I don’t want my wife to indoctrinate our two-year-old into religion

[cleanhippie]

It’s fine if my wife discusses religion when our daughter is old enough, but I’m against her smuggling it into the child’s life when she can have no understanding of its significance

My wife and I have just had a row about introducing our two-year-old to religion. I am an atheist, while my wife is a Christian, tending towards the evangelical. Religion has not been a source of tension until now. She would like me to believe, but has made no great effort to convert me.

I was content with the idea that, at some stage when our child was older, school-age at least, my wife would start discussing Christianity with her and encourage her to share her beliefs. At the same time, I planned to let her know about my atheism and tell her that other religions exist. I didn’t imagine it would descend into a tug of war. If my child decides to believe, when she is old enough to make an informed choice, that will be her choice to make and I would respect it.

But tonight my wife opened a package of books she had bought, all aimed at introducing Christianity to toddlers. I protested that we hadn’t even discussed broaching this subject with our child, and said I didn’t want her to be indoctrinated at an age when she is barely able to form sentences. I begged for patience, and said there could be no objection to my wife discussing this with her when she is old enough to deal with such a complex subject, but that it was grossly unfair to start smuggling it into her life when she can have no understanding of its significance.

My wife’s position is that to delay the discussion is, in effect, to indoctrinate our child into atheism. She seems minded to press ahead, despite my vehement disagreement. Is there any general view on the age at which a child can fairly be introduced to religion?

Not really. And the age at which you introduce a child to a religion is no indication of how strongly, or if, or for how long, they will believe in anything. I know religious people who introduce their children to religion because “not believing” is more widespread so they feel they need to get in early to preserve their beliefs. I do not think this approach works in the long term.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/19/dont-want-wife-indoctrinate-two-year-old-into-religion

[rug]

1. Wait until she becomes his ex-wife.

[Agschmid]

2. Sounds irreconcilable.

[rug]

3. I can't figure out which of them is more justified in fleeing.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

51. ikr! Whouda thunkit...maybe people shud work these things out BEFORE they commit to marriage and kids...

Now there's a concept.

[goldent]

17. The response was skillfully written, in terms of understatement

What seems to be the issue is that you and your wife, at this point, are at odds about what you want for your daughter and how you bring her up. This may not be the last time you come up against something like this.

[rug]

20. The British are masters of understatement.

"The structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest." James Watson and Francis Crick announcing their discovery of DNA.

[edhopper]

49. There was actually better

And more understated sentence than that:
"It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material."

As the solved one of the greatest mysteries in all of biology.

[rug]

54. I wonder if they realized how far-reaching this discovery was.

[edhopper]

55. They absolutely knew they had discovered something huge

The understatement was in inverse proportion to the discovery. Because not only had they found the structure of DNA. But the double helix presented the method of replication.

They knew it was Noble winning.

They were basically saying, "Yes, we realize we have found one of the secrets of life."

[edhopper]

4. I have a few friends

who admit that these days they are pretty agnostic about their religion.

Yet they still give religious training to their children because they think they should "believe in something"

I think a lot of this has more to do with tradition and community than anything else.

But you have to wonder, they are saying "I finally realized most of this is bullshit, that these stories are just made up myths, but I don't want to indoctrinate my children with ideas I no longer think are true."

chin scratcher

[cleanhippie]

5. "I think a lot of this has more to do with tradition and community than anything else."

Exactly. Gotta keep up the indoctrination or you can't be in the cool-kids club.

[MADem]

41. It could be they want them to catch literary references in classic books, and they want them to do

well on JEOPARDY! if they're ever chosen to be a contestant...!

I am amazed at how many "Bible" questions there are on that show. You can't watch an episode without one coming up, it seems.

[Jim__]

6. He's an atheist, she's a Christian, and this didn't come up 'til they had a child?

Really? I wonder what else they haven't discussed.

[cleanhippie]

7. They definitely should improve their communication skills.

Too late for that at this point though. How do you recommend they sort this out?

[Jim__]

9. They should go to a counselor.

My bet is that there are a boatload of issues they haven't thought about. They need to work through those issues. It's possible that they never should have gotten married.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. That is quite common. nt.

[JoePhilly]

8. Introduce the kid to world religions.

If the wife insists, then demand that other religions, and atheism are included in the child's education.

