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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: S/O: Religion and kids...anyone not doing the whole religion thing?
I just asked DH how we're going to approach this....we're not sure. Just cause I highly doubt he will actually raise the kids in the Church.....
For something like Easter (which is a major holiday in our area) I'd probably say something to the effect of "and those who are Christian believe in this" and just leave it at that. If they want to go to Church with family to learn more, thats fine.
Also JeremysGirl I just ordered that book on Amazon - thank you
Not that I have kids, but H and I have discussed this. Kind of a lot b/c we're weird.
I think parenting beyond belief is a great start (the book jeremy's girl posted, but it's also an excellent blog).
We'd celebrate Christmas and Easter b/c who doesn't love an excuse for a party? And I'm sure we'd talk about the basic beliefs behind them. Plus my family is religious, so I'm sure there would be some group Christmas event.
I'm not really worried about a kid learning about religions. It's going to happen as their friends discuss things, and they come to me with questions. I mean, how many people send their kids to a church to learn about multiple religions, anyway?
we are raising our children in the church- but I grew up in a family that did not go to church. We celebrated typical Christian holidays- and my parents told us about the basics for reasons we have those holidays- but we didn't follow any real religion... just a basic protestant one. I went to sunday school for maybe 2 years before dropping out b/c I was in soccer on sundays and it was too much going on, lol.
when i met DH we both wanted to start going to church - so went together weekly at the church i went to as a child - so we are lutheran for real now... but as a kid I didn't know what lutheran was vs. catholic... I only knew Jewish vs. christian... b/c my best friend was Jewish- so I knew that they did not believe that Jesus was the son of God, and christians do. that's about all I knew.
As our daughter is approaching kindergarten DH and I have been having a lot of discussions about this issue. We were both raised going to church. My family started at a Catholic church then switched to a Reformed Church when I was in 4th grade. Shortly after I went through confirmation my mom stopped going altogether. DHs family is still highly involved in their Catholic church (mom works in the rectory, Dad has held the position of volunteer folk choir director since the 70s).
It was very obvious to me growing up that my mom was only going to church for the kids (she felt raising us in the church was the "right" thing to do). That left me with an incredibly warped sense of religion. I realized in my mid-20s that I assumed religion was just something people taught kids to learn lessons and morals and that adults did not believe in it themselves. I don't want to repeat that mistake to my children.
DH and I both believe there is some sort of higher spiritual being and that's pretty much where our beliefs end. We definitely celebrate Christian holidays as part of our cultural/familial tradition. Our kids go to church on holidays, mostly because there are a few members of FILs choir who were members the night DH was born, so they absolutely love to see the kids twice a year.
We definitely want some sort of religious upbringing for the kids because we feel it's helpful to learn about spirituality within the confines of an organized religion and then you can expand the ideas to figure out where your own beliefs lie. I also think that joining a religious organization can be a nice way to put down roots within a community.
That said, we will not join an organization that does not welcome all members regardless of sex, race or sexual orientation, nor are we fans of sending our kids to a religious education program that might address issues such as abortion before we're ready to discuss them and teach beliefs contrary to our own (DH had abortion brought up in 7th or 8th grade at CCD, which I feel is far too young). So once we move this summer to where we'll be raising the kids we're planning on looking at Unitarian churches, Methodist churches and Quaker churches to see if any communities suit us.
Sorry to highjack, just wanted to ask why you excluded the preceding cartoons that were attached to your sig.
I did not want to baptize my children as infants, but sometimes there are family reasons to. I have an elderly Italian aunt who was pressing until we did it. We didn't give in until she threatened to take Julia and do it herself because she was so scared about what would happen if we left her unbaptized. She is wonderful to us and has been a huge part of my life, my siblings and I refer to her as our second parent since my father wasn't really a part of our lives. So since she had a strong opinion I gave in even though I don't believe in it and don't know what our plans are for raising the kids.
At 3 and 5, I guess I treat religion a lot like race. I keep it simple. While my kids go to a secular school, they do learn a lot about religion. When they come home and mention things that they learned (or more likely heard from a couple of super churchy friends), we always talk about "that's what Ethan's family believes." or "yes, some families believe in Heaven." I've been prepared for "what do we believe?" but it hasn't happened yet. I actually take this as a good sign that they are pretty open to the idea that some people believe one thing, other people believe an other- or at least the 5 year old. The little one probably doesn't think much about it at all.
