What do/did you teach your child if you have doubts?

[namechange0123]

Luckily DS is still too young (20m) to understand, but:

I was born and raised in a country with a strong Catholic culture. Learned my prayers very early, went to church every Sunday, did my Holy Communion, confirmation etc.

During the early teenage years religion gave me some comfort, but later on I detached myself. Got a degree and PhD in hard sciences and became very much the "I want to see first" type. DH followed exactly the same path.

But we got married in church, because somehow we feel guilty of this and thought it was the right thing to do.

I really would like to provide DS in his childhood with the same comfort I had, give him a positive explanation of negative events, death etc, but how can I get him to follow this path if we don't lead by example?

*Nobody has all the answers
*
hard to accept as a first time parent who would want to provide security to their child in all circumstances .But apparently it's unfortunately true

Ask your child what they think, they usually have the best answers already

@BertrandRussell yes I’m sure some would be offended but isn’t life better when people don’t take everything so seriously? My point is that plenty of people think nothing of telling a small child ‘Heaven and god do not exist and when you die you die’ but would never dream of saying ‘Theres no such thing as santa’. Also, from the perspective of somebody who doesn’t believe in God there is zero difference between God, Unicorns and The Tooth Fairy.

“I'm just scared of DS's potential questions ”

What questions are you scared of?

There is a line from mass "the mystery of faith". The mystery is a changing growing thing that you never stop discovering more about. If you aren't comfortable talking about god and heaven with your ds then dont. Find out why you are thinking about this.

Do you pray at all? Opening up a conversation with god about all this might help. For a long time i felt like you should only pray for others in need but now i know i can ask and have received guidance. You sound like you need it. Youve asked mumsnet- why not ask God?! (You might feel a bit silly / mental but its worth a try).

My Catholic father taught me that the idea of an intelligence behind the universe is entirely compatible with the big bang theory and evolution. He is a scientist as well as a believer. Somewhere along the line we had a discussion about our souls or spirit and where that might go when we die. Heaven and God were mentioned as definite but not explored as ideas. I feel like the religious guidance I received was insufficient to stop me sliding into agnosticism. By questioning your own belief and finding out more about the faith you were gifted as a child then you can find ways to help your ds start his own spiritual journey.

DH is atheist. I'm agnostic. We send DC to a Catholic school so that they can learn about organised faith and make their own choices. If they ask why we believe what we do, we tell them, and make it clear that all beliefs are valid as long as they don't harm anyone.

“We send DC to a Catholic school so that they can learn about organised faith and make their own choices.”

Blimey. Most people send their children to Catholic school to try to ensure they don’t make their own choices. Or at least make the “right” choice!

Zen- are you absolutely sure this is the right thread for evangelism?

Im just struggling along seeking answers. at Bertrand its funny you think I'm evangelical. Just sharing my recent experience like we all do on mumsnet.

You seem to me to be being pretty prescriptive- “catholic school’s a good start” “do you pray”?

Sounds like you’re doing everything you can to steer the OP towards Catholicism.........

At least be honest. Nothing wrong with evangelism- plenty wrong with pretending it’s all “sharing my recent experiences”

BertrandRussell Well, more making their own choices on whether they want to practise faith or not! We felt that experience is important for understanding... informed choices, if you like. They do have exposure to other viewpoints alongside this, and decent RE lessons. I appreciate that not everyone would approach it this way, though.

Malope I think your approach sounds sensible and its very much what me and dh did (i was the agnostic dh the atheist).

BertrandRussell look me up. Im 'lapsed Catholic struggling with returning' on this very board. It really is recent!

Dont want to hijack OP's thread. How and what we teach children about our / our family's religious beliefs is a really interesting topic. Theres no one size fits all. OP you are culturally Catholic so I identify. Terms like 'indoctrination' (meaning teach) seems negative. We dont expect children to pick up maths or physics by themselves and be good at it, we teach them, we let them go to lessons. We might not know how to explain relatvity or quantum theory or calculus to them (well, maybe you can!) but we give them the building blocks to learn. Religion and spirituality are often ignored or maligned in our secular world but making sense of the world and finding a moral framework by which to live is still important to us all.

That's ok @ZenNudist. I wanted exactly different points of view, from the atheist/ agnostic to the believer/returned.

I guess then when the time comes I should go deeper in what God means for me besides a name to thank after near misses or to invoke in bad times.

Oh and about RE lessons. I come from a place where for political reasons they are mainly about Catholicism (that's a huge spoiler!), and only a small percentage of them deal with other beliefs, I actually don't know much about the rest. Hope DS will be offered here a ore balanced view at least!

C of E so I have a different set of cultural baggage....

With my children I introduced them to the stories of the faith so there were books with Bible stories which we read together. I took them to a midweek toddler service so they got used to being in the church building and that there were some times when we were quiet and other times when we sang songs.

