Am I accidentally raising Christians?
Posted by: Laurie T.Monday, October 13th, 2008
Instead of religion, we’ve focused on skepticism, logic, and reason. They ask us questions and frequently we respond with “What do you think?”. We try to encourage them to think for themselves, and question explanations that others give them. Look for facts. Be logical. Have proof before you accept.
At the same time we have exposed them to some of the religion they’ll encounter in their bible-belt hometown. When they were each four, we enrolled them in the best preschool in town, which happens to be at a Lutheran church, where they learned bible stories and went to chapel. We celebrate Christmas and Easter every year, while explaining the history of how these holidays came about. But we have never said, regarding the stories they learned in chapel and at Christmastime, “Well, sweetheart, they just aren’t true.”
This leads to doubt on my part. Am I doing enough? They learned about Jesus and God in preschool. I read them books about the Christmas story. They’ve been exposed to Christianity through other family members, and through the media. I never refuted any of it. Am I unwittingly raising Christians?
Then last weekend during a drive, we heard church bells and my daughter, 7-year-old Little Skeptic Girl, proved she’s not too young to be a freethinker:
LSG: “That’s pretty music!”Me: “Yes, it’s from the bells in that church.”LSG: “Mommy, do we not go to church because there are no churches around here that teach what we believe, or do we not go to church because there are no churches that teach what we believe?”Me: “I guess the answer to that is that no church teaches what Daddy and I believe. There are many, many different kinds of churches in the world, and they all teach different things. My question is, which is right? And who am I to say which is right? The one thing most of them have in common is they teach that there is a supernatural being who has power over this world and the people in it. I decided a long time ago that I don’t believe there is a supernatural being who has power over the world. I believe the world is explained by science, and I don’t need to explain what I don’t understand by claiming it is because of a supernatural being. But Daddy and I want you to learn as much as you can and decide for yourself when you get older what it is you believe.”LSG: “Yeah, because I remember learning in preschool that God used to talk to Moses and Noah all the time, but now you can only talk to God through prayer, and He never answers you out loud. And I thought, that doesn’t make any sense!”
October 13th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I often wonder how my kids will grow up. I want them to be skeptical, of course, and the evidence just isn’t there to support religion. I feel a lot of the “hard questions” of theology, which seem to most often be asked by children who are less indoctrinated, are a lot easier to answer when you realize that the people who believe such things are likely self-deluded, or at worst liars.
I hope my kids (pre-preschool age currently) are as skeptical as yours.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Wow, very impressive!!
My situation is very similar to yours: my kids are now 5 and 7 and I’m trying to teach them critical thinking rather than just teaching them “we don’t believe in God.”
I think it’s a good idea to expose kids to religion early on (like you’re doing ) so it doesn’t come as a surprise or mystery later that people really believe such stories. I’m at something of a disadvantage here in Europe — since religion has so much less of a presence in the public sphere (I’m not complaining, mind you
) — so I have to go out of my way to expose them to religion, like when I took them to Lourdes.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:22 am
My parents were atheist and agnostic. I turned out atheist, and my brother is now Catholic. He met a cute Catholic girl.
There’s not much you can do to predict something like that.
October 14th, 2008 at 6:23 am
Yeah, since my son was 3 we’ve explained there is no such thing as monsters in his closet. At 4 his 4 year old cousin said there were monsters in a box they were playing next to and my son said “there is no such thing as monsters”.
October 14th, 2008 at 7:16 am
I think it’s very true - we exert scarily little influence on our children! My parents are atheist accountants and my inlaws are Catholic financiers. I’m a musician, my husband is a physicist and we are both protestant Christians. Whether as children, teenagers or students, most people seem able to explore their own beliefs regardless of their upbringing (which I find quite exciting being pregnant for the first time..!) Of course I think this is due to the free will given to us by a loving God (!) but whatever my or your beliefs are, those of our children will be their own responsibility.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:07 am
There are other “church” options, of course. At the North Texas Church of Freethought, we try to provide a place for parents such as yourself to bring children to learn skepticism, logic, and reason. We’ve sponsored a parenting seminar by Dale McGowan, editor of Parenting Beyond Belief, and try to provide a “freethought community” for parents as outlined by former Atheist Alliance International president Bobbie Kirkhart in that book.
At least, you’ll be able to answer your daughter that some churches teach what you believe, even though we may not be close enough for you to attend.
October 14th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Sounds like you are doing a great job! But are you letting them learn other religions too?
October 14th, 2008 at 10:32 am
My husband and I are atheists also. My kids are only 2 and 5 and we live in a moderate area so I haven’t yet exposed them to religion. I’m working on teaching critical thinking and how to think rather than what to think. My oldest likes to ask me whether something is real or pretend. I usually throw the question back to him to see what he thinks because I don’t want him to get the answers from me. He seems to have a pretty good grasp on the difference already. I do plan to expose both kids to various beliefs but I’m waiting until they start asking questions on their own. If they don’t I’ll introduce it between 7-10 myself.
