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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want my 3 year old to come out of nursery telling me that Jesus died on the cross but came alive later?

215 replies

ptangyangkipperbang · 07/03/2008 10:58

DS3 is 3 and goes to a nursery affiliated to the local church school. However, it is a nursery for all local schools, not just the church one. Even if he was going to the church school I would still think 3 is a bit young for this, but he is going to a different school. Do I just bite my tongue when he announces with absolute certainty what the Easter story is?

OP posts:
pukkapatch · 08/03/2008 10:14

if you want your children to grow up in your faith. you dont suddenly decide once the have attained a certain age, that i t is now time to start teaching them about god.
you start from when they are born, with lullabies about your faith. and little bedtime anecdotes about your religion. baby stuff. that is what i meant by three being quite advanced to start learning about this.

i think the op is being utterly out of order demanding to know why her children are being taught about christianity when she is sending them to a church affiliated school. if she doesnt want them learning this, then she should remove them.

pointydog · 08/03/2008 10:20

Doesn't matter at all that you're not a Christian, as if that would validate your post at all. You are certainly aggressive re religion.

pointydog · 08/03/2008 10:21

"the school will be a better place when people like you no longer go there."

you're sweetness and light really

katierocket · 08/03/2008 10:30

I don't get why you're so angry about it pukka?

TheDuchessOfNorksBride · 08/03/2008 10:38

Less than 20 posts to go before this thread meets the Challenge criteria. Is it too early for congratulations?

Sarahjct · 08/03/2008 10:45

This drives me insane. I was told about the Crucifixion when I was little, as was my husband, brother, cousins, mother, aunts, uncles... Not one of us had nightmares, grew up twisted, ended up in therapy because we were told such a 'violent' story.

Fair enough that it's not your bag, so tell your child it's what some people believe. But for those saying they have problems with children being told such a violent story...I give up. Others have already mentioned then violence of nursery rhymes. I can't remember the story but it was Hans Christian Andersen or Grimm, can't remember, but my book had a picture of a witches head after it had been cut off. Scared me far more than any Bible story.

If you don't believe, then fine. But get a grip for goodness sakes. Children are not the delicate little creatures that people seem to think they are these days and they can cope with stories, true/fairytale or religious. If they can't then you'd better put those books and dvds away in case they give them nightmares.

AARRGGHH! Rant over!

katierocket · 08/03/2008 10:49

"Children are not the delicate little creatures that people seem to think they are these days and they can cope with stories, true/fairytale or religious."

Don't think you can speak for all children. I don't feel particularly strongly that my children shouldn't be taught about Jesus dying on teh cross (despite being an atheist mysefl).

bu DS1 (6yrs old )was genuinely distraught by the story and cried and cried about how he was "hung on the cross" and "died in pain". So speak for your own children but not mine thanks.

katierocket · 08/03/2008 10:50

and Sarahjct, DS1 does make a distinction between Jesus - who he is being told at school was a real man and therefore suffered real pain. And a fairy tale, which he's intelligent to know is a story.

Sarahjct · 08/03/2008 11:23

Katie, if he as told that he 'died in pain' then that sounds more like a problem with the way he was told than what he was told. I'm not saying for a minute that you should give small children chapter and verse and no teacher with any sense would say that. You can tell the story and make it appropriate for age. Even as a Catholic I would have been onto the school about that.

pointydog · 08/03/2008 11:25

duchess, I will moyder you

katierocket · 08/03/2008 11:30

Well it's pretty obvious that he died in pain! Doesn't matter how you dress it up, he was (supposedly) nailed to a cross. Whether they used those actual words or whether DS1 surmised it doesn't really matter. The point I was making is that your comment about children not being delicate little flowers and being able to "cope" with stories is, to me, a mass generalisation and certainly didn't apply in my case.

beeper · 08/03/2008 11:36

HMM...easter bunnies and eggs are nothing to do with Jesus. They are to do with the fertility rites of the Goddess Eastre.

Jesus was a Jew and his death and ressurection are to do with the Jewish festival of passover.

Back in the day the catholic church could not stampo out the practices of the pagans so it covered it with a supposed christian festival.

So basically if you wish your child to be brought up with 'no religion' you really ought to avoid the pagans ones as well, including christmas.

monkeytrousers · 08/03/2008 11:47

It's obvious to us as adults. The story as it's told is pretty anodyne though.

Dp (catholic) has always pretty much hated the iconography but quite liked the stories (not in a literal sense though).

Most of Bono's songs are inspited from the bible and Leonard Cohen is never short of of biblical

As for the OP and Pukka and PD, I may disagree with all of you, but defend your right to offend and god forbid anyone 'not allow' any of it!

It's only someones opinion.

plumandolive · 08/03/2008 11:49

Coming in a bit late here....

I think any indoctrination is gross.
But if it's a church school, you have to tell your kids your view and say other people believe other things.

