For not wanting my children to ‘learn’ Christianity?

[AmusedLemur]

I use learn loosely, I don’t mean learn, I mean be spoken to about God as if it is fact, when I myself do not believe.

context

I am an atheist. My husband was raised by a very catholic family, however he himself is not a practicing catholic (he doesn’t attended church, never prays, etc)

He says he does believe in a God, but it’s not something he lives his life by / he thinks about too regularly.

This has never been an issue for us because mainly we’re on the same page. Yes he will take his mother and father to church on Christmas Eve, but that is as about as religious as he gets.

Let me preface this by saying I have an amazing relationship with his family. I love them. We got married in a church to please them, and when we had our baby (Gia - 2) we got her Christened so they wouldn’t worry.

I have no problem with them talking about their love for God in front of me or anything like that. But, Gia is now of an age where she is taking things in. And they tell her that God is the reason she is here, to be thankful for him, he gave her life and everything she has. More has been said, but I’m not there when it is, so I’m not entirely sure what.

For a 2 year old, she obviously believes when her Grandmother tells her this and so comes home and asks me if I’ve thanked God, tells me she loves him, and so on and so forth.

I don’t want to correct Gia by saying God isn’t real, because it’s her choice to believe. But am I being unreasonable by not wanting my in laws to teach her that God is real from such a young age?

There are plenty of people who find faith as adults. And many more who explore it before concluding that it isn't for them. I'm not sure why you think this doesn't happen?

And I'm also not sure why you assume that atheists wouldn''t introduce their children to the idea of something greater than ourselves. God is not the only option here.

Honestly, I am finding your point of view very difficult to understand, probably because your perceptions about atheism and atheists are quite far removed from my reality. I can't actually relate to any of what you're talking about.

For example, you have mentioned fear and scariness in a couple of your posts now. I'm not really sure where this is coming from or what it's referring to. Do you find the idea of a God scary? The absence of a God scary? What do you think we are closing off to children exactly, and what fears are motivating us to do this?

For my own part, I have no fear of religion or atheism at all. I am naturally quite curious and interested in ideas around spirituality and philosophy etc. I don't believe in a God, so there isn't really anything to be scared of as such? Unless you're scared of the idea of nothingness after death, I suppose, but that doesn't actually bother me...in many ways, I think the finite nature of life is what helps it to be meaningful.

The idea of having no incentive to grow is also interesting, and I can't imagine where you've got this from. We are not all lacking in curiosity or the desire to explore and grow. Far from it, in my experience.

You seem to have a version of atheism in your head that is based on some kind of "don't mention the war" mentality...as if we have to put up the barricades to protect ourselves from any reference to God to in order to prevent him from somehow creeping in. The thing is, those of us that don't believe in God don't have to fight him off. You can't fight against nothing.

I think you shot yourself in the foot here OP - " We got married in a church to please them, and when we had our baby (Gia - 2) we got her Christened so they wouldn’t worry."

Were they aware that you were telling lies when you made the Baptismal promises to bring your child (their grandchild) up in the Faith.?

Why did you not stick to your beliefs (or non-beliefs) at the time ? Of course it would upset them but it would have been honest.
Now you are going to have to tell them that you don't want them talking about their Faith to their grandchild which will cause a really difficult situation.

I know several couples who say they are atheists and didn't have their children Christened. It's not uncommon.

Santa is a magical, fun belief. Very different.

I would tend to agree with the sentiments expressed here.

I would agree with this apart from the bit about "sky fairies" which I find derogatory slang.
No-one who has a religious belief believes in such nonsense.

I would be furious. Assuming the GPs know that you are a non-believer, it is disgraceful of them to present to your child as fact something they know you disagree with. Your DH should tell them in no uncertain terms to stop.

When your DD says something like that, I would say "Well, Grandma thinks that’s true but I don’t. I don’t believe God is real, just a story like that dragon in the story we read yesterday."

You and DH need to be on the same page about this, but if you are the GPs should be told that they won’t be seeing their GD on their own if they carry on like this.

Surely they should respect this is my child, and I will speak to her about God when I deem she is ready.

Have you told them you don’t want them to talk about god to her?

Like I said before, its absolutely mental to interfere with a loving relationship in the child's life just to stop your child being exposed to world views you don't hold.

I cannot describe what a fucked up priority system this is.

What narrow minded people and what narrow worlds.

I want my children to be exposed to diversity. I want them to experience and understand different people and different ways of viewing the world, different values and different opinions. And I also want them to be able to discuss these with me. How can my children develop the intelligence and critical thinking skills, and breadth of knowledge I want them to have without experiencing diversity first hand?

God forfend that my view is the only view my children experience! (if you forgive the phrase).

Great. And after they've put granny straight, the parents can explain to the child why they had her christened in the faith and made a public declaration in front of witnesses to raise her as a Christian.

