My wife and I are atheists – some of our immediate family are religious, but none are very observant. Our daughter, who’s a little over five and a half now, has never been to church, and doesn’t really know anything about religion. She does, however, understand the concept of death – that all people get older and die, and that death is something you don’t come back from.
Talking about me and her mom, or her grandparents, getting older sometimes upsets her, because she knows that getting older means getting closer to dying, and she understands that this applies to her, too. This morning I mentioned that her grandmother will be turning 60 soon, and my daughter said “I wish someone would make an invention that kept everybody young so no one had to die.” Long story short, she was soon in tears, saying “I don’t want to die.”
I comforted her as best I could. I told her that this is something everyone struggles with, that it’s OK and normal to think and worry about it, and that I’m happy to talk to her about it anytime she wants. I also tried to tell her what I believe, which is that even though we die, our lives have meaning because we all leave the world a different place than it was before us. Her response: “Yeah, but when you’re dead you don’t remember anything, or see or feel anything.”
Frankly, I can understand why the thoughts about mortality that comfort me at 39 don’t really make a Kindergartner feel better. I want to help her come to terms with this (as much as she can at her age), but I don’t want to pander to her. I feel like this might be a good time to start telling her that other people believe different things about death – if she latches onto to the idea of “heaven” for now, that’s fine, but I want to be clear that no one really knows what’s true.
Have any other Doper parents dealt with this? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.
I’m not a parent, but I think your instincts are good here. My grandmother died just after I turned seven, and I wish that my parents had prepped me more on the idea that people have different beliefs. I found it confusing that Mom and Dad told me that Grammy would be resting until judgment day when we’ll all have our eternal fates decided together, but my grandfather, great-grandparents and most of my aunts and uncles who are all Catholic seemed convinced that she was already in heaven and looking down on us. Throw a non-belief of the afterlife into the mix and that’d be even more confusing.
Have you talked about the circle of life at all? Bodies nourishing the soil, which feeds plants and flowers, which in turn feed animals and people? I always liked that idea as a child.
My parents gave me the standard Reform Jewish line, which is almost identical to the atheist line, that we live on in the things we’ve accomplished and the people who remember us. At the time, I was comforted by talking about it, but it never really resonated with me. Eventually, I came to my own theistic understanding, which includes heaven. I think letting her know that others have different beliefs, and no one really knows for sure, can be helpful in allowing her to find her own way.
When I was a child I asked my mother why everyone had to die. She told me if no one ever died, then no one would be able to have kids because the world would get too full.
Essentially I walked away with an understanding that death allows each of us to “have a turn”; a concept that children can relate to. Also, that mortality allows us to have our own children, and it comforted me that my mother said she would trade immortality for the chance to be my mother.
As an adult, I’ve used these general themes along with telling my kids that when someone is so sick or so hurt that they can never get better, then death takes all that pain away from them.
So far they’re reasonably satisfied with those answers.
I still went through years of existential dread about death, but my mother helped with that too, telling me that if this was our only life and it was only for a limited time, then there could be no more wasteful way to use it up than on worrying what would happen when it was over.
I like the “taking turns” idea. I’ll mention that to her. I tried explaining to her that as people get older and experience more, the idea of death gets a bit less scary – I doubt most who live to a ripe old age are that afraid of it, even if they aren’t exactly welcoming its arrival – but (understandably) she can’t really relate to that at her age.
Well, yes, but I think I’d be cautious about introducing that idea to a five-year-old, because if you look at that from just a very slightly different angle, it’s pure nightmare fuel.
I mean, Neo-Calredic’s daughter might like it, for all I know, but…
I think what I want to say, Neo-Calredic, is that each of us has to come to terms in our own way with the reality of death, and that five years is not an unusual age to start that. And that it is a big thing to come to terms with, and that whatever you say or do, there are likely to be tears, and nightmares, and awkward questions – and that’s all perfectly normal.
So, in some ways, it doesn’t matter too much what you say – because she’ll end up believing what she wants to believe (for as long as she wants to believe it) – it matters more that you show that you care about how she feels.
I’m an atheist, my wife is “spiritual,” we sent our now 9 yr old daughter to Methodist preschool and my Catholic parents sometimes take her to church. She knows I believe nothing happens after death, my parents believe in heaven, and my wife believes that spirits/souls live on in some way. She is confused but it doesn’t seem to bother her day to day, and we started this conversation around the same age you have. I don’t mind if she prefers to believe in heaven right now (or as an adult either), as long as she knows all of our thoughts on the matter. This has been an occasional discussion and sometimes she gets upset about it, but you already know there are going to be hard moments where all you can do is hug her.
I think you’re on the right path. Just keep with what you are doing and you’ll raise yourself a good little nonbeliever!
From the first our kids asked questions, we did our best to give them as factual answers as possible. (Well, we did pretend about Santa, Easter Bunny, tooth fairy, etc. when they were very young.)
But we never tried to shield the kids from death. I remember finding, examining, and burying dead birds. And we took them to the wake when the old guy 2 doors down died. Didn’t see any reason to shield them from the finite nature of life. I’ll try to think if we ever relied on any folksy statements like “everyone gets their turn.”
