With my self an avid atheist and my wife an agnostic, we both have reservations about organized religion and have chosen to keep our children away from it as best as possible, much to some family members chagrin. From refusing to not have the children baptized to questions about how to explain Christmas to them it hasn’t been easy to deal with even semi devote people in our lives…but now religion is circumventing parental consent and hitting my oldest directly through peer pressure.
I have never and will not be opposed to my children becoming religious as long as it is healthy and they do not adopt the stance that everyone needs to believe what they do. Yet with young children who do not have much if any exposure in relation to belief systems it can be difficult to explain things to them in a manner that does not exclude or include anything. Try explaining what a Priest is to a 6 year old who is atheist by proxy and has never known what religion is.
Now you may say, that it is horrible to not raise children into faith, or that they are being damaged by being shielded from religion or that I am going to hell for keeping Jebus from their lives, that I am damning their eternal souls from shielding his all encompassing love from them, the lost little lambs they are. My response; I find it incredibly abusive to force a young and malleable mind to believe that they will burn in an eternal pit of fire if they do not pray to Yahweh.
While I don’t want to keep them from experiencing different belief systems I also don’t think either of them are developed enough to make decisions for themselves in this aspect. I was allowed my religious freedom when I was 13 but that isn’t a standard I will hold to my children. It is however pretty clear based upon discussions with my daughter that she is not yet at a stage of understanding that I think would lead to her being able to explore religion without being easily manipulated.
I fear that scare tactics and false presentations will lure her misguidedly into the ranks of faith; in some ways the second one has been proving to be true. Children are distracted by bright colors and loud noises. A choir decked in elegant robes singing the praises of The Lord Jebus can easily attract/distract a child who is only concerned with the presentation and can completely bypass the message of the song. I see it as a sort of false advertising and am uncomfortable with the possibilities. She already holds an idealized image of what Church represents due to her school viewing a choral performance at one.
Don’t be tempted by the outward appearances.
I want my children to be happy and safe, for the moment I don’t think they will be with religion in their lives. Already she is talking about the Devil…this is not something a 6 year old should be concerned with, burning in Hell should not be something in a developing child’s mind. You don’t need brimstone to engrain morals into kids. Morals don’t need a religious basis either. So far my kids have done pretty well in the moral department and like all children, they will grow and learn form their mistakes, I just choose to explain the reasoning for their mistakes in logical manners as opposed to using mythology and religion.
For now I choose to flex my parental right and restrict my children’s exposure to religion as I see fit, until I feel they are capable of using their own reason and intellect to protect them selves. My main concern with doing so is to try and influence my children’s ideals as little as possible beyond the idea that not everyone believes the same thing. I don’t want to push them to a point where they won’t talk to me about things…it’s a fine line.