[PumpkinAle]

14. This^^^

I was lucky because although my parents were Christians they insisted that I learn all about other religions and that I not decide on any belief system until I was old enough to think for myself. And I am still learning and while not an atheist I do not believe in following an organized religion because they are so full of hate and not the love that religions were once based on.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. My wife and I struggled with the issue of religious rituals.

She is a secular jew from a family that was mildly religious and I am an atheist, from a family of atheists, and when our children were born it suddenly dawned on her that I wasn't too keen on dick-clipping for no apparent reason, and that her children were not going to go through the standard jewish cultural/religious nonsense of bar mitzvahs etc. To this day she is still sad about that, and I understand, the religious traditions of her parents are not being continued, but neither of us are believers. So we do as many similar families do, we have a holiday that includes menorahs and Christmas trees, we don't worship any gods, and neither do our now grown children.

We didn't "indoctrinate our children in atheism". It is the default position. They weren't dragged to atheist meet-ups at bookstores to listen to tedious lectures from elderly atheists. We didn't make them repeat atheist creeds at the dinner table, or perform atheist rituals (?) before bed. They of course were exposed to religion in the pervasive flood of religious propaganda outside our home, in school, in the media, among their religious friends, in all of their social activities, but somehow an alleged innate religiosity failed to take hold. They too will have to struggle with the issues of religious conformity as they start their own families. And so it goes.

[cleanhippie]

15. I always laugh when I hear that not indoctrinating a child into religion is indoctrinating them

into atheism.

It's a as asinine as the "well, you can prove it doesn't exist" argument is.

[bvf]

23. Yep.

I lifted your sentiment elsewhere here (thanks) because that point of view needs to be constantly mocked as intellectually vapid.

[truebrit71]

42. Indeed.. the thought that atheism is the default position continues to baffle...

...belief in religion has to be taught...

[Bjorn Against]

12. It sounds like a tough situation, but the husband can talk to the kid as well

I would say the best thing the husband can do is talk to the kid about how some people believe in religion and others don't, maybe find kids books about different religions, some Greek mythology to show the gods people believed in back then. I am not an expert on children's literature but there are no doubt age appropriate books that deal with religions, there are likely even age appropriate books that deal with atheism.

While this would probably confuse the child a great deal, I think that might be the best possible outcome. A child who is confused is not a child who is indoctrinated, a child who is confused is a child who is asking questions and learning critical thinking skills.

I am not going to say how this would effect the relationship between husband and wife, it is possible my suggestion could get the wife very upset. Just allowing the wife to control religious discussions on the other hand would get the husband very upset. There may be differences that can not be reconciled and a divorce may be inevitable, but I think if anything is going to prevent that divorce it will be one of two things; either the wife backs off and says nothing about religion until the child is older or the husband is also given the chance to show the child why other people either believe or don't believe in different ways.

[Mariana]

24. It's going to be very hard to do

without the kid getting the message from each of the parents that the other is wrong. It puts the child in the terrible position of having to decide which parent is full of shit. And depending on the mother's particular flavor of Christianity, the child may become convinced that dad is a) a bad person and/or b) is going to hell to burn for eternity. Needless to say, that puts quite a strain on the relationship between the father and child.

I have seen a version of this scenario play out in my own family. it is not a good situation.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

13. Well, I guess he needs to just keep telling the kid

that Mommy makes up stories all the time and is a habitual liar until the kid is old enough to understand more.

[bvf]

21. But Mommy might be inclined

to do the same thing. If some people think (as some probably do) that not indoctrinating children into a religion is equivalent to indoctrinating them into atheism, they might feel justified in such an approach.

These parents didn't talk this through when they should have, and the poor kid becomes a football. Very unfair, but as another poster here pointed out, no doubt common.

[hunter]

16. It's authoritarianism where things go wrong, rarely religion itself.

"Because I said so!" is a valid parental response when a kid is in immediate danger, but it always has to be followed up by reasonable discussion if the kid's like three or older.

In my childhood religious wars were common, especially around the holidays. I'm not talking simmering disagreements and passive aggressiveness, but full-out crockery flying, glass breaking, yelling, and people leaving angry or crying.

I'd blame all of that on people who were certain, in a very authoritarian way, that they were "right." All of that pretty much went away when the authoritarians passed away and my parent's generation took over as family elders.

Curiosity about religion and no-religion, and quite a bit of heresy, are not just tolerated, they are readily accepted and discussed in our extended family. The only religious people who don't fit in are fundamentalist, anti-intellectual, and authoritarian.

