To be angry that MIL may have indoctrinated my child?

[FruitCider]

I've been away for just under a week volunteering abroad and got home this morning. My mother in law (reverend) has been to stay with my partner whilst I went away. I'm completely atheist, partner is agnostic. MIL tried to give me a nativity set at Christmas for DD and a book full of bible stories, I declined and said I didn't want my daughter exposed to religion by people with a bias to a particular religion until she was 7/8.

I've come home today and my 3.5yo DD is continuously talking about Jesus, how God made the planet and told me I should thank god that my journey was safe. My partner says MIL had not mentioned religion when he was at home but he had to leave DD with MIL on Tuesday and Thursday whilst he went to work.

I'm absolutely RAGING! AIBU to be this angry? I literally want to banish MIL from my house and tell her she is not allowed contact with my DD for the foreseeable future.

Also is my DD likely to forget about God as she grows up if it's not mentioned again? Or is she now indoctrinated forever?

Sorry to those who may find this post offensive, I just wanted my DD to make her own mind up when she was old enough to understand that religion is a belief and there is no firm evidence for a God. She could have decided herself to be a Christian and I would have accepted that.

Ok dinosaurs aside I would also be miffed if my MIL did this.

It's going against what you expressly asked her to do.

I suspect you are going to get different responses on here than if your MIL was a strong believer in a minority religion or belief system. However it's a good opportunity to talk to her about different religions, different beliefs etc.

Oh and I read fictional stories to mine when they were toddlers.

I didn't go "the gruffalo saw the mouse… and gruffalos aren't real, they're fictional…. and the mouse looked good"

did I indoctrinate my kids into a fictional world?

To be fair, we don't exactly know what the child's grandmother said....

Maybe the child asked about what granny does all day?

We don't know...

I'd be cross if my MIL knew my strong feelings on something and did the exact opposite, regardless of what it was. So YANBU. In my eyes. she's trying to make her imaginary friend your DD's imaginary friend.

I'd be concerned if anyone from any religion tried to convert my daughters. My eldest has been told about as many different religions as I can think of and we talk about how different people believe different things. It bugs me that her school does prayers and songs about God in assembly. It is not a CofE school. chances are your child will experience this too, and it's worth asking if she can avoid this part of school if you feel strongly enough about it.

How exactly did you imagine her being innocent of all God mentioning until the age of 7/8?

What with the school, and Christmas and Easter and so on?

"The onus is NOT on religious people to say that their beliefs may not be fact"

I respectfully disagree. If you elect to believe something in spite of lack of any evidence or rationality and dictate it as anything resembling fact to others (including children), then you absolutely have a moral responsibility to acknowledge that you may, in fact, be wrong.

Absolutism is very dangerous. All too many millions of people have died in the name of gods that cannot possibly all exist.

Yeah, that would infuriate me too, but your DD really hasn't been 'indoctrinated' and will be most influenced by your views and, later, by her own opinions. My mother is a Christian and was upset that DH and I (atheists) weren't getting our children Christened, taking them to church or teaching them to live as Christians. She gave them childrens' bibles and took them to church a couple of times, but both boys have decided (so far) that they don't believe in God, so it had very little impact.

Just to clarify, I haven't denied my child access to religion, I have made a concerted effort to expose her to the common religions including taking her to visit a church and a mosque. What I take issue with so strongly is MIL teaching her beliefs as fact. I denied MILs gifts as I knew they would open this door.

Do you celebrate Christmas, OP?

Are it planning on home schooling? She will learn all about religion at school. I think it was unfair to refuse the nativity. Do you celebrate Christmas with your daughter? If so I don't understand how you can ignore the nativity until she's 7!!

Teach her that you don't believe in God but different people believe in different things and that's ok.

I'd be concerned if anyone from any religion tried to convert my daughters
Oh come on! the child wasn't baptised in the OPs absence.

It's part of her paternal family's heritage, it is right and good that it isn't hidden from her!

I am reading between the lines here and thinking that the DH may indeed be happy for this to happen

Two things:
What does your partner think?
Your DD could have asked about things and your MIL told her about it. You've heard it from a child, so it's possible that she tried to tell her about it more neutrally than your child reported to you.

Also, what about a nativity set and bible stories? A nativity set only tells about why Christmas is celebrated. Or have you decided not to celebrate it?
Bible stories are just stories if you tell them as stories. They're just as believable as fairies or the gruffalo.

This is hilarious. You are very worried about a God you don't even believe exists. If he is no big deal what's the big fuss.

Well, first off - no, YANBU. There's a difference between naturally conversation regarding religion and active attempts to push religion at someone or teach them about it, and it's very obviously that you MIL did the latter. I would be furious too.

Second, I'm actually a Christian myself so I just wanna throw that in to the mix when I say I think you MIL is being unreasonable. I have a good friend who is a ministers wife, another good friend who is a Wiccan, and a few others who are agnostic/Atheist and whilst we do sometimes discuss religion (usually in terms of comparing and contrasting around the holidays, trading stories, or analyzing common themes) it has literally never been an issue for us and religion never comes up unless we specifically want to talk about it. Just because someone is religious (again, best friend is a Ministers wife and delegates hours and hours and hours of time each week to her faith) doesn't mean it has to come up every 10 minutes.

