In not really liking my mum singing Christian songs to my baby?

[theUrbanDryad]

I probably am being unreasonable, but i hate the way my mum sings Christian songs to my baby. he's only 4 months, so unlikely to be indoctrinated anytime soon, but i have made it clear to her on a couple of occasions that we won't be bringing up ds in a Christian faith or in any religion at all.

the problem is that by her own admission, she is on a "mission" to convert people. which includes me, dh and ds. i grew up really resenting my strict Christian upbringing and i don't want ds to do the same, especially since neither me or dh are Christian. also, when i realised how much of a swizz the whole Christianity thing was (when i was about 16) it took me a long time to trust other things my mum said, as after all if she was wrong on this major thing, she could easliy be wrong in other things too. i want ds to trust his grandmother and not have his childhood troubled like mine was.

dh and i have already agreed that if he wants to find out about religion when he's older then we will be fine with that, but i would like him to do it on his own terms, and not have it rammed down his throat from birth, however lovingly.

I think that's bolleaux.

Singing songs about god and santa and the devil at school age 4 will be hunky dory but hearing them at home age 3 will lead to indoctrination?

"it's hard to dance with the devil on yoiur back"

always did freak me out though

urban, i was also really quite religious (no idea why) until i started to question things at school, of course the fact my dad always questioned everything helped too, as parents it helps to encourage children not take everything as it is dished out to them

no pointy, i can't control the bollocks he will hear at school, but at least i can start to help him NOT to believe in all the bollocke he hears

my dad never brainwashed me into being non-religious, my mum was quite religious, so i had the best of both worlds if you like, he taught me how to question and debate though, a great asset to a child trying to learn

It does of course beg the question of why Christians are so keen on getting young children to sing their songs ?

Sorry to keep veering off the point.

Pointy, how do you think today's generation of Scots know about that sixth never sung verse of the national anthem? (given that the vast majority of the country only know the first verse, let alone the occasionally sung second verse?) Only because other people tell them about it. If people stopped saying, "hey did you know there's a verse of the national anthem about crushing the Scottish", then it would disappear into the mists of time and all you would be left with is the fact that that verse in practice no longer exists because it was obviously recognised long ago to be offensive and non-inclusive.

DC, as a non-Christian, why are you so keen to sing non-Christian songs to your children? As a British person (I presume) why are you so keen to sing British songs?

People act within their frame of reference. It doesn't necessarily indicate a suspect desperate desire to 'get'em while they're young', although that may be the motivation for the OP's mum.

presumably DC because they like them and find them comforting. my mother used to sing me some beautiful songs before i went to bed, and taught me the harmonies. It does wonders for your musical education [ not the happy clappy stuff] And black gospel churches have produced some of the finest soul singers ever. So you could argue that without sacred music we would be severely lacking culturally. Though is suspect you might be tone deaf.

and it is absolutely laughable that anyone should thinking singing songs aboug God is going to brainwash a child into being a rabid believer. Questioning and inquiry are part of growing up. My whole family were brought up in the church and half of us believe[but are not churchgoers] and half are athiests. So it has no bearing on your eventual outcome.

Actually the songs we sing to our kids are far from exclusively British.
But yes, apart from amusement, the idea is to hlep with language development. IE getting to kids whilst their neural nets are most flexible and can absorb fastest.
Certainly Christians still succeed in getting many to treat many ideas as "fact", even when objectively they are entirely false, and often not actually part of official doctrine or even in the Bible.
You get kids to chant "the world is flat" long enough, and for the rest of their lives there will be part of them that has that hard wired.

But the issue is how they interpret it.
My DS understands the idea of "wishful thinking, but I think the thing that philosophically undermines Christianity more than atheism, or the actions of their priests, or their history of torture and murder, but TV advertising.
Kids learn young that adults will lie to them to get them to do stuff, Note that ads use very similar techniques to religious people, ie frequent repetition, half truths, and catch tunes.

you really don't have a clue DC.