We were showing some friends the wall paintings in our local church the other week, and the vicar was talking to a group of children who varied in age between about 6 -12. He was really laying it on thick about the pain and agony Jesus must have felt with the nails, and the women offering him water because he was sweating in excrutiating suffering. The children looked a bit bewildered
I got the impression he was trying to hold their attention, the way older people think, "ooh , kids get violence on computer games and tv - I'll show them that violence is even in the bible, groovy"

To be honest, it really sickened me.

It's the way it's described, and often it can affect children, and isn't necessary, unless you're a religious fanatic who wants to go and do penance for all the pain in the world.

Sarahjct · 08/03/2008 11:57

Oh well Katie, we'd better not do or say anything then. Even if it is a generalisation, it comes back to the same old argument of not doing anything because it affects one person. If your child is in a Christian school then they will hear these things. It's your job (if I may be so bold) as a parent to deal with the fall out. That applies to anything they might hear anywhere. They are always going to come across things you might not like. It's life.

katierocket · 08/03/2008 12:13

hey listen, I've already said that I personally don't have a problem with the fact that DS1 goes to a church school and is told these stories. No problem and of course I can "deal with the fallout".

The point I was making is that a) some children are affected by these things no matter how 'softly' you explain it to them and b) I just don't accept the old "well they hear grim fairy stories and they are just as scary" argument. I just don't. DS1 is told that jesus was a real person, he knows that fairy stories are imagination.

katierocket · 08/03/2008 12:14

but don't worry, I'm happy to tell him that it's just as imaginative a story as fairy stories.....

AbbeyA · 08/03/2008 14:40

I appreciate Greyriverside that you like to give chocolate to children and eggs were there long before Christianity, but my point is that you are giving them on 23rd March this year because that is Easter Sunday, last year you did it on April 8th and next year will be whatever date the Church has as Easter. If you are going to choose the church date it is only reasonable that you explain. You don't have to have a church date-eggs have been in the shops since at least the beginning of February. In our area the school Easter holiday isn't even over Easter so why not have eggs on April 6th if you don't want a church connotation?

plumandolive · 08/03/2008 15:51

I agree with katie.

I think telling kids frightening things to do with religion is a way of subduing them, giving fear them and awe.

And giving the perpetrator a sense of power
Which is all in the great religious tradition of course.

And it's totally unnecessary.

Greyriverside · 08/03/2008 16:01

Sorry AbbeyA, but you are still suggesting that I am having eggs on the day of Christ's crucifixion. In fact you are celebrating Christ's crucifixion on the day that we have our eggs

Originally it would have been just a celebration that we survived another winter. Then pagan practices would have grown up around it (hence the eggs which if you take them seriously would be very sinful for a christian). Later when the church wanted to do their thing they had to make it the same day since working folk didn't get that much spare time and they couldn't drum up much interest.

Much later when the church had a tight political grip on the country they changed the names of the celebrations to match their newly invented Christian ones.
The exact day of Easter is now moved around to suit the church, but that doesn't change the fact that we are still doing what we always did and always will.

The same applies to the other celebrations of course. Especially 'christmas' which was always an orgy of eating and drinking and well an orgy too. No one really claims Christ was born on Dec 25th after all.

S1ur · 08/03/2008 16:05

Actually 20th of March is a good time to have a spring celebration since its the spring equinox.

But it is a Thursday when most adults and children (depending on LEA ) are out of the home.

So celebrating spring by stuffing yourself with chocolate and hunting for eggs seems a reasonable thing to do on the nearest weekend/day off. Say, erm, 23rd?

Kimi · 08/03/2008 16:39

To go back to the OP, I was talking this over with DP who is a non believer, has a very scientific mind and is a big fan of Dawkins and his take on it was, stop moaning, you sent your child to a church nursery, they will teach biblical things.

juuule · 08/03/2008 16:58

The Easter Story never bothered me as a child and doesn't seem to have affected my children. I thought it was quite nice. It was told as a story about someone who loved me so much that he died for me. The thought of death however, didn't seem to have as much impact as when I was older and because I didn't really know Jesus as a person, then I didn't really feel it personally and I tended to ignore the unpleasant bits and concentrated on the resurrection bits.
However, I could never do the stations of the cross as I found that very upsetting and unbelievably gruesome as it focuses on the actual suffering. It also made me quite despondant that people could do that to other people regardless of who they were.

S1ur · 08/03/2008 17:25

In answer to the OP, YABU

AbbeyA · 08/03/2008 17:34

Greyriverside-I see that you are right!! Having looked up the date, it is the first Sunday after the full moon after the vernal equinox and the the name refers to the goddess Eostre - so I take back all that I said, it is always interesting to learn something new.However, I still don't see anything wrong in explaining the Easter story to a young child in simple terms.