I want my kids to learn about all kinds of religions. My mother produced and Atheist and a Catholic without advocating for either side of the coin. Who knows what will happen...
This is totally us. I think we've discussed this more than we've discussed whether we're actually having children.
Neither of us are against religion. We just don't believe that a God (or gods) exist. So the plan is to teach potential children about the basics of all religion, and if they express any interest, then go from there. Our families are pretty religious (Christian) and our best friends are Jewish so I'm certain any potential children will be pretty exposed to religion at the ready.
We will not baptise any future children, though. Even if our parents demand it (we expect a fight on this one).
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Our kids will be raised as secular humanists. We both majored in history and religious studies, so we know lots about many religions, and will happily answer questions. I will not be misrepresenting or lying to my kids about stuff. I think information is always great.
I'll tell them some people think Jesus (or insert other religion here) is real. There is no historical evidence for this person, so we don't think that's true. But that's okay, people are allowed to believe in what they want, we just choose to look for logical proof. Obviously scaled up and down depending on age.
I will answer plainly that I don't believe in heaven or hell. I will answer plainly that the way we know how to treat others is based on what we'd want for ourselves. Kindness and respect are very important, and so is self-reliance and responsibility.
We have many, many values to teach our kids (to include being good to the environment, not eating animals, being kind to others, etc). I don't anticipate a lot of issues in this sense.
ETA: And we are culturally Christian. Our families are Christian. We will celebrate the holidays because they are fun and of cultural relevance.
SO was raised "half-assed Christian" (his term) and is now atheist. I was raised Catholic and am now agnostic-bordering-on-atheist.
My parents are still Catholic, and my dad is disappointed that we're not baptizing DS.
I haven't discussed it with SO yet, but I'd like to teach DS about religion (all religions), but that we don't believe the stories. I have a feeling my parents will try to take him to church with them if they have him spend a weekend night with them.
And if he chooses to believe in religion when he gets older, we won't disown him.
Same here. Can't wait for that time to come! *groan*
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DWe're just at "well, people believe lots of different things". Also, our kids are 3 and 1. They attend a Quaker school, but are being raised by a Jewish turning Quaker mom and a non-practicing Presbyterian dad.
They'll figure it out
The kids will be christened/baptised as infants and will get God Parents, because that's all in H's family's tradition and I see nothing wrong with either of those things.
That being said, my kids will not be doing any sort of confirmations, etc and so forth until they're adults and make or don't make that choice themselves as adults and not under pressure of influence from authority figures, including myself.
I do feel its important that I expose my kids to religion though, because I was raised agnostic/atheist and I had to seek it out on my own, and that was a pretty lonely thing. I'd rather my child have a supportive community around them while they explore and learn about religions of the world and spirituality.
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Definitely not. I think religious philosophy is for adults who are seeking it out for themselves. I'm sure my real opinion on religious ministry for children would be capital O offensive so I'll stop there.
As a child I was allowed to attend church with friends if I was invited to go. This was neither encouraged or discouraged. My parents didn't try to raise me in religion at all though. Secular and seasonal holidays, but no religious spin on them. I think I would do things the same way. I do not feel my childhood was lacking in any way, and I think my perspective when I did start studying religion in an academic way was a bit more... rational... that people who had been raised to be one religion or another.
This is what I want to do. We will celebrate Christmas for sure, because I super puffy heart Christmas, but Dyl and I have argued a lot about Easter. I want to do the cultural fun stuff that I grew up with (easter egg hunts, easter bunny, easter basket), and Dyl doesn't want to do any of that. So that is something we will have to hammer out.
Jflute would tell people who asked where we attended that we were members of the Church of the Bedside Comforter or Bedside Baptist Church.
Sorry for interrupting the thread. Continue with your intelligent discussion.
Dylanite you suck it! A kid should be able to engorge himself on a candy-filled Easter basket dammit! The Easter Bunny is really not religious at all, there were no colored eggs and chocolate bunnies on the cross with Jesus.
Ya, but I'll call it a Wednesday basket. And it'll be way less gay.
ETA: In other words, not a basket.
We attend St.Matress ( Ma-treeece)