I think if you are raising a kid who can be indoctrinated you are a poor parent. It doesn't matter if you're atheist or religious.

[Mariana]

25. The child in question is two years old.

The whole point of beginning indoctrination so early is to get at them before they're capable of resisiting indoctrination.

[hunter]

43. Our kids are 20+ years now, raised 100% Catholic.

My wife and I had similar upbringings. My wife's parents are pillars of their liberal Catholic community.

Trust me, nobody in our family is "indoctrinated."

There's a huge difference between an authoritarian upbringing and an upbringing where open intellectual discussions about everything, including religion, are encouraged.

If we ever have grandchildren I don't know if they'll be raised Catholic or not. That's entirely up to their parents.

I do know the insane family religious warfare I experienced as a kid, Catholic vs. Protestant vs. Mormon vs. libertine, pretty much ended with my parent's generation. The authoritarian, indoctrinating, guilt-and-hellfire-spewing religious warriors all got old and died. Some even became less toxic and accepting of religious differences before that.

My parents, and my wife's parents, have no trouble visiting alien religious territories for celebrations such as weddings, Christenings, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, wakes, etc., and certainly, none of our siblings do.

If my fully participating in a Protestant, Jewish, Atheist, or gay wedding makes me a "bad" Catholic, then so I am. My wife and I both had older relatives, long gone, who'd refuse to participate in, or would actively seek to sabotage, such seemingly innocuous (in today's world) couplings as those between a Catholic and Lutheran.

[1monster]

18. I didn't indoctrinate my son with religion, but I didn't shield him from

It either. I didn't want him to have the fear that comes with the soul searching and critcally appraising and rejecting the indotrination of his parents and religious teachers that, in my life, began at birth. It took me years to reach the point that I' m at now: which is that there is more than we will ever know and perhaps that the Universe itself (including all of its componet parts of star systems, nebulas, planets, moon, comets, etc) is sentient... (Even so, I find that occasionally, I find my mind reverts back in times of stress to the comfort of the mental rituals of my early life--That passes quickly enough, but makes me realize how deeply those early teachings were inbedded in my brain.)

As for my son, at 22, he isn't sure what he believes, but at at that age, I hadn't even come near that point.

[bvf]

22. My wife and I pretty much raised our daughter (now 27)

about the same way.

Whenever the subject came up (which was pretty infrequently), we'd explain to her that religion was a way for people to accept things they couldn't explain.

She's engaged to be married and will have a church wedding solely because, well, it's a beautiful church.

P.S.

I think the universe is knowable, but I know we're a long way off from full understanding.

[Prophet 451]

19. I'm amazed their marriage lasted this long

In my experience, evangelical and fundies (often one and the same) never stop trying to convert those around them. Also, I hate the dodge that "not teaching religion is teaching atheism". It's a fashionable bit of idiocy in the Christian Right at the moment to claim that simply not teaching a religion (or teaching evolution) is itself teaching a religion. It's black is white, war is peace Orwellian doublethink. They don't actually believe that for the same reasons as we don't think black and white are the same thing, they just claim it as a dodge so they get to teach the kid a religion.

Teach the kid about other religions as well. If the wife has to teach Christianity, dad can work his way through the Oxford encyclopaedia of world religions.

[bvf]

28. I don't often find myself in agreement with your posts, but

I think you're right on the money here. The only quibble I have is whether some people actually believe the black/white argument. I'd bet many do.

[elleng]

26. Sure as hell should have resolved this BEFORE

having children!

[HockeyMom]

27. Before getting Married

in the first place.

[Sweeney]

31. Kids love to see their parents fight

over who their children are going to be when they are already the people they are going to be. The most important quality of anyone is personality and kids are already born with it complete. What can parents do? Window dressing? A little paint here and there. The hard part is done, The house is built and parents only need to fill it with love. All parents have to do is support. If you want to fight, just fight. Using your kids as an excuse only lays a guilt trip on them. Who needs an excuse really. Perfectly religious people have atheist babies. Atheist parents have religious babies. What kind of control freak thinks they have a change of molding a baby? They are already done. All you can do is screw them up.
All people need to learn to do is turn their own inadiquacy and self loathing inside out and let it desolve them into a puddle on the floor. Leave the kids alone. They will be who they will be, and only be better with love.

[Mariana]

33. Most of the time, the early religious indoctrination works.

Yes, some religious parents have atheist children, or children who convert to a totally different religion, but that is not the norm.

