by Anna
After the initial post from Meredith and Leah's response, it's my turn to muse on choice and teaching in religious upbringing.
There was no church in my childhood, except for Christmas and Easter, when it re-emerged suddenly in the form of interdiction of going to the Midnight Mass and puzzling necessity of blessing the Easter Eggs* - puzzling because it emanated from my proudly agnostic Father.
We were baptised and did the First Communion, but all of it had less to do with God than with tradition and society.
I attended religious education at school because every one else did, but I don't remember much of it except for colouring holy pictures and learning prayers by heart.
In my teens I had a couple of enthusiastic attempts at religion (I even wanted to become a nun at one point) but always got discouraged by the efforts of my disapproving family and my disappointment with the Church. Still, one way or another, I chose God in the end**. I suppose that having been exposed to at least some concept of God, I was never able to totally discard the possibility of His existence - the seed had been sown and it grew, and even if it lay dormant for a long time only producing rather sickly little plants, it finally bloomed.
Breadcrumb's dad is an atheist raised by atheist parents, and he's not a questioning type: his parents have happily lived their whole lives without God, he's lived happily so far without God, what's the point of fixing what isn't broken? He's fine with me living my faith the way I see fit - even if when we first met religion was not something I was particularly interested in -, as long as I don't try to get him involved.
So with his parents at the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the existence of God, Breadcrumb will certainly have a choice. For now he's been going to church with me with his dad's full approval - he can have a lie in and the baby's too little to understand anything anyway - but I know that it won't always be that simple. To be honest, the more I think about this whole co-parenting with an atheist business, the more it seems complicated (I can feel many'a'posts brewing there).
So that's my reality. Now for more general musings:
1. Teaching is important. At the very least it creates an uncertainty, thus actually creating a situation where a choice needs to be made. In other words - if you don't know your options, you don't really have a choice.
2. Choice is important - God needs to be chosen freely. I dare say there are many atheists out there who were estranged from religion because of having been forced to go to church and keep up appearances. At what age one can make such choice and how much guidance to give is another question.
3. The most important thing however is example. If a parent does not live out their faith consistently in front of their child and as an example to them, all teaching becomes pointless. Now that's a responsibility!
* It is a Polish Catholic tradition - you take a basket containing painted eggs and some other foods to be blessed at your local church on Good Saturday. You then share one of the eggs at the beginning of the Easter breakfast wishing each other fortune and such (or solutions to your various shortcomings in my family's case).
** Leah asked for a post on how that came about, but I'm afraid that story does not have much to do with motherhood so not sure this is the right place for it.
After the initial post from Meredith and Leah's response, it's my turn to muse on choice and teaching in religious upbringing.
There was no church in my childhood, except for Christmas and Easter, when it re-emerged suddenly in the form of interdiction of going to the Midnight Mass and puzzling necessity of blessing the Easter Eggs* - puzzling because it emanated from my proudly agnostic Father.
We were baptised and did the First Communion, but all of it had less to do with God than with tradition and society.
I attended religious education at school because every one else did, but I don't remember much of it except for colouring holy pictures and learning prayers by heart.
In my teens I had a couple of enthusiastic attempts at religion (I even wanted to become a nun at one point) but always got discouraged by the efforts of my disapproving family and my disappointment with the Church. Still, one way or another, I chose God in the end**. I suppose that having been exposed to at least some concept of God, I was never able to totally discard the possibility of His existence - the seed had been sown and it grew, and even if it lay dormant for a long time only producing rather sickly little plants, it finally bloomed.
Breadcrumb's dad is an atheist raised by atheist parents, and he's not a questioning type: his parents have happily lived their whole lives without God, he's lived happily so far without God, what's the point of fixing what isn't broken? He's fine with me living my faith the way I see fit - even if when we first met religion was not something I was particularly interested in -, as long as I don't try to get him involved.
So with his parents at the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the existence of God, Breadcrumb will certainly have a choice. For now he's been going to church with me with his dad's full approval - he can have a lie in and the baby's too little to understand anything anyway - but I know that it won't always be that simple. To be honest, the more I think about this whole co-parenting with an atheist business, the more it seems complicated (I can feel many'a'posts brewing there).
So that's my reality. Now for more general musings:
1. Teaching is important. At the very least it creates an uncertainty, thus actually creating a situation where a choice needs to be made. In other words - if you don't know your options, you don't really have a choice.
2. Choice is important - God needs to be chosen freely. I dare say there are many atheists out there who were estranged from religion because of having been forced to go to church and keep up appearances. At what age one can make such choice and how much guidance to give is another question.
3. The most important thing however is example. If a parent does not live out their faith consistently in front of their child and as an example to them, all teaching becomes pointless. Now that's a responsibility!
* It is a Polish Catholic tradition - you take a basket containing painted eggs and some other foods to be blessed at your local church on Good Saturday. You then share one of the eggs at the beginning of the Easter breakfast wishing each other fortune and such (or solutions to your various shortcomings in my family's case).
** Leah asked for a post on how that came about, but I'm afraid that story does not have much to do with motherhood so not sure this is the right place for it.