To speak to the school?

[Orchwoid]

I've just been to collect my son from his school and he's told me that he won't be cast in his school Christmas play but all the other children will.

I am fumming. I am going to go and speak to his teacher first thing tomorrow morning but I am so angry that I can't work out whether I'm being reasonable or not.

I would hazard a guess that if OP's school were singing carols in the Albert Hall she would want him taking part! It is a big 'no' to going into assembly and singing them but anything with a wider audience like TV would be a big 'yes'.

I don't think it matters if your nativity widens to include aliens etc it is still the same Christian message. My DS was a Christmas pudding! Nothing to to with Christianity but because it happened to be linked into the nativity, it was. He may have been a pudding but he was a carol singing, prayer saying pudding!

I think there is a lot of sense in the post by CommanderShepherd- I can never understand the obsession with your child thinking the same as you. They will make up their own mind- no one says 'I am a ......... because my mother told I was'!

No Christmas is not a Christian festival. It is a cultural festival which is why lots of non-Christians celebrate it and why the shops shut and stuff.

I'll shout CHRIST MASS as often as it takes for people to realise that is the issue,!! not Easter, divali or winter solstice. Not telling you what to celebrate or not. just that christmas is recognised as christian and it is when the church has chosen to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Winter festival can still be celebrated, in fact I get the impression that you are trying to lessen my celebration by continuing to try and tell me my christmas isn't christmas but winter festival. I also don't know how it can be proved that my bible is written with pagan history. who is to say one writing is correct and one not when it is so old?

I celebrates the birth of Christ. How the jeff can you say it is not Christian?

You could argue that it is not treated as a Christian festival, but the bottom line is that, IF CHRISTIANS HAD NOT WANTED TO CELEBRATE THE BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST, THERE WOULD BE NO CHRISTMAS!!

There would certainly be some other midwinter festival or cultural celebration, BUT IT WOILD NOT BE CHRISTMAS!!

Skimmed thread but have read all of op's post.

Am I the only person who find it a bit ridiculous that anyone would exclude their child from learning about religion? The school is hardly going to be able to brainwash your child into believing something in the short time they are there when they are with you the rest of the time. And actually, if your child grows up believing something different to you why is that such a terrible thing? Are you going to insist on them only reading books you like, taking up hobbies you like or only doing a job you think is reasonable too? They are their own person and will grow up with their own beliefs and you cannot control this and neither should you wish to.

I'm an atheist and so is dh. Our boys have come home from school telling us various bits of the Christian story as the truth and we've responded saying 'well that's what Christians believe but no one really knows that. We don't believe that to be the truth and you can make your own minds up as you grow up'

If when they're older they want to go to church / synagogue / any other place of worship they will go with our blessing and we'll respect their right to their own beliefs just as we respect the beliefs of anyone else. Learning about religion and singing hymns at school isn't, imho, going to make a blind bit of difference to whether they will want to do this or not and actually refusing to let them learn about it and therefore refusing to let them learn that different people come from different cultures and have different beliefs is more likely to cause them to grow up without this respect and understanding for others.

I know what I find more worrying.

You can celebrate whatever you like, if that happens to be virgins having kids and roman war-gods then carry right on, fact is there has been a feast, a play, a celebration on that day for many years before the Christians decided it was all about them. Which it isn't.

Nowadays people will celebrate Christmas how they choose within their culture. It's nothing to do with religion, more children believe in Santa Claus than Jesus and he was invented by the coca-cola company!

Lots of non-Christians celebrate it because they want a midwinter festival, a big meal, some days off and lots of presents.

That does not change the fact that Christmas started with Christians celebrating the birth of Christ, so it is a Christian festival.

Also, what Yellow Dinosaur said.

I would agree to it being badly handled- by OP.
The school has just done as asked:

Mother- 'I don't want my DS involved in any God shit'.
School- 'OK - no problem we will leave him out'
Mother ' I am fuming- you have left my DS out'.
School - OK- no problem, he can be a shepherd'
Mother - ' he can't have a God part'
Collective MN- 'all parts in a nativity are God parts'
Mother- 'I will go back into school, he can be a shepherd or possibly a sheep'

I will await developments.
Unfortunately I have to go to work and this will be full by the time I get back. Please leave room for OP to tell us the latest, or we may never know.

It is the reason I love MN- truly bonkers at times!

No Christmas did not 'start' with Christians

So who, before the Christians, was celebrating the birth of Christ, then, filee?

If we were celebrating the pagan winter solstice, or whatever, we'd be rocking up to Stonehenge with the Druids wouldn't we, rather than having a nice nativity with the baby Jesus, presents from St Nicholas and talking about a birth in the Middle East.

Kids learn a lot from religion: history, art, theories about nature and the world... Why pretend it doesn't exist? Does the OP also have a problem with the kids learning about Ulysses (not the Irish version) or Beowulf, what if they are learning about other cultures in a class project? DS studied India and Japan last year and religion was a reasonably large part of that. I didn't worry that he'd come home a Hindu.

You are conflating Christmas and other midwinter festivals like Yule, filee. It is an easy mistake to make.

I do wonder if filee understands the central argument? No one is disputing that non Christians celebrate Christmas, or that many things have no basis in Christianity - just that the nativity play in school is Christian based. I have no doubt they will be making Father Christmases etc in addition.

Exactly exotic. I think she is just trying to be argumentative.

Santa Claus wasn't invented by coca cola! It is thought that his red getup was created by the coca cola ad department to match the logo. St Nicholas was dishing out presents as far back as Henry VIIIs time and had his own feast day in early dec before it was rolled into the Christmas celebrations.

If all you are constantly told about religion is about Christian or "faiths around the world" of course you end up believing you should believe too.

Again, just cos we in the west call it Christmas, doesn't mean celebrating a midwinter started with the 'birth of Christ'.
If your stuck on the name meaning everything, we're gonna have a field day at Easter (possibly eostre goddess of fertility but sure as shit not anything to do with sky fairy junior).

And wasn't Christ born in February?

thankyou Filee777. Ignore the others I can see they have clouds coming out of there arses again today. This place is very strange.

But it is all in the name!!!

If it was just celebrating mid-winter it would have another name. Aaaarrrrggggghhhhh.

You said it Orchwoid- more than strange- delightfully bonkers!

Exotic, just cos you decided the argument was over nativities being Christian, doesn't mean it actually was.
It was over a child being excluded.

What the fuck is this 'clouds coming out of there (sic) arses'?

Child wasn't excluded.

Child was withdrawn .