My five year old daughter was writing her letter to Santa at the kitchen table the other day while I was in the middle of my annual Holy-Hell-Why-Do-I-Put-Myself-Through-This-Every-Year Holiday Baking Extravaganza Meltdown (TM). Since she’s five her spelling skills can only be described as sucky (the slacker) so I was helping her out with some words.
Her: “Mommy, how do you spell Jesus?”
Me: “J-E-S-U-S. Why?”
Her: “I want to ask Santa to bring me some Jesus books.”
Me: “Uh…”
Did I mention we have a fairly agnostic household?
Maybe I should clarify that. I’m agnostic. I think. I’m pretty wishy washy on the subject. I was baptized and raised in the Catholic faith but gave that up after a series of eye-opening events made me question my religious upbringing. My husband was a Congregationalist and now he’s an atheist. So needless to say, we don’t talk about God much. We only go to church when someone dies or gets married, or when my mother in law guilts us into accompanying her and my father in law at Christmas Eve service. So therefore, my kid’s knowledge of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is pretty light. As a matter of fact, up until a year or so ago she was convinced one of her nicknames was Jesus Christ. We don’t praise God but we sure can blaspheme in front of our kids.
I’m not sure how to talk to my kid about God. I have a hard enough time lying to her about the existence of Santa, never mind the existence of a heavenly father. When I was growing up, God and Jesus were always there; on the wall hanging from a cross, every week at church, at the Catholic elementary school I attended, whenever I got in to trouble and an adult called me God Dammit (it runs in the family)… He was ALWAYS there, butting his big holy nose into my business.
Her: “So do you think Santa will bring me some Jesus books?”
Me: “I’m not sure, but if he doesn’t we can go to the library and take some home to read together.”
Her: “Okay, that sounds good.” She thinks for a moment. “Do you think he’d bring me a menorah?”
Me: “Oy.”
About ChickyBaby
You do realize this is the kid that will end up a nun?
You did know that?
Right?
Twitter Name: Anissa Mayhew
I’m okay with that. It’s better than the alternative…
Twitter Name: chickybaby
I think I know how I would handle the religion question if my kids asked. The complicating factor is that my wife’s family is hard-to-the-core Catholic. I had to convert, which entails a year of Catholic training, in order to be allowed to marry my wife. They would have seriously disowned her had she married a non-Catholic. We have to have crucifixes and Virgin Marys in our houses and cars whenever they come to visit. And they think we take the kids to Mass every week. I don’t know what happens when our kids are old enough to drop a dime on us. I guess we teach them to lie convincingly.
My husband comes at it from the history side. I usually stop him at the point in the story where that guy named Jesus gets brutally murdered.
BTW, are your inlaws the type to have a Mary on the half shell in their yard? Because those type are a dying breed.
Twitter Name: chickybaby
Oh dear, will be hard to explain the missing First Communion/Confession! ;)
Yeah, we’re a pretty apathetic family when it comes to religion too. My in-laws wanted to take the kids to “Breakfast with Santa” at their church, and I was like, “sure!”. So, my 5 year old daughter wrote a SECRET letter to Santa—we were NOT to look at it.
My husband sneaked a peak and read, “I love you Satan and Ms-is Cloz”. That pesky letter N in the wrong spot really changes the entire meaning of a sentence, don’t you think?
He just sealed it back up and sent her off with it.
Twitter Name: DTKMMeLookCrazy
There was a part of my childhood when I would have written Satan too. I was a bitter kid.
Twitter Name: chickybaby
Girl’s gonna need one of those “COEXIST” bumper stickers.
Twitter Name: robinplemmons
We’ll stick to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for now.
Twitter Name: chickybaby
I swear, I read “Jesus boots” at first.
And I was like oh – Birkenstocks is doing boots now?
I can see the ad for them now – Jesus Boots: For when you want to walk on water or just feel like you are.
Twitter Name: chickybaby
From an avowed Christmas tree atheist, there’s nothing at all wrong with learning the stories and become familiar with other religions.
That said, if my girls asked for Jesus books, Kyle would probably have a coronary.
We’ve been avoiding discussions about religion with our daughter for about… let’s see how old is she… nine years now. It’s worked great.
Maybe it’s time to introduce your girl to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
Twitter Name: didacticpirate
Your religious upbringing and distance from the church sounds much like mine. My daughters were 11 (twins) when they started hanging out with a VERY religious friend and going to her Church Youth Night. Which was fine, good they get some exposure to what ‘Some People Believe’. Until they came home concerned that their family was going to burn in hell for eternity as they did not go to church. End of THAT little experience for them! (Hard core Baptist church.)
They now go to a less ‘churchy’ youth group at the age of 13 (cute guys go there ya know..) with another friend. I figure I am doing my part by letting them know there are many religions out there and they are free to check them out as they like. I will facilitate their wishes best I can on that level but NOT willing to return to the church thanks much!
The other day my daughter said something about Christmas and the birth of Jesus and my son goes “Who’s Jesus?”
OMG…if my MIL had heard that she’d have fainted on the spot and then gotten up and yelled at us.
Twitter Name: Izzymom
I am a recovering former Catholic.
We don’t do Jeebus in this household although my son gets so mad when I calll him that. Can’t help though because once I heard it on The Simpsons, it was forever stuck in my head.
Twitter Name: StacieinAtlanta
so happy to see other agnostic/atheist families out in the blogesphere!
my parents are hard core christians, but stopped buying all of the jesus stuff for our daughter after finding out that we’re atheists (thank gawd!). she doesn’t know about any of it, really. not looking forward to when we have to tell her about it.
Laughing my blaspheming ass off. OMG. Too funny.
Happy Christmukkakwanza, y’all!
Twitter Name: VDog
I have copies of “Parenting Beyond Belief” and “Nothing” so I can be prepared to answer questions, but haven’t quite found the time to read them. They were gifts from my dad. My MIL would die on the spot. Oh, and since we’re at our own house this year, we won’t have birthday cake for the baby Jesus.
Twitter Name: brigidday
SO, we’re the same Agnostic household, our 7 year old son think’s that God is a bad word, and yells at us when it’s used….. Yeah…
Recently my husband’s grandmother got on a kick about us taking our son to church, he really needs the company of children his age, (I guess she thinks he’s locked in his room and doesn’t attend school), and that learning about God would help him.. So, I turned to my son and said “Would you like to go to church, you can just go to ‘children’s church’, I did that when I was little” and he looked right at me and said “No way, Church is boring” ….. Right in front of grandma..
She looked at me, and I swear I knew the fear of God.
Twitter Name: JessNSB