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Religious question . . .
R and I are happily agnostic. My parents were awesome and exposed me to every religion possible when I was growing up, then let me decide for myself what I believed. My mom semi-raised me as a Catholic . . . at least until I was old enough to decide for myself.
R and I have always agreed we would raise Bebe in a similar way. However . . . I am starting to wonder how I am going to handle questions about heaven, angels, etc while Bebe is a little girl. My nieces started asking questions about these things as early as 2 years old . . . and I don't want to be blind sided when the subject does finally come up.
I'm soooo at a loss for what to say when this finally comes up in conversations . . . what do you ladies think? Bebe does get exposed to church if she is with my mom on Sunday mornings . . . and our babysitter is Catholic as well . . . I'm just worrying pre-emptively.
Re: Religious question . . .
Thats tough....but also not.
You are agnostic. So you dont believe in those things right???
If you dont believe in something, then I wouldnt really bring it up and try to change the subject. UNLESS you plan to expose her to other religions like your parents did. Then you can explain to her that Chrisitians believe this, hindus beleive that, jewish people believe this....
That's a hard one for me in that I do believe in the Christian faith, however I really want to raise my daughter to learn about, be tolerant of and chose her own faith (if she chooses to do so). DH and I have decided to raise her with Christian beliefs, more than likely Catholic, it was how I was raised and I am most comfortable in that church, while still telling her that those are OUR beliefs and people all over the world believe in different things and one is not better or more correct than another (IMO). I am not sure what I would tell her if we were chosing not to raise her with a basic religious foundation though.
If she's being exposed to religion than I would start with the fundamentals of that and then branch her out to other religions. Alot of it is going to be based on her maturity/sensitivity level. You could always turn the tables on her and ask her what she thinks it might be.
How did your parents go about it with you?
I think about this myself a lot.
J is Catholic. He was more devout when we first started dating, but that wore off. We have since realized that I know more about his religion than he does. J would like Scarlett to go to Catholic school. I have no issue with this, except that I am concerned about her being taunted by other kids for her beliefs or for her mother's beliefs.
I know that kids can be cruel about this stuff. I grew up in a town with a church on every corner. Since I didn't go to "their church" I was clearly a Satan-worshipper and was going to hell. My friends were always going to seminary or youth group, and I felt left out.
I think I'm just going to be honest and give her the facts and let her decide. I might tell her angels are real, the way I will tell her Santa is real, and then let her realize they're metaphors.
Until my mom and dad (step) were married, I was raised in my strict Italian-Catholic family. Once they married and we moved away from my grandparents, my dad was adamant about giving me some freedom to choose for myself. I had previously gone to Catholic school, and all of my friends were in the same community. When we moved I went to public school and made friends in many faiths. My dad allowed me to go with friends to their religious activities so that I could learn for myself. I am incredibly grateful to him for giving me those freedoms. All of my cousins have a strong religious faith and to me, they all seem like they have a stick up their booties. I just dont want Bebe to be that weird child that tells other kids their religions are wrong.
I just dont want Bebe to be that weird child that tells other kids their religions are wrong.
I'm of the opinion that this is an enviornmental influence. Since you and R are so open minded about other religions, I think it's a mute point. It's when she starts to branch out on her own that I would start the reaffirmation on tolerance. She will make friends who have different religions and you can always use that as a springboard to discuss religion.
However I would take advice from me with multiple grains of salt since my mother purposely did not baptize me out of spite and a youth group asked me not to come back.
Hmmm... Religion is always a tough one. My family is not religious, and I don't recall asking/hearing anything about the topic, despite being raised in an area where most people subscribe to some sort of faith (Christian, Jewish, Mormon), until I was 9. One of my little friends in the third grade asked me if I was Christian, and I had to reply "I don't know, what's that"?
Today, I am a happy heathen, as is N, but I do wish my parents had given me more information about the different religions so that I would have had a better understanding of them growing up. All I remember hearing (after the question in 3rd grade) was that people have a lot of different beliefs, but that doesn't mean that any one of them is wrong. It makes sense to me now, but it was confusing, as a child.
Maybe there is a good children's book out there somewhere that explains the scope of religious beliefs in the world. . .And if there isn't, get busy and write one, because you'd probably make a ton of money! But write it under a pen name, because you'd probably also receive death threats.