I suspect that most of the time, religious indoctrination by parents is done out of love. For example, a parent who believe that all non-Christians are going to burn for eternity will probably do anything they think is likely to increase the odds that his or her children will be Christian. As a loving parent, you takes steps to protect your children from harm. You lock up the poisons, you don't let them play in the road, you don't leave guns and knives laying around, and you teach them how to avoid going to hell.

[Sweeney]

36. People teach what they believe to be true

Religion is the childhood of human kind, and children see the world magically. Ask any adult to believe, and really believe in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny and they would blow you off. God on the other hand is beyond proof, and what can we prove anyway? Like the man said: We can manufacture God and can't make a worm.

The most terrible disease of modern individualistic society is loneliness and God helps to solve that problem. Death is another constant problem of humanity. We cannot figure out whether death is real, but the idea of God makes death seem false. As hard as it is to lie to your children, who wants to be the one to kill Santa Clause, or the Easter Bunny, or God, when God makes the fear of death manageable?

I am a reasonable person. Reasonably, any sum that amounts to zero is inconsiderable. Believe in God, or don't believe in God and the result is still the same. You cannot disprove it or prove it so screw it. But this is just tangled up nonsense to the child. They need the community of church. They need God to scare away the boogieman of death. Many people grow out of that feeling. The rational person we want children to become will say: It does not matter if I believe or do not believe, and I can find perfectly good reasons for morality apart from God.

[Leontius]

29. She should submit to her husband and allow his descion to rule the family

wouldn't that be the correct thing here?

[Mariana]

32. It depends on her particular flavor of Christianity, I suppose.

Maybe she belongs to a church that ignores that teaching.

[Sweeney]

35. I hope you are joking

Men are the most insignificant part of the family structure. It took primitive societies thousands of years to even acknowledge the role of fathers in procreation. It was only to protect women as property and children as property that we became patrolinear. Even our marriage vows reflect the fact that men are supposed to obey their wives.

Actually, any man is a damned fool if he does not avail himself of his wife's superior intelligence. Women think better, and I think it is because they avail themselves of the common mind of other women. Men brood to the solutions of their problems. Women actually practice the dialectic.

[bvf]

37. Do you really not see it? n/t.

[Sweeney]

39. See what? Another excuse for conflict?

Children are by nature irrational, and that is the primary cause of religion, when that irrationality is turned into faith and dogma. Consider here the words of Lincoln when pressed to stop his kids from running around the white house. He said: Let them run; there is plenty of time for them to get pokey.

There is plenty of time for kids to get rational, but they have only a short time as irrational children, and these are still times of growth and learning. What do you or anyone want to teach? Is it bitterness, rejection, hurt and guilt. Do you think kids do not recognize when they are the source of conflict?

What is the point. It is like Ether. Ether if it exists has in all equasions the quantity of zero. As much as force at a distance seems as though it should have a medium, it cannot be proved or disproved, like God. If God is nothing, then a counter religion like Ahteism is the most pointless waste of time. If you dig into an Atheist, you can always find some deep sense of injury, a psychilogical reason for their counter belief which are after all, beliefs. Why not treat zero as zero and not make a big deal trying to make less of it by the addition of negativity. The problem is God is not God, but the fact that these irrational believers in God have such a huge part of control in our government which should be the seat or rationality.

It is because Christians screw up civil society that so many flock to the churches. If things seem to work better for them, it is because they are an organized voting block which also has people in ever level of government. God only helps those who help themselves throuh government. If you want to make religion as superficial in society as it is in most minds simply rob it of its political power.

All any non believing parent needs is that bond of love with the child that says I love you- and will -because of you being you in your own unique way, and that child will grow into a good person rational enough to make choices on their own.

[bvf]

44. The question was in response to

the title of your reply. That should have been obvious.

[Sweeney]

45. I some times miss the obvious

looking for the not so obvious behind the obvious. There is not always a hidden meaning, and some times I am not the only sarcastic person in the world.

I don't know if I can stick here long enough to get to know anyone. Some of those I have come to know have been such impossible dinks I don't know how they can stand themselves. I am serious, and when I see anyone about to make the same stupid mistakes I made with my children I get very serious.

