to be a bit disillusioned with First Holy Communion

[mommy2ash]

I live in Ireland and was raised a Catholic, not because of any strong belief from my parents, previous generations yes but my own parents not so much but because here it is just the done thing. the vast majority of schools are Catholic and it is just the unspoken done thing that children are christened and go on to make the their communion and confirmation.

fast forward a few years after i have my own little girl and i start working on issues i have been having and discovered a different way of thinking through shamanism and now feel i am more of a spiritualist than a religious person. all the messages of kindness and personal responsibility i have enjoyed in my religion without any of the church hypocrisy and scandal and also without the many things i have grown to disagree with.

now my dd is in the class in school the children make their communion. its a huge thing here, great expense and takes up the entire school year. i have already decided against the huge expense and am quite pleased i managed to grab some great bargains for her dress and accessories it shouldn't cost me more than 150 all in. everyone else i have talk to have started at 350 for the dress alone without everything else needed.

so tonight i am helping her practice her prayers and it feels so wrong. she has an a4 page to learn and all of them are asking God for forgiveness for her sins and talking about the times she didn't love others or live as Jesus asked her to. she is eight she is innocent good and pure and i am angry with myself for allowing this to be honest. im sure she isn't reading as much into the words as i do but it feels like overkill.

yes i know i could just go to the school and tell her teacher i don't want her to take part but at this stage it would set her apart from everyone else in her class for my own selfish reasons.

i am being unreasonable for following this through when i don't agree with it aren't i?

TheMoa your post at 19:24 is spot on for me as well! My kids are now not going to be going to a catholic school due to location, but I still take them to mass and I want them to do their holy communion if they want to.

My staunchly atheist DH will give them enough to question so no worries there!

DS2 made his first holy communion and confirmation in the same ceremony last year. We are (non practising) Catholics but just follow the whole rigmarole for a place in the outstanding schools. We sat at the back, didn't practice prayers, didn't turn up for voluntary turns at offetry etc.
Very hypocritical really, but all a means to an end.

Waitingonasunnyday, God should send a ferret. They make great pets!!

It's difficult.

I loathe and detest religion in virtually all of it's forms, especially when it's foisted on children in this way. Personally, I think the Catholic Church are the absolute worst for this....first communion and confession are positively immoral.

But when you have a 7 year old desperate to wear the dress and join in, I can see that it could be extremely difficult to pull her out, and may do more harm than good,

Best thing you can do is provide balance. Go through the whole "some people believe" stuff and make it clear that she is free to make up her own mind when the time comes.

Brainwashing mainly/mostly comes from parents. If you're not of that mindset, she'll emerge a free thinker when she matures.

If it's any consolation, I had to go through all that crap when I was 7. Didn't stop me thinking for myself as an adult.

i really thought i would get a bit of a roasting for going through with this when i don't even believe myself. thanks for the well balanced views.

i do like to think i give her balanced views on these things. i have explained about different religions and beliefs and have always told her if you live your life the best you can then that is god enough. i don't wan't her having ridiculous expectation or feel in any way beholden to outdated beliefs.

the strange thing is she isn't even really that interested in the whole dress thing. she is extremely girly but on this occasion she was happy with quite a plain dress i got at a ridiculous price and refused to try on any of the stupidly priced communion shop dresses at family members requests. for her this day is about God, who she believes is good and cares about everyone. of course how strong those beliefs hold can't be told right now. i am glad to see she isn't caught up in the material side of things, i think it has gotten very out of hand here.

Your DD sounds like a really sweet girl, OP. Hope she has a lovely day.

I've been very impressed with the "system" here in the UK. All through the church so no pressure for non-RC kids at school to do it, a really low-key chat for reconciliation (confession) and a simple set of prayers for first communion. Certainly no learning by rote or indoctrination.

Best of all, zero pressure to get fancy clothes for boys or girls!

I'm a non-believer (very lapsed Catholic) with a child in an Irish Catholic school and I'm afraid there's no way he's going through First Holy Communion. Don't care if everyone else is doing it, don't care if it's "the done thing", we're not Catholic and I think participating in an important religious ritual when you're not a believer is kind of insulting to actual Catholics and perpetuates the idea that "everyone wants a denominational education/everybody is culturally Catholic" and the stranglehold the Churches have on schools here (over 90% of primary schools are church-controlled). The sooner non-believers stop baptizing their children "for school" and encouraging them to participate in sacraments that they don't actually fully believe in "so they don't feel left out", the better.

