Nonsense. A child old enough to understand the concept of God is old enough to understand that a parent does not believe in God.
My family moved around a lot when I was growing up (my father was in the Air Force, and then the State Department), and I went to 10 or 11 schools in 12 years. Sometimes they were Catholic schools, sometimes base schools, sometimes public schools, sometimes secular private schools. It didn’t bother me any. I actually started to get bored if I was in one school for more than a year or two. In addition, my daughter herself is saying she wants to leave Catholic school (she was actually saying that before last night). We have a lot of good charter and magnet options here. The cities have some pretty good public school choices. We have an environmental magnet school (my daughter calls it “the hippie school”) right in our neighborhood that offers some things (like Gifted and Talented curricula, which our daughter needs) that her Catholic school doesn’t have.
She would have to leave that school in a couple of years anyway. it’s only K-8. The environmental magnet has both an elementary school and a middle school right here in the neighborhood. I think we’re going to give it a shot. At least I know the hippie school won’t tell her I’m going to Hell, though they do seem to be kind of uptight about snacks and recycling.
My wife still wants her to keep taking some kinnd of religious ed at her current church and get confirmed. My daughter might go along for a while, but I suspect she’ll never make it to Confirmation. I think she’s too much like me.
He wasn’t forcing his views on anyone. He was responding truthfully to questions.
My kids are only a couple of years older, and 11 is plenty old enough to start discussing such weighty topics.
Please don’t make me waste time rehashing the ‘religion isn’t a lie, it’s false’ argument. It’s not going to be helpful in this situation and I doubt it’s anything you haven’t heard before.
That’s probably true: he agreed not to encourage her to be skeptical of religion. Your description was “withholding critical thinking,” which makes a lot of assumptions on how she’s being raised to handle other ideas. Since she already didn’t believe in transubstantiation, kind of a big deal in Catholicism, she knows creationism is stupid, and is maybe done with Catholicism, I don’t think she has a problem with critical thinking. If she has a soft spot when it comes to being skeptical of religion, I’d say that’s no different than a lot of people AND she’s 11.
classyladyhp, if you’re old enough to understand what a god is, you can understand some people don’t believe in it. That’s not complicated. Everything else you posted is also wrong.
It’s almost like you haven’t read any of my posts at all.
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I didn’t “choose” to be an atheist. That’s silly. Belief is not volitional. One is either persuaded to belief, or one is not. I am not.
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She’s old enough to understand.
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I am absolutely letting her believe what she wants to believe, which I made crystal clear from posts. Letting her know she’s free to make up her own mind is very important to me.
I agree. (Speaking as an emotionally scarred survivor of 1950’s Catholic Schools. Now agnostic.)
I’m also among those who think DTC’s wife has the most splainin’ to do.
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I understand. But knowing that she might be hurt with the truth, I’m wondering if it would not have been better to lie about it.
This has fascinated me about you for ages.
I make no secret that I’m a Dio fan. I credit you with teaching me that Hell isn’t a biblical concept which has been HUGE to my education. Seriously, I am indebted to you always for that.
I have more than once questioned your wisdom in sending your child to Catholic school. I noticed you never responded to my posts on the matter, but hey, you don’t owe me a response about anything. Nevertheless, I am glad to hear you are considering ending the catholic school experiment. Glad you came clean with your daughter. I know she will be fine because she’s got a dad who really is doing his best, regardless of any mistakes you may or may not have made. She’s lucky to have such a smart dad though. That’s for sure.
Why is she old enough to understand why some people believe in a god or two if she’s not old enough to understand why some people don’t?
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Thank you for clarifying her age. Now maybe you could answer Procrustus’s question.
Depends on the school- one of my cousins got suspended for a week for telling one of the teachers (during a ‘you can be honest with me’ type private conversation, he didn’t start yelling it out in class or anything) that he’d lost his faith. He wound up having to leave the school, and they made no secret of the fact they were deliberately ostracising him to stop him ‘corrupting the other children’ in the meantime. :mad:
I’m sure not all of them have that attitude, but not all catholic schools are accepting of non-catholic kids.
I usually don’t mind responding to questions about the Catholic school thing. Your question in the particular post you linked to struck me as facetious, though, plus it had the potential to open up this whole can of worms. I’ve always had ambivalent feelings about this (there are definitely some good things about Catholic schools - the academics, the community, the smaller class sizes, the security), but I knew it was important to my wife, so I mostly just kept my misgivings to myself. Now I think my wife is starting to have them too. I think she remembered all the rosy things about her own Catholic school experiences and upbringing, and forgot about how much of the doctrine she actually disagrees with, and underestimated the potential for conflicts of values.
I wasn’t being facetious, but my question wasn’t all innocent and light.
I have two children, both under four, who I will have to have ‘the talk’ with, I suspect. My wife is a theist (Christian), but we aren’t planning on sending the children to any sort of religious school.
I don’t think that I will be in a situation like you are, simply because I’m not sure I could keep my mouth shut. It’s not that I would debate the subject with them or whatever, but I think it will come up.
You have to be honest with her. At least, that’s the way I feel. You can’t have your child viewing you as something you aren’t.
Further, what if, in the future, your child falls in love with a non believer? Or rejects the idea of dating one simply because they don’t believe? She could be cutting herself off of a great relationship.
In any event, I find this response to be the way my head is wired:
That is basically the direction we’re going in now. It’s probably what we should have done all along.
That calls for:
It’s fascinating that you got* Dio is forcing his views on his daughter* out of this thread. I don’t suppose you could be convinced to share your reasoning, could you?
Part of growing up is learning that our parents aren’t perfect, and don’t necessarily know everything. They even disagree on some things. I’m very impressed you’ve been able to have such a successful marriage and family life with such differences. The lasting lesson she’ll probably take with her is tolerance and understanding over the long run.
“So what I told you was true… from a certain point of view.”