Great majority of answers seem to come from non-religious people, so answering hypothetically, or from the other side of the equation (what their religious parents did) or observing third parties.
Maybe not the best kind of question to ask on a predominantly (I know, not uniformly) anti-religious forum. Why in the world would you urge your kid or anyone else to participate in something you think is false, a joke, harmful, etc? I don’t think it’s very meaningful to answer a question like this hypothetically.
My wife and I have always gone to (Catholic) Church as we did when we were kids. We brought our kids while they were home. Oldest started refusing to go in HS IIRC. That wasn’t the only or necessarily even principal source of friction with us at the time though. We get along fine now, but only Xmas and Easter church, which I find regrettable but we don’t argue about it. The middle one still goes sometimes, both are in mid 30’s. The youngest was more devout than we, but a difficult personal experience (suicide of a SO) upset that, even though not directly related. Fortunately things are much better now, but the no more Church aspect might be permanent it seems. Still spiritual though. All are now of ages way beyond us ‘telling’ them to do anything, but I urge the ones that don’t go to keep reconsidering it. In a way and to an extent that doesn’t get in the way of excellent relationships I feel I have with them, which is very important to me to maintain.
For answer ‘when we deemed them old enough to refuse’ which could also be ‘other’.
Pretty much the same experience for me when we were kids ( mid-70s ). Parents went to church only on easter or whenever. We all had to go to sunday school till the end of 9th grade, and then get confirmed. My mother implied it was good for us and just being in church would somehow add a “good” shine to us, I guess through some sort of spiritual osmosis. I figured it was just BS so that my parents could enjoy a kid-free sunday morning.
Confirmation/affirmation of baptism is supposed to be the point at which Lutherans are responsible for themselves in religion. So my kids could have stopped going before being confirmed. They didn’t, but they could have. They are both grown up now, but both attend church and believe and make the effort to live out their faith.
When my parents got married at an absurdly young age, my father was a supposed Catholic and my mother was another religion. She had to sign a paper swearing any offspring would be brought up Catholic. So when I was 8 or 10 or so, my grim silent father took me to the local Catholic church where we sat in silence and drove home in silence. After half a dozen outings, he said, ‘you know where the church is so you can walk up there on Sunday.’ So I walked up there on Sunday alone, and sat there, and walked home alone. Let’s just fast forward through all the shittery, the mean nuns, the interminable Religious Ed, the jumping through hoops to get First Communion and then Confirmation. At age 15, I. Was. Done. And haven’t been in a church except for weddings and funerals for the next five decades. No one cared or said anything, my mother was totally out of it (my religious instruction)
. She took me to her church now and then where I nearly choked to death on clouds of incense and hours-long services! Dodged a bullet there! :eek:…I have, oddly, been thinking about going to some Catholic church somewhere for one last confession before I shuffle off this mortal coil. Just to be on the safe side
I’ve never insisted but let him opt in. I think I took him to 4 church services, and only 1 was mandatory as part of him being a child and should have that experience, the others were more of obligation and we needed to take him with us. He has a wanting to know God drive though he is not happy with much religion.
Apparently it’s now only two hours, which is upsetting some members about how soft it has gotten.
I’m older than you are. The three hour block was actually a reduction in time from the previous system which involved up to four hours or more(?)of meetings from early mornings through afternoons, with at least one trip home in between for lunch.
We had absolutely no option of not attending well we were living at home. I finally quit Mormonism in my mid-20s.
We’ve done nothing with our kids. My wife occasionally calls to one of the local temples and takes the kids. However, there isn’t really any instruction there it’s just a few prayers.
It sounds fine if you’re on board with what is happening in the church. My in-laws seem to really enjoy it, as you do. On the other hand, how about an hour a week listening to someone preach things you find ridiculous? Once or twice is interesting as an intellectual exercise, but week after week would drive me insane.
My parents let us stop going to temple when my oldest brother was reaching bar mitzvah age. He was “strong willed” and bluntly refused to participate any more. The parents figured out if they couldn’t drag him there any more, they shouldn’t drag the rest of us either. I was about 8, and haven’t been back since.