They asked questions and good and challenging questions. As I have my own doubts, that is why it is called faith, I was honest about that. There is a huge difference between singing 'Mr Noah built an Ark' as a toddler and talking about the ancient Near East myths of a flood, whether it might be a memory of an event a long time ago, what it says about the nature of God in the context of Bronze Age religion and what it might mean today. I was having those sorts of conversations from about 7 I think.

From the OP:

I was born and raised in a country with a strong Catholic culture.

But we got married in church, because somehow we feel guilty

That's Catholicism.....control by fear and guilt. Is that really what you want for your child? You have an opportunity to break the generational cycle and offer your child a better way. Deep down you know it's all nonsense. Don't inflict it on your child.

OP you can take him to church but also tell him you aren't sure yourself.

That's Catholicism.....control by fear and guilt

@Lifecraft has that been your experience of Catholicism? It sounds like some awful stereotype. It's such a shame if that's happened to you. Its important to separate church (made up of fallible people) and the reason those people are there (faith in God, hope, charity, love).

If anything the Catholic church now tries to lead by example. I think guilt and obligation comes from individuals, its something we put on ourselves, whether religious or not.

There is the "moral" issue indeed, the ideas carried out by church people I don't agree with. I'm pro choice for everything concerning one person's sexual life and strongly disagree with this interference and the interference with politics and political choices (which in my country is very strong).

I would like to think of an understanding God who would welcome everyone who doesn't hurt other people, but I struggle to reconcile this idea with what they actually said. Let's suppose in the future DS realises he is gay. So? For me it wouldn't make an ounce of difference, and I would never think of teaching him he is wrong.

If anything the Catholic church now tries to lead by example. Their example is very much lacking sadly.

“If anything the Catholic church now tries to lead by example.”

On child abuse? ReLly?

My father's side is evangelical and my mother's side is catholic so culturally I have a lot of shaming and guilt. Breaking out of that was hard, I spent years trying to find other answers. I'm now at a point that I feel any divinity in the universe is too far beyond human comprehension to be in any book or anything we could say and that the reality we see should be fully embraced.

We've had many family deaths over the last few years and the focus my spouse and I have had is more centered on being upfront on what's happening and on normalizing everyone's emotions. They haven't really asked many of the typical awkward death questions which I think is a mix of personality (my oldest prefers figuring things out for himself and avoids asking questions) and that we already have strong traditions around death. We celebrate the Days of the Dead every year, it's one of the biggest holidays in our home with decorations and food and lots of discussions about our ancestors and what we would like when we're gone and to do before then (my youngest last time was very sweet in discussing how he would guard the tree I want to be buried under). I personally have a non-literal interpretation, but I show them things from my and cultures around the world on death during this time each year and let them make up their own minds. Yes, the unknown is scary, but there is comfort in seeing how people and even some animals deal with it with consideration.

I'm not saying everyone should do this though it is my favourite time of year and fully recommend it, but it's like that quote from Mr Rogers about how when scary things were on the news when he was a kid, his mother told him to look for the helpers. That can be done with death and many other unknowns - look at those helping people through it, look at people coming together through it, look at the mixed bag of the line of people who lived to bring you and the world as we are. Creating and reconnecting to our customs and cultures in a nonreligious way to look at the uncertainties that are part of our reality that can't be changed can bring just as much comfort. I have far more comfort and ease with death now than as a child growing up with judgement in the afterlife.

Critical thinking skills and tolerance.

Yep OP im with you on all that. Its just too complicated to get into all those issues. Its all a bit too soon for me to get into structural doubts about the church and its doctrines. I have been there done that as a teen. It didn't maje me any happier to give up on God. Now I'm interested in learning about faith and thinking about how to lice a good life. Church helps with that.

Bertrand / Vitology I meant that at a local level the faith schools and the churches dont preach hell and damnation, they dont clobber people with judgement about their sex lives, they are careful not to tell the children that their family set ups are not approved of if they aren't nuclear family: mum dad 2.4 children. So it feels like there are modern and traditional ways of being Catholic coexisting as best they can. Abuse is a separate issue but my understanding from what I've read from pope Francis is that the church is having a wake up call. I dont know anyone looking to minimize the suffering of victims or defend the indefensible.

I'm not too focused on the abuses honestly. Although they are obviously horrifying and to condemn in every possible way, I see them as the minority compared to, for example, local priests who actually help people, manage food banks etc.

If some schools are doing what you describe to reconcile predicaments with the modern reality, that's good.

In my country (this hasn't luckily, and rightly so, made the UK news) a "Family Congress" is about to take place, with the special participation of pluridivorced members of the far right who praise the traditional family unit with women having to stay at home. I find them and these ideas absolutely disgusting.