The child is 2.

Two year olds live in a little world of their own, where they are the sun and the universe orbits around them. What she is hearing from gran and grandad is in one ear and out the other. As an experiment, tell her where babies come from and ask her in three weeks where babies come from.

You and your H need to sit down and talk together about how you're going to approach this topic as parents in a multicultural society where some people believe in God and some can't be bothered about any of that, but she'll still probably attend a school where prayers will be said, hymns sung, and Christian holidays celebrated as opposed to Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan, etc.

You'll need to be on the same page and your H will need to have his act together when your daughter arrives at First Communion age.

My advice? Don't make a big deal out out of grandparents talking to her about God.

Also my advice? Deal with the issues in the relationship with your H. You have done a good deal of compromising in this area. So far, things have gone his way. Is this usual in your marriage?

Excellent post.

I’m an atheist. I went to a school that did prayers and sang hymns, it had no effect on how I ultimately turned out.

DD goes to a faith school because it’s the best in the area. There’s a bit of God involved, I’d rather there was less, but happy to suck it up for the benefits of an otherwise outstanding school.

I don’t defend it, but she said it was to keep grandparents happy.

It's not "putting Granny straight". Granny can believe what she likes, but it’s parents, not grandparents, who have the right to decide whether or not their children should be indoctrinated (because that’s what it is, of course) in any kind of religious beliefs.

But of course, as I said, OP needs to be sure that grandparents know the parents' opinions on the matter.

Well quite my convent very catholic primary school failed to indoctrinate me im agnostic
My son also went to catholic schools and is atheist
So his schools didnt do a very good job at indoctrination either.

Your DH grew up Catholic and is is now atheist/agnostic. I'm not sure why you're so worried about your daughter. The scenario is different as it's their grandchild rather their child; or do you intrinsically feel that your husband has been damaged in some way.

Of my peer group, who all went to a faith school and were hoiked off to church on a Sunday as children, I don't think anyone practises.

I don't think you need worry that your in laws will cause any harm.

Same with my peer group .

It IS putting granny straight - on what she can and can't say to the child about the existence of God. Because talking about that offends the OP who stood in a church and made a solemn promise to raise said child with a belief in that very same God. Bonkers.

OP voluntarily promised to 'indoctrinate' her own child so you'd think she'd be sympathetic to the God-bashing grandma but no. As you say, the first step would be let granny know OP doesn't want her child exposed to this topic. Grandma will know then, of course, that the whole baptism was a monumental piss take - which is probably going to undo the keeping the grandparents happy part of things.

At your daughter's baptism, didn't you have to promise to follow Jesus and raise your child according to the teachings of the Roman Catholic church? 😕

As it happens I wouldn't want to encourage anyone to follow Roman Catholic teachings, but there's quite the inconsistency between publicly vowing that and then objecting to grandparents talking to her about Jesus...

Mine go to a CofE school so there’s been a lot of discussions. They know im an atheist now, but at the time I used to say things like “some people believe x” and if they came home with stories about god or Jesus I’d ask them if they thought it was possible etc. We also talked a lot about science and evolution. They are also atheist and think it’s a load of nonsense.
it’s probably important to not tell her that grandma is “wrong” but equally ok to say that people believe different things.

I am in the same boat. I am an atheist and my in laws are catholic. They’ve been telling my 3 and 4 year old about God and when they pass a church they will say, “there’s god’s house” etc.

My children have asked me about god and I’ve explained that some people believe in a god and others don’t and that they can make their own decisions

I beg anybody saying I’ve confused my PIL’s by christening her, to read the thread.

They were under NO false pretences when this happened. We had an open conversation where they begged me to christen her to “save her soul” and discussed with me how important this is to them.

I obliged, because the words mean NOTHING to me and EVERYTHING to them. So I had no problem with it? I love my in laws and if they needed that to sleep soundly at night, why not?

But we discussed it and they were completely aware it was for them, and that to me it was just being treated as a party and as an excuse for everybody to meet my baby.

It was a bit shortsighted of you not to have worked out that grandparents with a living faith will talk to their grandchildren about it. If you were bringing up your child in a different faith, I can see there would be a problem. As it is, you don't have a faith. The information Gia is being given about Catholicism won't have any special significance for her at the age of 2.

But did you tell them you'd have no more of this God malarkey, going forward? And that your daughter was to be raised an atheist?

So will you be teaching your child that you can absolutely say something; you can utterly make solemn promise in front of others, and not mean it?

No. Your child being exposed to different ideas and beliefs - great. Your child being told by Grandma that she believes x - fine.

Your child being told by Grandma that x is a fact when you do not agree it is a fact and do not want your child to be told that it is - not good at all.

Whether OP was being hypocritical in having her child christened is a different issue.

Why is no religion different from different religion?
In both cases the grandparents are overstepping - talking about their beliefs as facts.