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Seeking advice from atheist/nonreligious parents: How have you raised your kids to be freethinking amidst a highly religious community and/or extended family?
This question is particularly regarding kids ages 5-12. I've read some great tips, and I'm wondering what you have found to help. Here are a few:
- Emphasize boundaries with frequent caretakers, such as grandparents and neighbors.
- Share science facts, religious traditions, and a variety of creation myths with young kiddos to neutralize Bible stories.
- Talk regularly about your own ethics and values.
- Explain others' beliefs and contextualize those beliefs as part of their culture.
I think making sure they see multiple religions helps. I'm fortunate that my town and the school my child goes to have people from all over the globe. He sees celebrations for Diwali, Ramadan, Hanukkah, Chinese New Year, etc this time of year - being able to explain that there are many different beliefs that aren't really that different from each other in terms of messaging but instead just have different rules I think helps set them up to think about it differently.
Also exposing them to things like ancient Greek pantheons or other views of that time era to demonstrate that people have constantly been considering and changing viewpoints helps foster that free-thinking message.
I'd focus on not so much having a "religion is bad or silly" attitude but instead saying religion has been around for a long time try to explain things we didn't / don't understand. Science has filled in some gaps for us but not them all.
I'll agree with this! Not a parent, but raised quasi-jewish with a plethora of religious exposure, I think broadening horizons does wonders for expanding their breadth of understanding - working with Austin Area Interreligious Ministries, I was exposed to a cornucopia of religion including Zoroastrianism and Druism, further reinforcing the commonality of difference.
This is a really, really good idea. It's the multiplicity or plurality of major religions that expands one's thinking. Usually, I find that brainwashing or grooming happens when you only teach one religion. However, all religions have their own idiosyncrasies and imperfections, and it's very, very good to teach kids about them.
I never pressured my kids. I just asked the relevant questions at the right ages, made sure they were always aware that there were alternative viewpoints and that these were in fact far more common than the dogma they were exposed to as kids by my spouse, and made sure they were engaged with science and light philosophy from an early age.
All that said, I cared far more about what kind of people my kids became than in whatever imaginary sky friend(s) they picked out. I think maybe one is sort of religious, but they're all nice young adults and I'm proud of how they behave.
Can you please give some examples of “relevant questions at the right ages”?
Sure, definitely. I was afraid of this question because I'm sure I'm not a role model or anything. But you can evaluate your own kids' development and ask a question about the problem of evil for instance – you can phrase it very kindly at the right time and it will open a lot of eyes, I know it did for me. "If a baby fawn burns alive in a forest fire, which happens all the time, what moral instruction is happening when that occurs?"
Just ask natural questions. Just talk about things imo. That's what I always did.
That makes sense. Thank you!
As is tradition, not a parent, but I was raised by two Christians who tried to raise me as such, and did not succeed. Their methods may be of some use, or at least provide insight, despite your different goals.
The number one thing that differed in the way they raised me from other christian families was a willingness to acknowledge their own ignorance and wrongdoings. I was never told that just because they believed, I had to, or that if I didn't pray or hug grandma I'd go to hell. They entertained my questions, because they felt that the only way someone would ever come to truly accept Christ was through sincere doubt and a desire to love God and his creations. When I brought up troubling implications and contradictions, they explained as best they could, then sought out advice and literature from their spiritual leaders, stood behind me when I sought it out myself, and never made me feel smaller than anyone else for not understanding or disagreeing.
My mother told me of her years of doubts, and why they'd resolved, and both of them were otherwise honest about their pasts. They encouraged me to read the bible myself, to read other holy books and to befriend their followers, to understand the ways that their beliefs were universal, and the ways they were not. They would walk through arguments about theology and moral philosophy with me, always drawing directly from the Bible, and never pretending that any one of their interpretations was above reproach. When I told them I'd no longer attend church with them because the pastor had been alluding to bigotry, they had a conversation with me about my concerns, and eventually stopped going there themselves.