Hopefully a non-denominational school is going to open in our area in a year or two and (if we can sort out the logistics/definitely have a place) we can change before Communion year so we don't have to actually deal with it in school...

It isn't just the done thing, some of us dont do it. Its the people like you that make it so hard for our children, you join in with a religion you don't believe in at all and leave the rest of us on the fringes, having to put up with catholic schools and far too much influence from the church.

I've no sympathy for you, of course you feel like a hypocrite, its because you are one. You are making your child make a lot of promises that neither you nor they even understand, let alone take seriously. You are making your child tell a priest they are a sinner, while telling them at the same time the opposite. You're confusing your child. And on top of that, you're wasting a lot of money on all this nonsense.

Why not just NOT DO IT? If all the people who didn't believe in all this shite did the same, the likes of my child wouldn't be asking why he's the only kid not doing communion in his year, and why he has to do extra work wwhile the others go to church or choir or communion lessons.

You're not only being hypocritical and setting a bad example to your child, you're also holding back progress and promoting the status quo. Why?

Can someone explain to me why some parents send their children to a Catholic school if that is not the religion they practise and they don't want their child to feel excluded from some of the lessons? What a shame for the DCs who feel left out. Is it purely because sometimes that's the better school in the area? I am genuinely interested.
DDs school welcomes non Catholics but it is made very clear to parents at registration that their child will be expected to go to church when there is a mass during the school day and will be involved in RE lessons/activities. Many of the non-Catholic children come to the First Communion etc to support their classmates.
There are plenty of non-denominational schools in our area to send DC to if they object.

Sorry, not a helpful comment but I was just wondering if you have a whole year group all going for a 'mini wedding' thing how on earth do you have enough venues for them all to have their party afterwards? I am guessing there may be some joint ones but even so....

Bilberry, locally everywhere is booked out by end of January! We have a family birthday in mid May and booking anything for it is impossible. All our family First Communion parties are held in parents' homes.

I'm facing the same situation, my son starts school shortly, but he's four and refuses to eat meat on moral grounds, so I can well imagine by seven he might refuse......I checked with the head and she said " no problem.....Im married to a Buddhist!"

I think that if you leave the institutional stuff aside, confession is about learning to be accountable for your actions, not guilt as such, and communion.....well I'm not totally on board with it tbh but part of it is about community as well.

And getting dolled up is the parents doing! Don't blane tradition for that!

"Can someone explain to me why some parents send their children to a Catholic school if that is not the religion they practise and they don't want their child to feel excluded from some of the lessons? What a shame for the DCs who feel left out. Is it purely because sometimes that's the better school in the area? I am genuinely interested."

In Ireland often it is the only school in the area - as I said above, over 90% of the schools in the country are denominational, so at the moment I have no option but to send my child to a religious school. It's disgraceful and discriminatory. Believe me, if there was a multi-denominational/non-denominational alternative available for him that didn't involve driving half-way across the city (if he'd even get in - there's massive demand for non-religious school places).

And yes, like grocklebox I think people just "going along with it, sure it never did me any harm" is a massive part of the problem - it lets the bishops, etc., say that denominational education, huge swathes of the day taken up with sacrament preparation etc. is what parents want. Because obviously those parents are devout Catholics because their children are baptized and making their First Holy Communion - aren't they? Makes me very annoyed.

I ended up in this situation for a few reasons. firstly when I had her baptised I was an active catholic. it was a few years later after deciding that I couldn't reconcile myself with all my doubts I found something that works for me better. in saying that im still not sure what I believe but I do know I have massive issues with the church.

in Ireland it's not as simple as just sending her somewhere else. the vast majority of schools are catholic there isn't another school where I live. the area I live in also appears to lack diversity as there are only catholic children all preparing for holy communion in her class she would be the only child if I didn't allow it.

yes everything does get booked out here well in advance communions take over the weekends of the month of may here.

"she would be the only child if I didn't allow it"

Is that really a good reason to put your child through a religious sacrament you don't believe in, though? "Everyone else is doing it"? Would you make her go through the rituals of a faith other than Catholicism if she was the only non-believer in, say, a Muslim school?

that's my point though I started her on this path so to now decide oh mommy doesn't believe anymore so neither can you and prevent her from taking part in something that she is looking forward to would be selfish on my part.

it's very easy to say oh well you are being a hypocrite just pull her but the reality is quite different. I genuinely do feel bad about this situation. as it stands right now she believes so to undo everything she has been told up till now feels as hypocritical as allowing it to carry on

Can someone explain to me why some parents send their children to a Catholic school if that is not the religion they practise and they don't want their child to feel excluded from some of the lessons? What a shame for the DCs who feel left out. Is it purely because sometimes that's the better school in the area? I am genuinely interested.

