Conversations About God
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
Julieanne, who is now 3, and I had our first conversation about God on the way to school this morning. She brought it up. (For any new readers, I am a divorced atheist who shares custody with a Christian.) It went as follows:
Julieanne: We go to church everyday.
Me: You and your daddy?
Julieanne: Yep.
Me: Do you like church?
Julieanne: Yeah.
Me: What do you like about it?
Julieanne: [some unintelligible babble. I know it had something to do with playing, but I don't know what exactly.]
Me: Do you learn about Jesus?
Julieanne: No, we don’t have a Jesus at our church. He doesn’t come to our church.
Me: (Laugh) Do you learn about God?
Julieanne: Yeah. And we [babble babble babble].
Me: Does everyone go to church?
Julieanne: Yeah.
Me: Does Mommy go to church?
Julieanne: Nooo!
Me: Why do some people go to church and some people don’t?
Julieanne: [Blank stare.]
Me: Some people don’t go to church because they don’t think God is real. Do you believe in God?
Julieanne: Yes!
Me: Why?
Julieanne: (Pause.) I don’t know!
Me: I think God is just pretend, and that’s how come I don’t go to church. But a lot of people think God is real. Your daddy thinks God is real. And your Nana thinks God is real. But Steve doesn’t think God is real. You can think whatever you want to think.
Julieanne: I don’t believe in God.
Me: You don’t?
Julieanne: No.
I paused for a minute, thinking. I didn’t want her to say that just because I had just said it. Personally, I have a huge problem with indoctrinating my child one way or another. My goal is to teach her to think for herself and decide on her own. If she chooses to believe in God, I am perfectly fine with that, as long as it is her decision. It’s her life, she can believe what she wants. So I said,
Me: It’s okay if you want to believe in God. I will love you no matter what you believe. And you can tell me anything you want to about God. I’ll listen. Did you know you can believe whatever you want to believe?
Julieanne: (Shakes head and smiles.)
Arrive at preschool.
Tags: atheism, joint custody, parenting, secular parenting
Loading ...
November 24th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Should you force the issue?
I don’t mean trying to hide it – but my kids were tickled pink when they figured out that Daddy didn’t believe in “God”. This was the best thing ever for them. But now I have found that the same line of questioning that got them to that point also has them thinking without boundaries on many things.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Oooops.
I replied on the wrong thread.
Here is what I said.
“There is a certain poetry to your recollection/conversation.
And having it end at the being of school could be both a real and symbolic end.”
November 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am
I don’t think she forced the issue, her daughter brought it up.
Being inquisitive is often a good thing to promote in your children as well as an ability to figure out what you believe in spite of what others do-this means you don’t feel bad about disagreeing be it as an atheist in a crowd of Christians or a Christian in a crowd of atheists. In a way it may just be about not limiting thoughts to what is either in or out of the box.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:26 am
We’re pretty good with discipline. She’s only three, and I’m okay if she questions rules and ideas as long as she does it in an appropriate manner. Not every rule makes sense, and sometimes we do things just because our parents did without even realizing it. I believe in structure and order, but I don’t believe in forcing a particular system of beliefs down her throat. If she does something inappropriate, we’ll deal with it. We’ll have a lot more conversations like this in the years to come, I’m sure.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I know exactly how you feel, especially about the indoctrination … as with you it was (still is) important to me to get my children to think for themselves and I went to some lengths to ensure that they could decide either way, sure I’d have been a bit disappointed if they had ended up theists and maybe I’m at fault for somehow making that more obvious than I should. Both my girls however are atheists, not in any way militant and very tolerant of other’s views … they’re more the “laugh at the silly religious ideas” kind of atheists.
Kyu
November 24th, 2009 at 11:46 am
You absolutely rock as a mom in this regard!
I soooo wish my parents would have told me that they would love me no matter what I believed. It is not like they told me that they wouldn’t love me if I didn’t believe certain things, they just never communicated about important stuff.
November 24th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
And sometimes we have rules that don’t have any overarching moral basis other than “Mommy has to live here too.”
Like the no shrieking in the bathroom just to hear your echo rule.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
She’s only three. This is actually a pretty heavy conversation for a 3 year old.
I can promise you, with one parent who believes and one parent who doesn’t, she’ll change her mind 100 times (and probably depending on who she spends more time with) before she’s old enough to make an abstract, personal decision about God. At this age, and for many years to come, most kids will go happily with whatever belief is taught to them, because it doesn’t really matter yet. The brain can’t understand morals and complex philosophy of the meaning of life and death until the preteen years or so.
This is also why I personally believe that any “teaching” of religion or anti-religion before a certain age is purely creating habits, and a dirty trick, because once habits are deeply formed, it’s hard to get out of those habits, much like an addiction. “Some people believe, and some don’t” without a value judgment on either side of the coin (and an honest opinion about what we believe) is all kids really need, because it allows the brain to be open and when the time comes, they will make up their own mind, rather than having to make a choice between going along with the habits that were created in them, or fighting those habits and questioning everything that was ever taught to them.
Children are naturally spiritual and much closer to any potential God than adults can ever be. We should just let them be until they are old enough to really understand the complexity and human influence on religion.
But then, I’m not religious, so I definitely have a bias
November 24th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I think you’re doing the right thing, it is absolutely right to let a child make up their own mind. It’s just a pity that your ex is not doing the same – church every day? Indoctrination from childhood imho.