It is hard to get children to change even in a positive fashion while sending the message that they are less than perfect. Kids are kids. With -good enough- parenting most turn out ok. My first child was Jewish, a boy, and I could never get over the love and adoration lavished on him by his mother. Being more German than Irish, we were raised to think we were nobody special, and that is what we mostly became. My first wife was right, and I was wrong. Every child should be thought of as completely special and learn to grow into that specialness.

[Fumesucker]

48. It's been known for millennia that virgin human females do not give birth

Indeed, that was one of the major "miracles" in the Bible, that a virgin gave birth. It was largely thought that the father planted the "seed" in the mother until just the last century or two.

[Sweeney]

50. Sorry; but you got your Bible wrong.

From the Greek, the word used is the same as for a young woman. It was Duns Scotus over the objection of Erasmus who pushed the Virgin Birth on the Catholic Church, as official Dogma. While I generally accept Duns Scotus as the better philosopher, Erasmus was the better linguist.

[Fumesucker]

52. The Bible is what people think it is

A Rorschach test if you will, what you see in it reveals far more about your own mind than anything.

[Sweeney]

56. Well Yes...

About what is that statement not true?
Try this: What ever it is, it's never what it is, and is always what it means.

[Sweeney]

30. Here is your problem-

You do not grasp that religion is childish beliefs taken it adulthood. To cure most people of religious and magically thinking all you have to do is give them knowledge and reason, and that is a life time of work any way.

[Sweeney]

34. I am 61, and highly intelligent, nearly a genius.

I have been trying all of my life to grasp the significance of religion and I started at a very young age. I wish you good luck teaching what you don't know, but given the inclination of children toward magical thinking, any religion your child receives from her mother will have more significance than you can ever grasp simply because it came from her mother because the mother child relationship is so filled with meaning. You are at a disadvantage; but fathers are a dime a dozen and over priced at that. We play a supporting role or no role in the education and socialization of the child. If you want to blow that deal; go for it. If your Atheism is based upon reason as I doubt it is, then when your child grows up you may reason with her. This is not what she wants right now.

If you want an intelligent child, cuddle the crap out of her, and give her an intensively experience rich environment. Children forget what you buy them, and remember where you take them, so take them cool places. Even church is a good place to begin a conversation about what a child believes, and faith is always a mask of ignorance; but there the child's ignorance will always be equaled by our own.

People know so little and base their lives on so little knowledge that it is remarkable that we can survive at all. If you believe that love is possible apart from any notion of God, then give your child love as the most essential thing any parent can give a child. Don't try to over think the job of parenting. Children will tell you what they need and all you have to do is listen. Do not out of your personal vanity offer your child -who is still our child- any conflicted environment full of anger and hate. Ultimately the significance of you wanting to fight is greater at this point than any significance of religion. The child is who she is, and will become who she wants to be; and your job if you do not quit it is to mess her up beyond belief.

[muriel_volestrangler]

38. I fear this poor 2 year old would be deluged with all kinds of books about religions

and atheism, if our collective advice were taken. There's a sort of arms race going on. I can only hope she has the sense to say "no, I don't want the story about Jesus/Krishna/etc., I want the one about the puppy. Again. Yes, mummy/daddy, I know I've never let you read those others to me. But they're boring".

[Sweeney]

40. As much as one may love a child

they will often find themselves, their personality and identity in oppostion to the parents. If you want a child to go in one direction, some times it is only necessary to push them in the other direction.

[Sweeney]

46. In a love relationship

The two events most likely to highlight differences between the couple are the birth of a child, and the death of a child; and I know far too much about both.

I can remember being with my mother in church and seeing Jesus, or rather, Jesus represented on the cross, bloody, broken and crucified. I asked her: Who did that to that man; and she said: We did. Though my mind revolted from the idea of this collective guilt it was the beginning of a life asking after the facts.

I can cut God out of the equation because God cuts himself out. If God punishes the wicked he waits until after the wicked have punished everyone else. Those who earnestly implore God for mercy get about as much mileage out of him as those who employ God to beat on humanity. Both have in the end to do their own work.

[Agnosticsherbet]

47. I think of marriage as a partnership, where both sides must work together.

Indoctrinate her into both sides. That way, eventually she will be able to make up her own mind.

[EvilAL]

53. I went through that twice with baptisms.

I was against having my kids baptized, my girlfriend was on the fence, but the grandparents were for it. In the end we did it, but I drew the line at catechism, no way. I said if you want to bring them every sunday, go ahead, but I just might take them somewhere else before you show up. My daughter went for a year, my son, never.