My extended family are nearly all fundamentalist american evangelicals, and I can't say which of those particular things my parents did enabled me to feel comfortable with my own path in spirituality. I can say that it felt like they'd love me either way, that they'd always be willing to help me figure something out, even if it didn't make them happy, and that the important aspect of faith is the acceptance of doubt, and I've never resented any of their religious belief. I can't imagine that the same ethos wouldn't work for a more secular approach.
I grew up with very secular parents (agnostic, not athiest) who didn't really ever talk to me about religion. This led to some quite awkward encounters at weddings (and other gatherings) where I and my siblings had no clue about the family religion – at one one of my siblings was asked "how often do you go to [place of religious worship of the religion in question]" and very eloquently answered "what is [name of place of religious worship]?" which was no ends of awkward.
The moral of this anecdote is that from a cultural perspective I regret not being able to fit into the religious community (because I have no knowledge of the customs, etc) and I would at least teach your children how to perform them. Some of my cousins are as equally areligious as I am, but do have a very basic command of the customs (what to do in a religious service, basic ideas about the religion, all the necessary shibboleths, etc) which allows them to blend in. I think it's possible to separate out the actual belief from some of the customs (in the same way that e.g. lots of non Christians celebrate Christmas, enjoy the Easter holidays in the west without actually believing in Christianity).
At age 5-6 I kept it simple. Some People believe in Santa. Some don't. What do you think? Some people believe in God. Some don't. What do you think? I then share what I think.
At age 7-8 is about when I started to talk about respect of other peoples beliefs. They are happiest believing what they believe in, and that is OK. I believe in something else. That is OK.
At age 9-10 I tried to get a little more into biblical criticism and the theory of evolution, but focused on the interesting stuff.e.g. I explained the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which tells the story of Jesus as a child who pranks other kids with miracles. I explained the story of Jonah in the whale for seven days and nights. I explained how certain stories made it into the bible, and certain stories did not. How some people believe in the story of Jonah because someone in ancient Rome decided to put the book in the bible, but no one believes in the infancy gospel. And of course I cover evolution, I have a few trilobite skeletons, and I talk about how they were the dominate life form for so long, but it took them forever to learn to swim, which is all utterly fascinating to me.
At age 11-12 the school here starts teaching about cultures and religions, and it is really quite fascinating to me.
I think at some point I am going to need to teach more about cults. Cults are what concern me most. They are very good at tricking people into an abusive and scammy relationship. But I think I will wait until 13-14, for that.
I'm not a parent but I have some thoughts and resources that might be useful.
It's not just creation myths that you can compare. There are also great flood myths.
You can educate yourself and share with your kids the variety and range of perspectives within religion. Speaking to the tradition I know, many people raised with a belief that the Bible contains no errors don't realize that that belief was a response within US protestant sects to Darwin and evolution. I can recommend historian Jaroslav Pelikan's books Jesus Through the Centuries and Whose Bible is it. I can also recommend a basic Bible as literature textbook and basic Comparitive Religion textbook. From these books you can get ideas to share with your kids.
But yeah, if fundamentalist Christianity is the problem, visit the Quakers and the Buddhists and the Unitarians and the Sikhs.
It seems to me that, whether parents are atheist, Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist, it's more important that the parents talk to their kids about what the family does and should believe, rather than worry about censoring or filtering out whomever the kids might come into contact with. If the beliefs are solid, and well-founded -- whatever those beliefs might be -- then the children would already be innoculated against most "threats" to their beliefs.
As an added safety measure, the children should feel encouraged to follow up with their parents if they (the children) learn something that seems to jeopardize or contradict the beliefs their parents taught them, providing the parents an opportunity to defend their beliefs, correct misconceptions, and so on.
I’ve found that the more kids know about lots of religion the less credible any particular one is. They have been getting a steady diet of mythology (including Christian mythology) since they could talk, and I think it has worked out great.