Pregnant on the Buckle of the Bible Belt
I’m in my third trimester. I have an obsession with the divine combination of chocolate and peanut butter, no ankles, and breasts that would make the ladies in National Geographic envious.
When I first found out I was pregnant, I was elated. My husband and I tried for about 6 months before the baby-making miracle finally occurred. However, looking down at the double pink lines was not as joyous as I had envisioned. I was actually somewhat nervous.
No. I was really nervous.
I grew up in Pennsylvania in a very—and I mean very—Catholic family. I was raised Catholic, baptized Catholic, received all the sacraments, went to Catholic school, attended CCD classes, and I attended church every week—twice—until I was 18.
I moved to South Carolina about 2 and a half years ago to further my career. I now live on the Buckle of the Bible Belt in Upstate SC, home to the most churches and dive bars in the tri-state area.
Oh, and I’m an atheist. So’s my husband.
You can imagine why I was nervous looking at the pregnancy test. Oh sure, I jumped up and down with feverish joy at the prospect of having a child, put all my gin away, and has my husband hide my cigarettes, but I was simultaneously terrified of raising that child religion-free in an area and family that are saturated in faith-based belief.
At the first ultrasound, the embryo looked like a bean, so it received the nickname “Bean.” At 20 weeks, I found out I was having a girl. I still call her Bean. I also still wonder, after these 7 and a half months of pregnancy, What if Bean doesn’t share my thoughts on faith as she gets older? Will I be able to handle that? Will she “go to the dark side”? Is it “the dark side”?
There are so many ways I can answer these questions, but I think it’s best to start out abstract and become more concrete as I think this out.
It is absolutely essential to teach children religion as cultural expression and to instill in them a proper meta-ethic from an early age. There can be no denying this. Religious ideologies saturate our cultures, and as such, it is important that children recognize and understand this. Children must learn how to act ethically, and they have to learn about what religion is, but religion is certainly unnecessary for a person to have a strong ethical and moral foundation.
In the same vein, it is also important for children to develop critical-thinking skills. As such, it is the parent’s responsibility to maintain a safe distance for the child from religious indoctrination and to let the child know that there is no empirical evidence whatsoever for a deity’s existence. This means that people choose to believe in unfalsifiable concepts, like a god, for no other reason than that they want to.
But is that “too biased”? Not from my perspective. I have seen no evidence to the contrary. But I don’t want to be a perpetrator of what I’m trying to keep my daughter away from: indoctrinate her with personal bias. I want to eradicate personal bias if at all possible. (I’m an idealist.)
My concern is that faith-based indoctrination has severe negative ramifications on both children and adults. Teaching children faith as fact is mental child abuse. It stifles creativity, hinders critical thought, opens the door for children to accept logical fallacies as truth, and most likely leads to a “crisis of faith” (read: identity deconstruction) later in life. What’s more, once one allows (or encourages) a child’s evolving reasoning process to digress into a faith-based, authoritarian pursuit, he or she practically closes the door to the spontaneous pursuit curiosity, one of humanity’s fundamental teaching tools. I could never allow that in my home, and I would never want that for my child. I went through that identity deconstruction, and for those of you who have too, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Bean may very well develop a different belief system than my own. It’s quite possible given that the first glance at most religions paints a picture of niceness, fuzzy fluff, bubbles, and glitter (Let’s face it. Which is better to hear? “Sparky is dead, but we can remember all the good times we had with him.” “Sparky died, but he is in doggy heaven still chasing his tail, and yes, when you die, you’ll see him again.”). But at the heart of all dogma one finds it exclusionary and need- and ignorance-based. By that time, however, often the comfort trumps the truth. We have to prevent this for our children. They don’t deserve this.
I will certainly encourage Bean to explore and research other religions, but until she is old enough to critically think, I will do my best to stop any faith from being passed off to her as truth. A mother is supposed to protect her children from abuse, not administer it or be a purveyor of it.
But when Bean is older, Bean can believe whatever she chooses. That is the beauty and purpose of freedom. I only hope Bean will be able to differentiate fact from fiction and use reason as her primary moral compass. Isn’t that what every mom wants for her kid?
Skepquote of the day « Skepfeeds-The Best Skeptic blogs of the day Said,
October 6, 2008 @ 3:18 pm
[...] Rational Moms [...]
INTJ Mom Said,
October 7, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
We live in Utah, which is very Mormon. The Mormon religion/culture permeates every nook and cranny here. It’s impossible to get away from. However, I did manage to raise my older 2 as skeptics & they still did ok socially at school. I think if you teach your kids to question and think critically that it ends up being very difficult for them to buy into religion, especially the very authoritarian sects.
I’ve found it helpful to remember my experiences growing up as a Mormon as a guide to what I say to my kids. By that I mean that I not only talk about it in regards to a lack of physical evidence and contradictory scientific evidence, but I’ve talked to them about the psychological harms I experienced, how difficult it was for me to get over them and how I still struggle with the after effects of some and probably will for the rest of my life. They know this is why I’ve been adamant about keeping them out of religion, because I don’t want them to have to go through all the same mindf***ing crap that I did.
I don’t just pick on Mormonism there, the same kind of crap can easily be experienced in a lot of other sects, it’s just that my personal experience was with Mormonism so those are the examples I have.
I admit I would be devastated if any of my children decided to become devoutly religious – most especially if they decided to join the Mormon church. My #2 child is married to a lapsed Mormon and they had a son in May 2008. My daughter has sworn that she would never become Mormon, but her husband seems to kind of waffle back and forth on whether he believes or not. I worry about it causing problems for them or about my daughter joining just to try to keep the peace.
