentence or two of her faith. My son is quiet but he listens, I believe something is moving in him too. Can I mention our church's website - it's interesting: riversidechurch.com

Peace - thanks for sharing, Cheryl

Fri, 2009-01-02 20:15

This was a really great video. Religion, especially where my kids are concerned, weighs on my heart often. I was raised in and around religion and, until I was grown, I pretty well saw it as something positive. However, as I have become an adult, my feelings have definitely changed. First of all, I met my husband's super religious sister and watched how she uses her good standing in her church to judge others and exclude others. The more I saw it in her, the more I saw it in all organized religion. Gay marriage has really been a subject that has driven me away from the church. I have had many, many discussions with people who are vehemently against it based on the Bible, most of whom are living out of wedlock or are divorced or are doing some other thing really frowned upon by Biblical standards, who can't put together a cohesive argument based on actual passages of the Bible.
So, I jumped further into this and have found more and more that I think the Bible and probably most other developed religions have been a means to control the population. Tithe and offering, come on, the Catholic Church was the richest nation on Earth thanks to that shit.
But, on the other hand, I have many friends and family members who appear to have really enriched lives through their faiths. While the church of my childhood seems to have as much politics as any state capitol, maybe they all don't. Not only that, I'm still not 100% for sure I don't believe in God. In fact, I really, really WANT to believe. My disenchantment is mostly with those who carry out bad in His name and it is difficult for me to separate my feelings about it.
Being a parent is so hard and this is definitely one of the subjects you don't want to be wrong about. No one wants to sentence their kids to eternal damnation.

I really enjoyed all the input from these ladies. Keep up the good work.

Shonda
http://mommalittle.com

Sun, 2008-12-28 14:16

Since my daughter only recently turned two this topic is not yet a major issue. But as she gets older I will be sure to teach her to have an open mind.

While I have very strong beliefs they are not based in a specific religion or God. I am also strongly opposed to organized religion. But of course I want my daughter to make her own mind when she's older. So as the years pass we will do our best to teach her to have an open mind. It's important that she understands that there is room for everyone in this world: atheists, agnostics and the Sunday church regular.

Tracy
http://themoxiereport.blogspot.com

Fri, 2008-12-26 19:14

My Dad was brought up Catholic, but as an adult he never went to church. My mom started taking my brother and I to a Christian church when I was in middle school. I believed it all, talking in tongues, healing hands, etc. Then my dad started telling my mom that her church was brainwashing us, and all hell broke loose. We stopped going but I had a strong Christian faith until I met my husband.

He was agnostic and he debated me on my beliefs about religion. We battled back and forth for a few years but I couldn't win. His arguments were too good. I still had some faith left until my dad was dignosed with pancrreatic cancer at age 52, and he died 6 months later. After that I tried one last attempt at believing in a god, and I walked away with nothing. I now believe that IF their is a god, he doesn't meddle in the affairs of Earth. And I am o.k. with that.

For our daughters we plan to tell them about a lot of religions and let them choose when they are old enough what beliefs they would like to follow. We read books with all the Greek Myths in them, as well as many other religious books. They will know what the bible is and that people believe it to be the word of a God, but they will also know what the Koran is, and other spirtual works.

I think the best thing we can do is offer our girls all the information we have on the various religions and let them decide what they want to believe in. Forcing my beliefs or lack thereof down their throats is not the way to go, but instead I would like for them to find their own path to enlightenment.

Thu, 2008-12-25 22:57

My husband is a pastor. Does that answer you questions? j/k!

Yes, we are most definitely a Christian household. We try to live up to Biblical standards.

That does not mean we are all sitting around our living room with a huge King James Bible in everyone's laps, everyone wearing shoulder pads and talking about how horrible 'the gays' are.

Christianity kind of gets a bad wrap.

Raising a kid up in church is great.

Wed, 2008-12-24 14:51

Daphne: Ha! Laughing at the idea that religious people have more discipline, because I am religious, and boy, am I ever the exception to that rule.

Heather: Interesting that you think that being agnostic is unpopular. Maybe in Utah, but I find myself often censoring myself because I think being a Christian is pretty unpopular. Well, I guess everything offends somebody!

We are raising our kids to be Christians, and hope that they will make it their own faith, but honestly, I have NO idea if we're doing a good job or not. I think whether you're raising your kids to be religious or not, we're all muddling along doing the best we can.

Wed, 2008-12-24 11:15

Wow; this is something about which I agonize nearly every day, so it's fitting this should be my first successful comment (after two earlier aborted attempts, one due to kid problems and the other to computer problems).

Also, let me just say how awesome it is to see these diverse views all sort of coalescing into a conversation about faith. That, to me, is at the crux of it all -- conversation. All religions have at their heart spreading a message, after all.