My kids weren’t given the option to go to any type of church. It frankly never came up. When they were old enough to know that churches existed, my oldest was curious and went one time with her aunt. She liked the singing, but never asked to go again.
Wait… does your wife know your kids don’t believe in God, but she still insists they be confirmed?
I joined the Catholic Church this year after 40+ years as an Evangelical/Charismatic Protestant.
I always figured if I married & had kids that we’d attend church as a family until they graduation high school.
Neither happened, but anyway, if the kids really did not believe in God, I would never insist they go through any ceremony
in which they lie about it because it was expected at a certain age.
(I now consider myself an Evangelical Catholic or Catholic Evangelical, kinda post-Charismatic, and I don’t regret those years as a ECP at all, it was just time for me to join the Mother Church of Western Christendom.)
That’s what happened to me.
I lived with my grandmother when I was a teenager and she felt strongly that we needed to be in church every time the doors opened. Over time, I went from being a questioning kid to figuratively having to be dragged kicking and screaming. (Okay, even literally once or twice).
I once said to her, “That’s the way! Ram it down my throat with a stick, and I’ll love it!” My mother said to Grandma, “She’s right, you know…”, but Grandma was adamant.
The church issue was definitely a factor in my leaving home (which was a bad decision made for various stupid reasons).
IMHO, the reason for this is that some Christian parents/grandparents cannot recognize the difference between being Christian on the outside and Christian on the inside. They think that if you enforce the outward symptoms (reading the Bible, going to church, praying, abiding by certain behaviors or expectations,) that the inward change will happen accordingly. When in fact the exact opposite often happens as a backlash. And then, when the children do rebel against Christianity, these parents/grandparents think, “This child is rebelling in spite of how hard we have dragged him/her to church,” never thinking, “this child is rebelling **because of **how hard we dragged him/her to church.”
It’s like forcing someone to sit down and watch three hours of baseball every week whether they want to or not. Sure, it might convert them into a baseball fan, but then it might also make them utterly hate the sport.
I grew up in a home where exhibiting the outward signs of Christianity was basically non-optional. It didn’t make me leave the faith, but it certainly did not help.
No; as I’ve said, the church I was forced to attend was a Mormon one. I did mention attending a UU church once, voluntarily, as an adult, and that the experience creeped me right the fuck out.
I don’t actually recall how long the UU service was. I did only go once.
Well, there’s the minor detail that it would probably creep me right the fuck out. There’s that.
Because we’d believe it important for the family to attend together, to at least be present in the community. They may still end up getting something out of it (plenty of teenagers openly scorn school but end up getting something out of it). We’ve had a number of kids who weren’t really into most of service (they’d read books or manga during it), but would enjoy hanging out with everyone afterwards during fellowship time. When they get to adult age, they can make a decision to not participate in family time.
This again sounds like forcing something down kids’ throats, wishfully hoping for the best, and then washing one’s hands of the responsibility when they dislike it.
If they dislike it in the end, they dislike it. But we’d think there is value in simply being there.
No. As stated it’s family time.
Kids are forced to do family time things for all sorts of things. I remember having to go visit relatives every other month. I hated it. I realize the importance of it now (and wish I did make more of the opportunity to be with those great-aunts who have passed away). Some kids are forced to turn off their devices for family dinner time every night. There were plenty of things I was forced to do for family time (and religious services wasn’t one of them, fwiw).
If it’s anything like any church service I’m aware of, it’s incredibly weaksauce family time. Sit next to one another, don’t interact, listen to some dude talk. (Or don’t listen, ignore the family, and read something more fun.) Then afterwards maybe break up into separate meetings where the family isn’t together at all.
I find it hard to credit “family time” as the real reason you want to drag your kid to this particular meeting.
(For the record, I feel “watching a movie together” to also be incredibly weaksause family time, with the only salvation being what you do when you’re not watching the movie, before or afterward. And if the person you’re with hates every part of the ‘movie’, that bodes ill for the after-‘movie’ discussion.)
In my experience, when a kid is at a “family time”-type event, they’re not usually allowed to ignore everybody and read. If that’s happening at church, then it’s probably not family time - the only plausible explanation is that you expect them to get stuff out of the experience by osmosis (or divine intervention, I suppose).