Because we don't have any choice. Almost all of the schools are catholic, the very few non-denom schools are vastly over-subscribed ( my oldest was on the list since birth, he didn't get a place). You have to go to catholic school, and try your best to teach them your own faith or non-faith and to ignore the indoctrination around them.

OP, your kid might be the only one not doing it if you said no. However if all the people who didn't actually believe in it said no, they would be in the majority. It's alright for you joining in for the sake of it, but you leave those of us with principles out in the cold, and our children as the odd ones out. But thats ok, I'd rather teach my child that we have ideals and also the guts to be different, rather than blindly follow the crowd.

Sorry, not a helpful comment but I was just wondering if you have a whole year group all going for a 'mini wedding' thing how on earth do you have enough venues for them all to have their party afterwards? I am guessing there may be some joint ones but even so..

If there is one thing we don't lack in Ireland its pubs! Many people have it at home now though, we're all broke. I think OP is way exagerating about the costs as well, I don't anyone who could afford 350€ just for the dress, You can get them for a fraction of that. Girls will wear their sisters/neighbours/cousins one as well a lot.

grockle i assure you i am not exaggerating about costs. if you buy a communion dress from a communion shop which the majority of the mothers in my dd's class have the dresses average at around 300. i haven't heard any cheaper than that from a communion shop, my friends dd's dress was 350 as were a couple of others and i have heard a few 400's. there is a lot of chat going on about it in the schoolyard since after christmas.

the only ones for a fraction of that are from department stores and not many in this group would consider that an option.

i didn't buy into all of that and my dd's dress is lovely albeit plain, it really suits her and i got it for a ridiculously cheap price.

i also teach my dd a great many things and i find it a bit insulting that you assume i don't have any principals, of course i do its why i am now worried about this. my conundrum in all of this is my dd does believe at this stage in her life. how can i now tell her not to believe just because i am now not sure what i believe. i do encourage her to question things and we do discuss other religions and belief systems. in fact all i have ever taught her is to be kind to others and live your life as best you can.

Not everybody in my sons class. Are doing the sacramental programme even though it is a catholic school.and most kids are baptised catholic, I went to a convent primary school so it was a massive deal for us we are in the Salford diocese and the whole confirmation.than communion is totally different than when I was a child we had confession, than a month or so later I think first holy communion. This was at the age of seven than at around 11_14 confirmation and the bishop confirmed us , now my son is doing all three within about six ,seven months and the priest confirms him!

My DD did hers last year. The school is catholic but they do it at their own parish church. Only 4 out of 15 in class are catholic.

We were new to area so a good way to meet other children and parents. DD went to a sunday school type class for 30 mins after mass for 6 months. Plus 30 mins at school once a week. She had a workbook to go through in these classes from the diocese.

I went to 3 or 4 parents classes and a few rehersals.

Reconciliation was February. No idea what DD said but they talked about things like being kind to friends, helping at home.

Then communion where they just wore a nice dress. Some churches her friends go to had them wear school uniform.

The communion. Father said he didn't want any big fat gypsy wedding dresses. All were bridesmaid type dresses from department stores - DD's was from Monsoon (off ebay) My friend's daughter did hers in a nearby town and there were a lot of big dresses but a more mixed group inc Irish and Polish children.

(If anyone is looking TKMAXX online had some great 'cinderella' white dresses for £19.99)

We just had a tea party at home after as did others or a small meal out.

then you must know a lot of people with money (or more money than both sense or class), because no-one I know can or would splash the cash like that on a dress!

I didn't say you didn't have any principles, we're talking about a single issue here and I'm only going on what you yourself have said. And helping to perpetuate the ridiculous status quo in the schools is not to my mind being very kind to those of us left out on a limb as lone voices.

It's none of my business what you do. But you asked here on a public forum, so don't be surprised if you don't appreciate all the answers.

We are salford diosce x2boys.

Yes different to when DH did it - reconcilliation Feb, confirmation early June and communion late June. Then all done.