Well, you gotta admit, the thought of one’s child becoming a Republican is pretty off-putting.
My daughter, who is in her 30s, recently told me that she’s Christian. I’ve been an atheist since before she was born. Since we were both adults, we handled it in a mature, adult fashion: we rolled our eyes at each other. Then I gave her a couple of pieces of jewelry that my mother had given me long after she knew I was an atheist, a cross and a crucifix, and my daughter was happy to get these…not because the items are valuable (though they are, 18K gold), but because I accepted her decision. Even when she was a grade-schooler, I let her go to church if one of her friends invited her and she wanted to go. Well, I wouldn’t let her go to just ANY church. We’ve got a lot of “YOU’RE ALL GOING TO HELL IF YOU DON’T REPENT RIGHT NOW!” churches around here, and I wouldn’t let her go to those. But I let her go to most of the moderate churches, I just made sure to talk to her afterwards about it.
The OP says he’d been skipping Mass & Bible study for over a year. Somehow his little brother discovered his Atheism & tattled. If he wishes to be treated as an almost-adult, he needs to talk to his parents about his lack of faith. Calmly, adult to adult. Not just drop it on them & leave the room in a snit.
And, although I find the ruder responses to his plight quite, umm, rude–he might get more uncritical sympathy on a board for teenagers. Unless he runs into some Born Again Bible-thumpers, who will make his parents seem quite moderate.
To the OP, Oakminster is just kinda bitchy with delusions of bad-assery, don’t put much stock in what he said. He has visions of being a warrior or something, which is weird, because he’s pretty much an evil version of that chicken lawyer from Futurama.
But included in that responsibility is the obligation to use your best judgment in raising the little whelps. If going to church is part of the parents program, then your best hope for ending the attendance requirement is to turn 18 and start paying your own way.
I have the opposite problem, OP. I’m the atheist parent of a newly born-again Christian teenager. It’s not working out very well between us right now. Perhaps we can work out some kind of exchange program? Speak to your parents and get back to me. He’s not Catholic, but six of one, half dozen of the other, right?
They aren’t forcing the OP to attend church. He quit going a year ago, apparently without any sort of protest on their part. It’s not clear what “Kicked me out of the house while they were at church” even means.
I mean, the parents may not have reacted well to what was apparently very upsetting news for them, but there’s no evidence that they are intending to do anything other than make it clear to the OP that they think he is wrong, they wished he believed otherwise, and they are worried he is making a mistake that will someday have dire consequences. I’m not seeing that as the most terrible parenting possible.
All you need do is attend church a couple of times, to completely throw then off their game. Definitely worth it, in my opinion.
Consider you’re doing some traveling out of high school, get to go and see other lands and cultures. If, in India, your new Hindu friend wants you to attend his temple, of course you go. And of course, while not a believer, you are both gracious and respectful of his.
Now try manifesting a little of that for your parents!
Seriously though, go talk to the priest tell him you are having doubts, but your parents want to force your attendance, and it’s only making it worse. He’ll tell them to lighten up, I promise.
I am not at all sure what the note said. The OP was pretty garbled. I can see some version of “we are your family and we love you and want what’s best for you” being twisted into the worst possible light.
Well sure, we can go with the actual quote provided by the OP, or we can just invent a new quote entirely out of whole cloth to inpute the meaning that we would prefer.
Deeds, not words. The note may or may not have been snippy, but it was attached to food that they picked up especially for him. Bad parenting would have been a note slid under his door to the effect that only good, practicing Catholics in that family get delicious, steamy-fragrant Chinese food.
Well,according to the OP it didn’t say " You are not part of the family" ( that would be the meaning *you * prefer) . The actual quote from the OP ( whether it’s an accurate quote of the note is a different issue) is "“Here’s some food. Please thank the Good Lord, As my family and I do every Day”. It may have meant that the OP was not part of the family or it may have been poorly worded and mean no more than “as the rest of the family and I do”.
So far, it seems that some people think the kid should go to church, and some people think he shouldn’t, but everyone is in favor of some Chinese food.
Have we found the solution for World Peace in our time? Is it fried rice and beef with broccoli?