Heather, I so envy you that you and your husband are both on the same page. That, if anything, is what I would change about my marriage. My husband and I sort of tiptoe around the topic of religion still, and we've known each other in one form or another for seventeen frickin' years.

By way of my own background, I grew up with a father who was a devout Catholic, and a mother who believed (and believes) in God, but that "We all talk to him in our own language." Somehow, they managed to reconcile their beliefs into a cohesive marriage (and parenting strategy) without compromising their individual faiths at all. My father emphasized time and again just how very Catholic he was (staunch, staunch pro-lifer, you never EVER slouch back on your heels on the kneelers, the whole nine-and-then-some yards), but also said "It's like being an American. Sometimes there are things the president, or the priest or Pope, does that I disagree with. It doesn't mean I want to stop being a Catholic or an American." My mother, for her part, encouraged me from a pretty early age to explore every belief and way of looking at things I could get my hands and eyes on. I ended up fizzling out of Confirmation classes before my Confirmation, and sort of became (and remain) avidly interested in faith, down with "something bigger," deeply respectful of the good that faith can bring out in people (but a little leery of the craziness it can engender), and of the belief that Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, other faiths, science, nature, and just plain curiosity were (when used properly) are all different avenues of people doing their best to explore this world.

Put into the middle of that all a five-year period, after my father died and my mother decided we "should go somewhere," that I spent in a fundamentalist Christian church, the whole born-again experience, science/liberalism/musical instruments/Santa Claus/etc. were of the devil, all that good stuff. We didn't buy it all but somehow continued going, and that's where I met my (eventual) husband, who is completely, like for generations back to the beginning of time, steeped in this tradition. So we have issues. (For example, I am a science writer. He only THIS YEAR began to "believe in" evolution, and to believe that doing so does not damn one to Hell.) But he's actually started, and has actually always wanted, to explore the issues in his own mind. I just have to learn not to force the conversation (which is REALLY difficult for me).

I want to raise my son, David, with a sense of the bigger picture, but I feel like I'm just as in the dark about exactly what that is as he is. I dislike the certainty about things that most religions seem to have. We don't know. We just don't know certain things, and it's the exploration of those things that, to me, is the real exercise of love and devotion to the world and whatever may be behind it all. Too, I go through bouts from time to time, like the holiday season, when I feel like I "should" be taking David to church for the feel-goodness, the lessons (most of them, anyway), the feeling of community .. but there always tend to be other aspects of it that make me uncomfortable, and some I just downright can't abide.

David is really interested in God, and we talk about it, but it's hard with my husband, so we do it in the car when it's just David and me. We've had some of the best conversations about faith on the way to Walmart. Kids are surprisingly sophisticated and insightful if you let them in on the faith conversation. I guess ultimately, it comes down to do you believe that your children's immortal soul (if you believe it even exists) will burn in hell (if you believe THAT exists) if he or she doesn't share your particular sub-section of your faith? If you do, then I can see how you'd be morally justified teaching your faith, even forcing them to attend church. But I don't even know if I believe in the first two premises, and in the end, if we have immortal souls whose disposition is in question, I don't think it comes down to that. I just don't. I teach my son to love, to give, that he's not the center of the universe, and to always, always explore. It's only my best try, but I just don't see how that strategy can go wrong.

Oh, and I get Alice on the fire and brimstone thing -- eesh. Even at the height of our believing-ness, we lapsed in our church attendance because of this. I think there should be certain proscriptions, of course, but I'm much more down with what TO do, what TO include and embrace, than all the things you'll go to hell for even contemplating.

I think it's a matter of reconciling religion with my husband, but along the way, the two things about which we seem to be able to agree are 1) that it's about love, giving, charity and connections with the world and its inhabitants, whether your creed is Christian, humanistic, or something else; and 2) that the conversation about belief and faith is itself an exercise in it. Because didn't Jesus say "Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am?" If two or more are discussing religion, kids and husbands included -- well, there ya go.

Wed, 2008-12-24 09:40

I just got this on Twitter but I'm at work and can't listen to it yet but I love this topic. Both my husband and I were raised in Catholic households - not very strict but we did the whole Church on Sundays bit and went to Catholic school all through high school. In college I becamse a philosophy major which totally changed my outlook on things and I began to question things a lot more. Since then I've moved more towards spirituality than religion. But I freak out because I don't know how I convey spirituality to my daughter. Religion is one thing because it seems so much more structured - prayers, rules, practices, ceremony, etc - I can teach all those things. Spirituality isn't all that clear cut. Anywho, I'll definitely listen to this after work; I'm excited to hear what you ladies have to say. I'll comment after I watch...Happy Christmas Eve!

Wed, 2008-12-24 08:59