DC, then by that reasoning, it is bad to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep because its catchy tune and repetitive lyrics will convince children that all black sheep can say "yes sir yes sir three bags full".

There is a famous German childrens song which warns against drinking coffee
by suggesting that it is a Turks brew ('Türkentrank') and by saying don't
be such a muslim who just can't help himself ('sei doch kein Muselmann, der das nicht lassen kann').

Would be fascinating to know exactly how many Germans have been affected by this song.
I would have thought none as the fact that their own parents drink coffee surely gives the lie to this ditty.

The worst song I sometimes sing to dd is '10 German bombers'
It's got a catchy tune, is mindlessly repetitive and given my own teutonic connections
I have no doubt that dd will realise soon enough that it is just one Big Post-ironic Piss-Take!

Fluffyani,ma; you're 100% right.
The "three bags full" is so embedded in our brains that not only do we all know it, but it's part of normal speech as in "yes, sir, no sir, three bags full sir".

We may all know it and it may have passed into common parlance, but children don't literally believe that black sheep talk.

Which is what I think you were saying when you were talking about indoctrination through repetitive chants, e.g. the world is flat.

Christian songs will form part of your DSs christian heritage/culture....why not just see it in those terms. Also friendly relations with a granny are worth their weight in gold.

actually, DC, you do have a point there.

i don't think my mum does it to be malicious, athough she may do it because she knows how much it winds me up! it's honestly not the traditional hymns i mind so much as the tinny, trite, happy clappy stuff! i'd feel just as irritated if my mum started to sing S Club 7 or Beyonce to ds!!

Kids like happy clappy stuff, which is presumably why they were written that way.

I don't know how well it works these days, but the motivation is to get kids to accept certain things as given facts. Familiarity is hoped to lead to belief. Even those that aren't in any way superstitious talk of things like the nativity and the parting of the Red Sea as facts.
In that way mozhe's right, our culture is descended from a Christian one. But our kids are growing up at a time when most people are more than a little bit vague about what Easter is, and who simply don't know what the Python Spanish Inquisition jokes refer to.

agree urbandryad - i would be irritated by the happyclappy stuff no end. comparing it to S club 7 is quite apt. Or even Scooch.

Disagree that is made for children/indoctrination tho. Happy Clappy Evangelists are on the simplistic and ultra trite side of the Christianity scale. Look at the Alpha Course [not designed for children but for adults] Unfortunately this breed of Christianity is booming, because there are no problematic theological questions to be discussed, and because you don't have to think very hard.

i agree with ruty in that i don't particularly see singing even happy clappy stuff as indoctrination, it is part of our British culture, etc to sing hymns, etc. i used to be in our school choir, had to sing in church, etc, never objecetd nor did my parents, we had a rather devout head master at my private C of E school, so i wasn't given much choice, although i remember there were Muslims in my school who were given alternatives to eating pork at lunch, etc. so it wasn't an entirely pushy sort of school.

my objection is more to do with in-laws or other family relatives actively encouraging church-going or talking about Jesus Christ in my home or singing about God, etc. because dh and I don't have a particular religion and it seems strange/fake to have long discussions about it in our home.

other than that, we are very happy to discuss religion in the context of culture, art or world politics, etc. i absolutley love going inside church/cathederal/mosque whenever we are on holiday, in fact i always have religious building as important places to visit on my list in terms of architercural interest.

it would be absurd to try and "shield" a child from all religious talk, songs, influence, etc. 100% it just isn't possible. in fact i think any one doing this would be an extreme atheist, which is yet another form or extremism and really would not help a child develop an open, inquisitive mind.

It's not important. What is is to have proper discussions about the place of religion in our culture. Everyone needs to know their religious heritage.

hear hear Ruty!!

"you don't have to think very hard." spot on

"If people stopped saying, "hey did you know there's a verse of the national anthem about crushing the Scottish", then it would disappear into the mists of time"

and how do you get people to stop saying that, fluffy?

How do you get people to stop passing on knowledge?

And why are you so keen that the national anthem is not seen by anyone as anti-Scottish?