My 5 yr old is going to be a challenge. I actually wrote a bit about that a while back on my own blog:
http://intj-mom.livejournal.com/#item15978
Mark Uhde Said,
October 8, 2008 @ 11:01 pm
Hi, I just wanted to give you some food for thought. I have been writing to a guy in prison for murder. Befriending him and trying to make a difference in one person’s life so he sees that when he gets out, there is a different path he can choose.
Lately, I became a leader in a program called Royal Rangers – it’s kind of like Christian Boy Scouts.
D’Angelo told me that he has experience with Royal Rangers. His neighbor and friend went as a kid, and took him a few times. When his mom found out it was an Assembly of God program, she forbid him from ever going again.
I couldn’t help but cry, and knowing the positive impact we try to have in boys lives, I can’t help but wonder where D’Angelo would be today if he hadn’t been stopped from going to Rangers. Part of me really thinks there’s a good chance we wouldn’t be in the TDCJ system (Texas Department of Criminal Justice). I really think there is a good chance he’d be a positive contributing beneficial member of society…
Yeah. Just something I thought I’d point out what happens when you shield your child from the Light of the world, the Prince of peace…
Kelly G. Said,
October 9, 2008 @ 5:23 am
Mark:
With all due respect, you could easily perform all this community service without religious indoctrination as a part of it. You don’t need the superstitious ideas of “Light” or “the Prince of Peace” to have a positive impact on your society.
The mother did the right thing by keeping her child away from that religious indoctrination. I’d do the same thing. While I have no doubt many positive things happen as a result of the work you do, that’s the pragmatic side. The principle side is that you operate on religious indoctrination–passing faith off as fact to children–which is simply something I couldn’t stand… as a person and a parent.
INTJ Mom Said,
October 9, 2008 @ 10:10 am
We’ve always done service projects together as a family. We’ve done things like “adopt” a portion of a small town we lived in and regularly picked up litter, gone and worked at the local food bank as a family, done sub for Santa as a family project, just to name a few things.
My older 2 kids are in their 20s now, both raised as atheists, and they’ve turned out just fine. They are 2 of the most honest, ethical, hard working, compassionate, and civic minded young people you’ll ever meet. I fully expect my younger 2 (now 5 1/2 and 2 3/4) will turn out the same way.
Say Hello to Rational Moms | All Reason Said,
October 10, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
[...] sorts of issues come up? Well, what should you teach children about religion when you live in a very Christian area (where they will inevitably hear Bible stories)? [...]
Jorge Said,
October 12, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
Kelly, might I take issue with one thing in your post? In the 4th paragraph from the end (I think) you say that ” Teaching children faith as fact…stifles creativity, hinders critical thought, opens the door for children to accept logical fallacies as truth, and most likely leads to a “crisis of faith” (read: identity deconstruction) later in life…he or she practically closes the door to the spontaneous pursuit curiosity”.
I was raised by a mildly religious mother (to this day I don’t know what my father’s views on religion are). I went to Sunday school, had confirmation, the whole 9 yards. However, never during that whole process did my mother ever stifled my creativity. I had an overactive imagination as a child and she never once tried to stop me from using it. I loved biology back then, I was always watching documentaries on wildlife, and I asked a ton of questions about what I saw. She encouraged me to not accept everything I saw as fact, I had to ask questions (she’s a lawyer – I know, I know
). All of this while forcing me to attend Sunday school at 9 am.
I did have a “crisis of faith” later on. I’m not sure what identity deconstruction means, so maybe I’m approaching this from the wrong angle, but for me it mean the moment when I started to doubt the existence of God. I came out of that particular problem unscathed. My faith as it was before was changed, but the crisis in itself didn’t harm me.
As for the spontaneous pursuit curiosity, to this day I still log on to the internet just to learn more about something I just saw on television. Granted, back then we didn’t have the net, but I still tried to find out about stuff by asking my parents and going to the library.
In conclusion, I have to say that I think that a religious component in a child’s education is not, by itself, a bad thing, the fact is that the importance of that component has to be balanced very carefully. I turned out all right I think, I believe in God but still like to think of myself as a critical thinker (I know, major contradiction right there
)
I also have to say that I’m Portuguese, not American, so maybe general cultural values play a part in the way my mom raised me.
Just my two cents
Emilia Said,
December 12, 2008 @ 10:31 pm
Kelly G.’s statement that teaching children faith amounts to child abuse reminds me of a quote by a gay unbeliever: militant atheists are a lot like the religious harpies they hate.
Emilia Said,
December 13, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
On this website one mother told of she was criticized by a stranger for teaching her child about evolution. How is Kelly G’s statement of teaching a child about faith being “mental child abuse” any different from what the other woman experienced for teaching her child about evolution?
I.G. Said,
February 25, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
“How is Kelly G’s statement of teaching a child about faith being “mental child abuse” any different from what the other woman experienced for teaching her child about evolution”
Evolution is not a religion. Evolution does not require you to live your life a certain way and to follow certain practices the way religion does. Evolution is just a fact. It’s possible to accept evolution while also believing in god. Many people believe that evolution is the way god created us.
” I was raised by a mildly religious mother (to this day I don’t know what my father’s views on religion are). I went to Sunday school, had confirmation, the whole 9 yards. However, never during that whole process did my mother ever stifled my creativity.”
It depends on how hard core the christian is. I was raised by Jehovah Witnesses and my creativity was always being stifled. I wanted to take painting classes but my parents wouldn’t allow it because it would take time away from god. I was also not allowed to read certain books because according to my parents they would invite demons into our home. My brother wanted to join our middle school band and my parents said no to him because he would not be able to keep up with his bible studies.