From the perspective of someone who lost a family member as a kid (I was nine when my youngest sister died), it is a form of comfort to realize that the lost family member really isn’t coming back. Once you have this realization, you can start grieving properly and eventually move on. Is seven too young? I don’t think so - he needs to grieve as much as anyone else. How would I comfort someone in this situation? I think I would do like someone else suggested - tell them that they should grieve, that it’s okay to do so, that they will miss their family member for the rest of their lives, but they will start feeling better again some day. Where did the family member go? Does it really matter? They’re gone, and they’re not coming back.
I’m kinda on both sides of this one. Personally I wouldn’t want anybody indoctrinating a child of mine, particularly at a vulnerable time, with things I don’t believe in. Religion is a family matter, and I can see how this one could cause big problems in the long run (although 7 ought to be old enough to understand "some people believe this way and some people believe this other way - a few years younger and I think that might be harder on the kid.) On the other hand, I know START didn’t mean any harm, and as a young somebody brought up in a strict Christian household was probably fairly surprised by the whole thing. I’m a bit miffed at the “memories crap” bit, but it’s not like he said it to her face or anything. It does suggest a certain amount of inability to comprehend the fact of other people’s beliefs, but hey, he’s a young guy.
And like somebody else I don’t know why I keep talking about him as if he weren’t here. START, think about it this way - religion is like sex. It’s something that in our society is up to one’s family to make decisions regarding our children about. (And a preposition is not a thing to be ending a sentance with.) If you were on her porch telling her kid things she didn’t approve of about sex, things she considered misinformation about sex, it would be perfectly understandable if she didn’t want you doing it, right? Even if it was a “nice” thing to say, or if you thought it would be “better” for the kid. It’s a family matter. And if somebody else’s child came to you with questions about how babies are made, what would you say? You’d say, of course, “You should ask your mom about that.” It’s obvious. Religion is the same way.
Oh, absolutely, but I think he should get a little extra, since he’s still a bit wet behind the ears.
I think the mother should have handled it better, in that she could have waited until START left to start discussing beliefs with her son. What she SHOULD have done, is take START aside, calmly explain her beliefs, and then after he left, explain to her son that it’s not what she personally believes, that there are kinds of different beliefs, etc.
Instead, she made a big scene right there.
START, the mom overreacted. What you were trying to do was good.
**START[/b} meant well, but he was wrong. You don’t go fucking around with a family’s religious beliefs or interfere with what parents are teaching their children. The Christians who are pissing on the mother in this thread would have six different kinds of conniptions if someone told their own children that Grandpa had been reincarnated as a cow, or that there was no Heaven and only “good memories.”
START is young and his heart was in the right place but it’s not ok to start undermining the way that parents are teaching their children to deal with grief.
Because if you want a truly honest and frank discussion on religious beliefs it could very easily end with “according to my religion your father is in hell”. Not so comforting now. Perhaps the christian thing is to give the grieving the news about heaven and then skip the crucial non-believers clause. Kind of lying through omission.
I’m sure START meant well, but it was a poor decision. Without knowing enough about the beliefs of the family and the deceased, wittering on about heaven wasn’t the tack to take. As it is you’ve just confused things for that poor boy.
And I don’t think it’s fair to expect the mother to be calm and even-handed about it all, given the circumstances.
Even if we accept that START acted with noble intentions, in retrospect he still lied to the child. He told Patrick he would see his father in Heaven, before he knew the father was an atheist. START says he believes strongly in the Christian religion, so he must believe that only those that accept Jesus as savior and son of God can go to Heaven. Even if Patrick adopts Christianity at some point in his life, he will not be seeing Daddy in Heaven, because Daddy is in Hell. At best, START mispoke before he knew all the facts, and at worst it was a lie.
In ordinary circumstances you might be right, but let’s not forget…her husband had just died. It’s only fair to forgive her being a little emotional. Grief-stricken people don’t always comport themselves in a very controlled manner.
Possibly, but maybe he clairified some things for him. I’ve searched Start’s OP for something to indicate that he knew the mother was a hard atheist, but can’t find anything. Inasmuch as the vast, overwhelming majority of people — especially Americans — are not, I think Start’s presumptions were not out of line. If the mother so shields her son from the culture in which he lives, I think she is doing him a disservice.
Wow. What a thread.