As for your child being biased forever - no, she won't be, at least no more so than she will be naturally growing up in an armchair Christian country. I also wanted to keep my son religiously neutral but realized very early on that this was going to be impossible so I started buying childrens books from all religions and teaching him about different faiths as he grew up, again from about the age of 3 or 4. I also thought him that I believe in God and Jesus, auntie X believes in Gaia, etc. and made it clear that it's a personal choice, there's no one right answer. He's 8 now and he understands this perfectly.

I will say as well though, he currently claims to identify as a Christian, but this falls apart if you prod it. He says he believes in God, but then when you tell him God says to honour your mum and go to bed when she tells you to, it's very quickly "oh, well, I don't think I believe in God THAT much." He won't pick a true religion until he's older, neither will your DD, and children will probably change their minds during their teens and adulthood. Just go ahead and teach your DD what's out there and let her make up her own mind, she won't be indoctrinated unless it's drilled into her daily by you guys and even then, just look at groups like the Westborough Baptist Church and how many of their kids leave them to see evidence that indoctrination isn't always permanent. Be angry, but don't be worried

It's very easy to bring your children up recognising that different people believe different things - and to give them information and freedom to make up their own minds. I know, I've done it, I have three free thinking DC who have explored, discussed, challenged and experimented.

You don't do this by locking them away from people who think differently to you! That's indoctrinating them in your own particular brand of atheism isn't it?

At one point, when they were at school, I had, self declared, one atheist, one christian (went to church with a family member) and one Hindu (!) - her best friend was Hindu and she decided that reincarnation made sense. Lol.

The atheist at school age is now exploring new age sprituality and has been very influenced by travels in Asia.

I would recommend you calm down, tell her that's what her gran believes but not everyone does. The chances she will end up believing what her grandmother believes are very small IMO - but what if she does? Will you respect that? My dcs Dgm is a Christian, my DC go to the Christmas services with her, they always have, they respect her beliefs but they don't share them.

I think you sound absolutely bonkers. The way to protect your DD from religion is to teach her how to think for herself and question what she is told. You can't keep her away from the world and she is not too young to start learning.
There will be plenty of religion at school. My Ds went through a "Jesus" phase in Y1, as a result of doing RS at school. He seems to have come through it unscathed. And I loved my book of bible stories (aka bible) which I was given at infant school - never took a word of it seriously but enjoyed it nonetheless.

I would be pissed off too. I had a fit when I found out Mil had been taking dd1 to church to be blessed after she'd agreed she wouldn't (I was ok with taking her to church).

I would do a lot of talking about how people believe different things, explain that is what Grandma believes but not what you or her dad believe.

Hopefully she won't be too focused on it at two. I do have to say that my dd1 is dead set on being a Christian after a teacher told her it was very important to be a Christian and believe in Jesus at school before last Christmas. I was straight 8n to complain and had an apology from the head, but the damage was done. I think I was mainly upset as I'd never pushed my own religion on to them, and now because some people have pushed Christianity that is what she's focused on.

It's not that I'm devestated if she chooses to be a Christian, it's more that it feels like she hasn't had a choice.

What I take issue with so strongly is MIL teaching her beliefs as fact.

How else is your MIL supposed to refer to her faith, it IS fact TO HER.
That is her belief. You cannot expect someone with a strong faith for whom it is a significant part of her life to talk about faith with a caveat that it isn't fact - it is! to her!

All you have to do is tell your child that some people believe that, some people don't. It's not a problem.

concerted effort to expose her to the common religions including taking her to visit a church and a mosque.

At 3? Really? She'll have forgotten about both in 5 min and not realised the difference.
You sound way too invested in this. Chill out.
She will decide for herself when the time comes.

YABU - you sound rabid and unhinged

You were fully aware that your child's Grandmother was not just religious but an ACTUAL VICAR

How the hell you believed your child wouldn't be "exposed" to something so intrinsic about her I don't know

I'm another wondering if the OP celebrates Christmas.

DH and I are atheists. The DCs go to the local school, which is CofE. They're staunch believers. They'll grow out of it, probably.

At 3.5 your DD probably believes in the tooth fairy and Santa. The world isn't going to end because she spent a couple of days with a vicar, even if she's her granny.

I also think you've scored an own goal by turning down nativity sets etc.

We've actually used gifts of noahs ark toys and nativity books to explain atheism to our kids. We've enjoyed the toys and discussed how some people think it's true, some think it's a story like The Tiger who Came to Tea.

Do you celebrate Christmas, OP?

Yes. Christmas traditionally was not a Christian event though, the bringing of a tree indoors is actually a pagan tradition. The history of Christmas is an interesting one and it is easily celebrated without Christianity, or any religion for that matter.

I'm an atheist with a religious family. Yabu. "That's what Granny believes" can counter most of it.

A few hours of hearing about God did not indoctrinate your 3 yo. Give her a little credit.