SWMBO is Catholic, in-the-vein. She forced the kids to go to church. They hated it.
I’m agnostic. I simply waved bye-bye to them as they argued their way out to the car and then enjoyed a couple of hours of peace and quiet in the house.
Not a parent.
My mother’s rebellion against her parents took the form of going to Mass every day before school. Grandma would go on specific feasts, Grandpa only for social reasons (and piss on everybody’s parade if he could). When Mom needed a Good Behavior Certificate from her parish priest (Catholic Spain c. 1954) to apply for Teacher’s School, he wouldn’t give her one because he couldn’t remember ever seeing her with her parents. She said “they don’t come and the certificate is not for them.”
She still expects us to attend Church, and to do so at her convenience. The notion that one or more of us may have gone to Church without her having seen us just doesn’t get through (despite repeated hammerings using such subtle tools as a whole convent of Clarisas).
Dad wanted us to attend Church but more in the way of considering it was the best thing for us and wanting the best thing for us. He never tried to control whether we did, even when I was 8 or so and going to Children’s Mass on my own. It was always Mom who had a problem with me whenever I had a problem with That Idiot Of A Priest or some such (seriously, I’ve heard him described as “he’ll go to Heaven because children go to Heaven and he’s got the mental ability of a 2yo”).
The Nephews are still very small, so the issue hasn’t come up yet. Their school has weekly Mass (non-Catholic students can ask for an exemption, although some don’t) for each class group between 4th and 10th grades. Many churchgoing parents in my brothers’ circles reckon the limit is about 14yo, the same time when teens have to consider whether to get Confirmed or not.
Not there yet with my children, but I chose “middle teens” as the best fit - I would not force a child who had thoughtfully considered their beliefs and decided that church was not for them to attend (no matter what the age, but I’d guess that they’d be mid-teens before the thoughtfully part would properly apply), but I’d need to be convinced it wasn’t just to get a longer lie-in on a Sunday morning.
I can just picture it! Tell me, are your kids grown now and do they go to church on their own?
I’m not a church goer, basically stopped in my teens. Entered into a mixed faith marriage (RC/CRC) and neither of us had attended church as adults so we never got back in the habit. Now I would’ve been open to the CRC, until I learned of that denominations intense dislike of Catholics and Jews, that sorta shocked me when I heard these religions openly mocked in a CRC sermon.
No way will I attend any small town church near me, regardless of denomination, too conservative, close minded and shallow. Now there was one newly ordained pastor at the Methodist church I had heard about it, but before I got there he had moved on to a liberal church 90 miles away. And I won’t travel more than 10 miles on Sumday morining to hit church services. So we don’t go…I don’t home church either. And I won’t put my kids on the “Sunday Bus” to go to services out in the country church with the true believers either.
Huh? I am CRC and our denomination does not “dislike” Catholics or Jews. I think it’s funny that RC/CRC is considered ‘mixed faith’ since to me both are Christian, which is one faith. ‘Mixed denomination’, yes. Maybe you heard a bad sermon? But it is certainly not a denominational thing for the CRC to speak badly of Jews or Catholics. In fact I was always taught how our faith came from the Jewish faith - my kids learn about many Jewish traditions in Sunday School.
Growing up I was required to attend church twice a sunday until I got to college. I stopped going for a while, now my husband and I belong to a church we love. Our kids are little now but I don’t really intend to force them to go when they get older. We already have open talks with them about God and faith. “Force” will never come into play. I think it is normal and even good for people to question their faith and what the church teaches. I think people that never question faith or the church don’t examine it very closely. I also think sometimes people throw out everything about God and faith because of a bad church experience, which is too bad.
I lived part-time with my father, and part with my mother. I was forced to go to church every Sunday with my father, until I went to live solely with my mother at age 16. I was occasionally forced to go to church by my mother, but not consistently so. There wasn’t a particular age limit involved; she was just flighty. I have never been a believer and disliked it, and long ago vowed that no (hypothetical, at this point) children of mine would ever be forced to go to church once they were old enough to be left alone for a few hours. I’ll do my best before that, but for practical reasons, I’m probably not hiring a sitter on the occasions that the rest of the family goes to church.
Our kids are young (5 and 4) and enjoy going to church with us, but who knows what will happen when they get older. Fortunately ours has thriving youth groups for jr high and high schoolers, so I hope they will stay engaged.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t make them get involved in the youth activities if they didn’t want to, but I’ll probably insist that they come to church with us each week as long as they live with us. When they go off to college or move out, they’re on their own and can make their own choices.
I don’t have kids yet and am an atheist, but growing up my mom told me I had to attend services as long as I lived with her. She would make me go to church even when she didn’t go herself.