We spent a lot of time digging around in the dirt, discussing decomposition and all manner of “sciencey topics.” Growing flowers and vegetables made discussions of sex natural. Science and rational inquiry just seemed to us like such a preferable and convenient fallback position when confronting any unfamiliar or challenging parenting topic. At the very least, you don’t have to worry about remembering which stories you told which kids when.
With discussions of heaven and so much of religion, we would freely acknowledge that many people thought different things. We would stress that different opinions did not necessarily make someone better or worse than someone else. But then we would ask them and work with them to identify the various arguments and proofs for the various positions. With that approach, we ended up raising 3 godless heathens.
My middle child went through this existential crisis and we just consoled him as best we knew how. When his four kids were young, words like death and dying were banned in his household. The other two never went through that crisis and, as far as I know, neither have their kids.
We never mentioned gods or religion in our house (although my wife would light candles on some holidays, especially the 8 days of Chanuka) and they never asked. I guess they heard about from friends (as in fact I had–although my parents were not avowed atheists, religion never played any role in our lives).
I’m not sure if you’re the type of atheist who staunchly believes ‘dead is dead, that’s it’ or not. I’m more an atheist who doesn’t believe in god and when it comes to what happens when you die I’m more of a “no one knows or possibly can know” type.
When my son asks ‘What happens when you die’ I tell him I have no idea and neither does anybody else. And that anybody who claims to know is just telling you what believe, they don’t really know. It’s a great mystery that no living person has the answer to but one that every living person will eventually have the answer to.
I’ve also told him that there’s no harm in day dreaming / wishful thinking / imagining / hoping what happens after you die if it makes you feel better.
First off a 5 year old just barely has an emerging death concept, and approaching death of human loved ones head-on is a bit overwhelming. Coming at these concepts from the side is the best approach.
A very abridged summary:
The story starts off after a beloved pet cat, Barney, has died. The family is going to have a little service for Barney and the boy of the story is asked by his mother to come up with ten good things to say about Barney. He comes up with nine and while talking to friends and family after the service he is introduced to a variety of thoughts about what happens after death. “Annie said Barney was in heaven with lots of cats and angels, drinking cream and eating cans of tuna. I said Barney was in the ground. Heaven said Annie, heaven. So there!” Dad is asked to settle and presents an agnostic view. The boy then joins dad as he works in the garden plating some seeds: “Things change in the ground, said my father. In the ground everything changes. …” At bed time later the boy recounts the nine things he had said were good things about Barney but says that he now has another: “Barney is in the ground and he is helping grow flowers. You know, I said, that’s a pretty nice job for a cat.”
A bit easier to first think about a pet’s death and what comes after, and to some degree the thought about what might not, than a parent’s or grandparent’s. And it exposes a child to the variety of concepts giving space for a family to have their own thoughtful and respectful discussion about what each of them think, about cats, and about people too, introducing the idea that being part of the circle is not a bad job while leaving openings for more discussion depending on the readiness and interest of the child and the family and in the directions that they are comfortable in going.
I love that book and cannot recommend it highly enough.
One thing is to ask if she is upset about not remembering things before she was born. Death is just like that, on the other side.
Another thing to ask if she gets bored of doing something a long time. Old people are ready to stop living in the same way, though since she is not bored she doesn’t have to worry about that.
Don’t say death is just like sleep!
My daughter lost her grandmother and a very beloved aunt at 5 and 6, but didn’t seem traumatized.
Now, as for god that we paid religion no attention helped, but when my girls were a bit older I read them Genesis and helped them to analyze it logically, showing the absurdities and the two incompatible creation stories. Worked fine. But I think our family is genetically disposed to atheism, since my grandfather and my father-in-law were (are) both atheists long before it was popular.
Not to get into a heated debate or anything, but that sounds too close to “teach the controversy” to me. Would you say the same thing about a pet turtle that died? Also, while that might not be particularly harmful for a 5-year-old, I would think a firmer response would be better as the kid approaches his teens. We don’t know for sure, but there is no evidence for life after death, and the best explanation that fits the facts is that when we die, we die.
I like your mom! I’ve given a similar explanation more than once. The image of the whole town… no, the whole country! No, the whole world!!! being filled with so many people we wouldn’t even have room to either hug or get our elbows out of other people’s ribs is one children can imagine quite well and see that ok, death is “bad” in that it means we won’t see that person any more, but hey, we have room to move our elbows. Moving your elbows is good.
So far I still haven’t encountered a kid who wanted to know how many people it would take to fill up all of the universe… I don’t think we even have a name for a number that big.
In short, your 5-yo has already been exposed to plenty of examples of folk mythology, from nursery rhymes to PlayStation. It shouldn’t be that hard to put religious death dogma into that context.
More teaching about how to be respectful about others’ beliefs. And when it comes to death beliefs and maybe even religion in general it is important to learn to be respectful and to provide a model for doing so. One thing I would not want is for my kid to be the one arguing with another child whose mother just died and who is, because of his or her family values, comforted by and coping with use of a concept of afterlife, that dead is in the ground.
And understanding where a five-year old is at developmentally. It’s still a magical thinking phase. Lead them to the conclusion and be a role model for how to get there and let them step as they are ready.