The somewhat scary thing is I don’t want to accidentally raise Christians but I have to be open to that possibility as they get older. I’m not quite ready for that, but I guess I have some time to work out my feelings while they grow up.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Laurie, does your daughter talk about her beliefs with her classmates at school? My problem is not with teaching my kids about skepticism and about world religions, it’s getting my son to learn to be socially adept enough to not get in religious wars at school. The social adeptness came naturally to my 2 older daughters, but my 5 yr old son is into speaking his mind come hell or high water. Around here, it’s not uncommon for kids to get beat up if they challenge the truth of the Mormon church, the divinity of Jesus, or the existence of a god.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
andrew:
Yes, I want to expose them to other religions, as well. This summer I met an amazing 15-yr-old secular humanist who has spent the last year visiting different types of churches, just so he can understand others’ perspective. Hopefully my kids will want me to do that with them when thy are older.
INTJMom:
Someone else asked me this same question a few months ago. I just asked Little Skeptic Girl to be sure, and she said the topic of religion hasn’t really come up at school. Everyone who lives around us is Christian, but they are all different types of Protestants and Catholics, so it strikes me that most second graders in our area don’t think to discuss it much, since everyone is basically like them, but they know that everyone goes to a different church. It does worry me that there might come a time when my kids will feel “different”, but maybe I can impress on them that we don’t need to discuss our beliefs outside the family. We also seem to be the only Democrats in a sea of Republicans, so maybe we’ll have to avoid some fistfights over that as well!
October 14th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I know how you feel about being the only Democrats in a sea of Republicans!
As far as the post goes, I agree with Julie. I was raised in a fundamentalist home and my brother and I ended up agnostic/atheist, while my other brother is still fundamentalist. My entire extended family is solidly fundamentalist Christian. So a lot of it depends on life experiences, though you are off to a good start!
I remember having some of the same thoughts that LSG had when I was little (and even when I was growing up). My questions were always stifled with “You have to have faith!” or some cursory explanation that didn’t really make sense or answer my question, but I thought it was my fault that I didn’t understand. I was either too young or didn’t have enough faith to comprehend what someone was saying. When I became an adult, I realized that there were no answers at all, and it wasn’t me! Your daughter is lucky to have a mom who doesn’t give her pat answers or tell her what to believe. It is exactly how I am trying to raise my own daughter (though she is only 2, so we haven’t exactly discussed anything yet).
October 14th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
“…that doesnt make sense” says your little one and all of a sudden there seems hope for the world.
Great post.
October 14th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
My parents raised me with no religion. Church was something my friends did (and I somewhat envied them for that social clique). I was ten or so when my family started going to church, and by that time I perceived the stories in the bible to be at best allegorical explanations of the world by a culture with too little science to understand it, and fictional demonstrations of morality. It still stuns me that people believe literally a book that wasn’t written in their own language.
But I would guess that what you teach from birth on becomes the core of a child’s world, and after a certain point, all other material is viewed through the lens of that core worldview. It sounds like you’ve done a good job so far!
October 14th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
http://friendlyatheist.com/5129/how-much-should-you-expose-your-children-to-church/
October 15th, 2008 at 9:02 am
I agree children should be exposed to religion. I would never enroll mine in a religious school however, because I think it does indoctrinate them deeply, at a very basic and emotional level that may be almost impossible to overcome later. If your child is bright, he or she will learn in any school.
October 15th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
My wife was raised Catholic, and my parents deliberately never spoke about religion at all. I suspect that they’re atheists, although they still won’t engage in any sort of conversation about it (and I’m now 38!). I am a thoroughgoing atheist (I also like “teapot atheist,” to head off the “you’re really an agnostic” argument.)
My wife felt strongly when my daughter turned 5 that she needed the once-a-week classes required for Confirmation, and she went through them, eventually getting Confirmed. This upset me deeply…for all of the myriad reasons that this audience will not need repeated.
In an argument before the classes started, I expressed my objections to childhood religious education…and for all the predictable reasons, these were unconvincing to my wife. Married for 16 years, I’m no dummy–I gave in. And in a feat of self-abnegation that will never be appreciated by my wife, I held my tongue about religion in front of my daughter. When, one day, she asked me directly if I believe in God, I told her no. She asked me why, and I told her no one’s ever gave me a reason to think he’s real. A week later, she briefly expressed sadness that I didn’t believe in God, but said it was because mommy and daddy didn’t believe the same thing.
I’m fairly pleased that after a year of weekly classes and official Confirmation, my daughter (by that time 7) told my wife that she didn’t want to go to ‘church school’ any more. Why? “I don’t believe in God.” Yay! She dodged the superstition-and-guilt bullet. I hope it’s because she’s a skeptic and not because she wants to be like daddy. And hopefully it’s not because she cynically devised a way to get out of boring church school.