Even as an ardent atheist , I think most of the non-theists in this thread are being assholes. What **START **did was insensitive and the way he is complaining about it is immature but fuck, he didn’t rape the mother or kill one of the kid’s siblings so he doesn’t deserve the venom he’s getting for this.
The only person that should be upset or angry about this situation is Patrick’s mother and she handled this with a hell of a lot more grace and compassion than most of you have. Get over yourselves.
If you don’t know, you keep your mouth shut.
I don’t think very many people have attacked START or his motives. Most of the non-theists have acknowledged that he had good intentions and that his mistake was made from naivete not malice.
But aren’t there are a bazillion things his mother could have believed that he wouldn’t know about? I mean, practically anything could set someone else off. A simple, “I just want you to know how sorry I am for your loss,” could be met with, “You sniveling dolt! We do not believe that anything was lost, and we do not encourage our children to be sorrowful.”
Expressing a sympathetic emotion is not the same as relating a religious belief as fact. No parent is going to react to a simple expression of sympathy as in your hypothetical unless they are mentally ill.
The idea that START was trying to convert this grieving seven-year-old would assume that he already knew that the child was not part of a Christian family and that START is stupid enough to think that this would be an opportune time to snare a vulnerable child. Neither of those things is in evidence.
Not all Christians are trying to convert the entire known universe. Probably not even most of them.
Start used the tools that he had to comfort a child. Someone needed to be comforting the child. I wouldn’t fault anyone of any age for using their own comforting words or language if it gave relief. There is time enough later for sorting through.
Actually, I think the mother was mistaken in setting the record straight at that very moment. The child wasn’t ready for that at age seven at a time of great sorrow. But I still don’t fault the mother because in her own grief, she may not have been rational.
I’m not saying that the mother should have lied to her child, but it should have been handled with more sensitivity.
And START wasn’t lying. He spoke what he believed to be the truth and he did it out of kindness and concern.
I am not a big fan of fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity. I’ve also become aware in this thread that some of the atheists here don’t have the best interests of the child as their first concern.
ITA. Start : I’m a mom with kids about your age and one who is 6. You should be proud that you reached out and tried to comfort this kid. It was a thoughtful and kind thing to do. I do not think you were trying to convert him. I also agree with Zoe–the mom, probably feeling overwhelmed and scared herself, did not handle the situation with alot of tact.
Please don’t let this experience stop you from reaching out to others, if so desired. I would caution you that a “some people believe this, blah blah blah or an I believe this”, before starting.
Not that I don’t agree with much of what you said here, but…
Grace and compassion? Gee, I missed that.
I didn’t say she handled it with grace and compassion, I said she handled it with *more *grace and compassion. Slight but significant difference.
Well said. And very true.
The kid’s seven. There’s plenty of time for him to explore what his beliefs are. I don’t fault the mom for her reaction—she’s grieving too—but I don’t think START did anything wrong. (A little short-sighted, but not wrong. I agree with others here who advise to start with "Some people believe . . . " next time.) He wasn’t lying, and he wasn’t uttering anything so radically revolutionarily “out there” that the kid won’t be hearing it a kajillion times over through his lifetime. It’s pretty damned near impossible to go through life without being exposed to the concept of an afterlife. The mom can’t fight that reality—what she can do is say that some people believe it, but she doesn’t. She can’t make the kid believe it as well, but she can use her guidance and judgment in raising him, as all parents do.
What START did was probably upsetting to her, especially in her present state, but it was a blip on the screen. The kid isn’t going to turn into a Christian just because of that one conversation. And if he does convert to Christianity, and refuses to budge? (Beyond unlikely, I know, just from one conversation.) Well, it would have happened sooner or later anyway. You can’t shield your kids from alternative beliefs, and you can’t guarantee that they’ll grow up to have the same ones that you do. It is folly to think you can even try.
I just read every single reply to this thread and I want to say “Thanks” to all those Dopers that realized I wasn’t trying to convert anybody but instead comfort a young boy who went through a tragedy and I will admit that calling the “Pictures and Memories” stuff, crap was probably not a good idea but like someone said I didn’t say it to the mother’s face.
Heaven can be a very vague concept and that is the way I gave it to Patrick, even the Agnostics that I know believe in Heaven.
I was telling Patrick about the universal kind of Heaven that you go to if your a good person not witnessing to him about the Christian Heaven you go to if you accept Jesus Christ.
And yes *at first * I couldn’t understand why his Mother would mess up a good thing in my opinion. The good thing was that Patrick was feeling better before she mentioned “pictures and memories”.