November 24th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I don’t think he’s actually taking her every day. She doesn’t have any concept of what “everyday” “all the time” “yesterday” and “last night” actually mean. To her, it all just means sometime in the past. She says all kinds of odd things along those lines, and is still figuring out that there is a difference.
November 24th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Well, she’s very lucky to have you for a mother, and I should know – my mother raised me the very same way, and it worked out okay I think
November 24th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
I think you handled it pretty good too… I breaks my heart watching a child being caught between two worlds. The Bible says that you are not to be unequally yoked together and I can sure see why… Her whole eternal future begins with you being right or wrong on an extremely important issue. Since you don’t know the love of God, that doesn’t mean she won’t find His love someday.
November 24th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Now *there’s* an argument for Christianity – your whole eternal future is based on who raises you! And that’s random chance, or worse – God chose!
November 24th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
“I will love you no matter what you believe.”
What an empowering, affirming statement!
Most especially since it’s not followed with “even if you are going to Hell if you don’t believe like me” which is the message I still get from my parents as an adult!
I’ve had many similar conversations with my kids on God, Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, unicorns, ghosts, etc. Sometimes I express my opinion with or without explaining that other people think differently. Sometimes, instead of answering with my opinion, I just ask them back what they believe — and leave it at that.
Having an open door to conversation and not insisting you have the monopoly on “truth” goes a long way in supporting your daughter to form her own opinions.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Laura delete this is it violates your rules, but zdenny, I’m sorry but you are such a self-righteous asshole. It’s like you plug in your comments into the evangel-gibberish-generator before you post.
November 25th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Yeah, sorry Scottin, it does violate the posting guidelines, but I am going to let it go just this once because enough is enough.
So, Zdenny, enough. We get it: You think atheists are an angry, hopeless lot void of love. I’ve let you comment because you often prove my points, but enough is enough. If you want to listen and discuss, that’s fine, but what you are doing is trolling when you don’t care about what anyone else has to say. If it doesn’t stop, you will be banned. This is your warning. Please refrain from attacking belief systems, inciting anger, and telling people they don’t know anything about love. I hate to censor, but while I welcome discussion with open arms, this isn’t a debate board. If you are only here to debate and not discuss, please find somewhere else to comment. The purpose of my blog is to journal my thoughts and feelings in hope that they may help other people. I would like to keep that atmosphere here.
Again, any future comments of yours that take the same tone will be deleted and you will be banned from further comment.
November 25th, 2009 at 3:36 am
TammyT —>”religion before a certain age is purely creating habits, and a dirty trick, because once habits are deeply formed, it’s hard to get out of those habits, much like an addiction”
Yeah indoctrination of fear of hellfire and thoughts of suffering sinners being punished etc can sometimes be thoughts hard to shake from memory later on in life.And thats a bit sad. Its the early years that often can make some big impressions on us.
Rosa is right on to just how random many things are.
November 25th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I had a similar discussion with my ten year old a few weeks ago. We were driving out to my parents house and he said “Daddy, did you know that some people don’t believe in God?”
“Yes, I knew that, and it’s O.K. to not believe in God.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone is allowed to have their own opinions about God as long as they have thought about why they believe that”, I said.
“I think people who don’t believe in God are stupid”
“What about people who believe in a different God, are they stupid too?”
“I don’t know, but if you don’t believe in God you are going to hell”
“Just because you believe that doesn’t mean it is true, you can believe whatever you think is right, but many people think different, and they think they know the truth”
“I just think that if you don’t believe in God you go to hell.”
“And your brother believes that if he isn’t good all year he won’t get presents from Santa”
“Dad, really, there is no such thing as Santa!”
“Exactly.”
Wow, that was uncomfortable. Thank you Catholic education system!
I agree that it is hard for many atheists because we are more conscious not to indoctrinate our children. I want my son to THINK about why there is/isn’t a God. I think for the most part that is universal among atheists, that we want our children to arrive at opinions based on understanding the facts.
It doesn’t make these conversations any easier though.
January 27th, 2010 at 11:58 am
My kids are 6 and 8. We raised them in the church until roughly six months ago (though the indoctrination at home was light). Though I was slowly deconverting for several years, I kept the party line in public both to my church and to my children, so they have heard the gospel now multiple times. Now both my wife and I are atheists.
My oldest thought for herself from an early age and openly questioned our faith, making life difficult on us. My youngest buys everything you tell her. My wife and I are in the closet with our parents, in-laws, siblings, college friends, and old church, so we’re not in a hurry to openly discuss it with our children as they fell free (and should feel free) to pass it all along. But any talk of religion, prayer, Jesus, etc, has stopped in our home.
But every so often, my youngest brings up God, and asks how many planets God has made, etc. I don’t ever counter the God talk, though I will explain how swirling dust clouds create solar systems and planets, etc. We’re taking our time, but eventually it will come out. Recently my daughter gave the gospel to one of her friends, and concluded as evidence that “my mother told me”.
February 27th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Jason says: “But every so often, my youngest brings up God, and asks how many planets God has made, etc. I don’t ever counter the God talk, though I will explain how swirling dust clouds create solar systems and planets, etc.”
If every star in the Milky Way (alone) was a grain of salt they would fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. The earth would be a tiny little speck of nothing around one grain of salt. The Jews would be a microscopic tribe of no importance on that tiny speck.
And THEY get the one and only ‘truth’ for it all? Yeah, that’ll happen!