Now my son is 5. Hopefully he’ll emerge unscathed in spite of the religious community’s attempt to cripple him intellectually.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I raised three daughters, exposing them to Bible stories (they kept saying, “This is an AWFUL book! Everyone does such BAD stuff!” even though I was reading the watered-down, children’s version), other religions (we were lucky enough to live in the same town with a gorgeous Buddhist temple), and of course, many religious friends and family (we homeschooled, so many of my kids’ good friends were very religious…and my sister converted to Judaism and is a rabbi!). Of course, I was happy to tell the kids how I feel about things as well, so they were exposed to skepticism, too!
I am happy to report that, although two out of three of my kids did seem at times headed toward religious (Christian) belief, largely because of influence from their friends, they are all three now (at ages 24, 26, and 17) very skeptically-oriented and non-religious. The kid who wanted to go to Vacation Bible Study classes with her friend (I let her), and the kid who loved getting her very own Bible and rosary (her best friend at the time was Catholic), both continued to think, question, and change positions as they grew older.
Just by being in society, my kids have also been exposed to many different brands of “woo,” too, and they have mostly (perhaps not entirely) turned the woo away, too, using the skeptical tools of asking questions, thinking for themselves, etc.
I don’t think we parents have control ( !!!! ), but we do have a big influence on our kids, and if we teach them to question everything and everybody, even us, at least they go into whatever they do with open eyes and relatively clear thinking.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:53 am
I’d like my kids (5 and 2) to “know” religion as a cultural phenomenon. My current plan (not yet started) is to go through the many different mythologies of the world, and to slip “modern” religions into that as just another example of what people create to explain what they don’t understand. Does anyone have any suggestions for good mythology books for the early elementary years?
Come to think of it, maybe we have started: we’ve been reading Kipling’s “Just So Stories.” I think it would be fun, too, to have the kids make up some of their own stories.
And I’m loving this blog! Thanks for starting it!
October 22nd, 2008 at 7:37 am
My wife and I do not want children, but what I want to say is that I was not exposed to churches/religion by my parents until the age of 8 or 9, by which time I had already figured out the ability to reason what was real and logical and reasonable, and what was not. I questioned the basic teachings I was given at church, and rejected them becuase what was being said was illogical. So it is possible to let a child make up his or her mind about such a topic without fully indoctrinating his or her mind if you want long enough to let the mind of the child grow and mature.
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Here’s my dilema: the best atheists I know were formerly religious. There’s something about going through the process of being religious then rejecting religion that is in an of itself enriching.
I consider myself a humanist and though I am an atheist, I do think that religion embodies something about the human condition, something about our common humanity, albeit in a mediated form.
I recently read the art critic, Robert Hughe’s autobiography in which he describes the Jesuit education he had. How he tried very earnestly to have faith but knew he just didn’t, couldn’t by age 16.
He’s one of the best critics of the backwardness of the church but still able to appreciate the loveiliness of the human aspiration church art expresses. I’m not so sure exposing kids to church culture can play the same role.
So do I sign ‘em up for bible boot camp and hope they’ll rebel?
October 26th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
[...] about freedom of expression and the right to be offended, and Rational Moms shares a personal story about teaching children critical thinking skills and allowing them to decide for themselves what [...]
November 7th, 2008 at 2:55 am
I was raised without religion, ideology or atheism. My parents had no religion, didn’t care otherwise and only said that I couldn’t join a church or other such organization until I was 18.
I’ve always been an atheist but I had some believe in the paranormal. One of my viewpoints was that paranormal didn’t exist because if something exists, it is in the normal world, whatever it is. My believe in it faded and eventually went away because I kept finding no evidence, nor any logic that would make it even somewhat likely.
At some point I decided that buddhism was my way. To put it simply, I’m a philosophical buddhist. My take on rebirth not literal, I think that is the wrong way to go about it but that would be a blog by itself. My take on karma is not that ‘the universe’ auto-balances good and evil. Just take my word for it that I don’t believe in anything supernatural.
I have kids. I don’t try to teach them anything that is not reasonably factual except to think for themselves and to think critically. To my delight, I have a hard time making them believe in Sinterklaas (the Dutch Santa Claus) and Santa Claus. My 7yo son is at the point of completely ditching it.
Another thing I do is telling them something that is nonsense, saying that it’s really true and then saying ‘or is daddy talking nonsense?’ . The answer: ‘daddy, you’re talking nonsense’. I think it’s very important that they don’t just believe everything I say just because I think and say it’s true.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
To paraphrase Richard Dawkins - there’s no such thing as Christian children, only children of Christian parents.
Reading all the comments above has been so refreshing. As the parent of a pair of (hopefully) rational and enlightened 9 and 13 year-olds, I’m looking forward to reading more of this blog.
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:59 am
Good to see there is no luke warm here. So many Christians think they are Christians but, most are luke warm….I wouldnt worry too much about you kiddo’s becoming Christ like when they are learning to not believe. To be a follower you must believe…and have faith. This dont seem to be a problem in the household.
December 14th, 2008 at 1:31 am
[...] but it didn’t. On some level, our situation seems more ideal than Laurie T.’s (where religion comes up in school ), but, on the other hand, it sounds nice to have some natural context (like in Laurie T and [...]