Right now, M is very much a four year old. Or maybe she is a 15 year old trapped in a 4 year old’s body.
This stage she is in seems to be characterized by two distinct features: 1) the endless need to debate every single fucking thing I tell her or ask her to do and 2) saying funny things that prevent me from strangling her for doing #1.
Lately, M has been very interested in both god and where babies come from*. She is trying to figure both of them out. s a former Planned Parenthood employee, I have no problem discussing how babies are made, but the god conversations really throw me for a loop.
Mr. A and I have different religious beliefs. Mr. A apparently believes in god and considers himself to be a Christian. I think this is funny, because I have only known him to go to church one time since I met him and that was under duress (forced by MIL).
I do not consider myself to be a Christian, though I did go to church with my grandparents when I was young. I suspect my parents sent me to church so they could have sex on Sunday mornings, but I can’t confirm it (nor do I wish to try to confirm it with any of the parties who may have been involved), but the evidence supports my theory.
My current lack of religion inclues some sort of religious-y spiritual beliefs that fall closer to buddhist religious philosophy than anything else. Though, whenever I take the Belief-O-Matic test, it says I am closer to being a Unitarian or a liberal Quaker.
Anyway, there is no real conversation at our house about religion. I suppose Mr. A and I need to sit down and figure out how we will discuss this with the girls, because clearly M has heard about it elsewhere. Though the details seem to still be pretty sketchy.
Conversation with M earlier this week:
M: Mama, I am playing baby Jesus!
Me: Ok.
M: I am rocking the baby Jesus. Who will be her father? Baby Jesus needs a father!
Me: uh (sidestepping the father of Jesus question)…so baby Jesus is a girl?
M: Yes.
Me: Oh. Ok. Uh, why don’t you pretend to be her father?
M: No mommy. I am the MOMMY. Mama, when can we go to church?
Me: Uh….where did you hear about church?
M: We went to a church for (My younger sister’s) wedding. I liked the pretty crowns. We can go to church and wear crowns too. Like a princess!
(My sister was married in an Orthodox ceremony. My family, when we did have a little religion, were not orthodox. We come from solid Methodist stock.)
Later that same evening.
M: Daddy, let’s play baby Jesus!
Mr. A: Huh?
M: You know, like on Gilmore Girls? Baby Jesus lost her arm because it was stolen. Let’s play that. This can be our church.
Mr. A: ????
Yes, I think Mr. A and I need to come up with a God strategy. I wonder if they have a God for kids’ whose parents don’t necessarily belief in god or practice any kind of religion story book.
*I am not afraid of the s-e-x word, but I don’t want creepy googlers to end up here.
Wait a minute! I thought 3 was supposed to be hard and 4 was easy?! Oh man.
We are totally going Unitarian… when the kids are old enough to break us of our Sunday morning laziness.
Har-har-har!
We just have mostly determined pouting over here.
We’re Unitarian, and I’ve heard that Unitarians are atheists/agnostics with kids.
They have a church where everyone can believe what they want, change those beliefs when they want, and search out their own beliefs. It is unitarian universalism. I am christian, hubby buddhist / confuciousist and it is a great church to raise our kids in. We’ve been going for 5 years or more. I’ll give you one snippet:
My 5 year old at dinner says “Mom, some people at our church don’t believe in God.” Me: “That’s right.” Him: “Some people do, like you.” Me: “That’s right, honey.” Him: “Some people have no idea.” Me: “Yup.” Him: “And that’s o.k. too.”
I was so proud of my little UU.
DS-L
Heh. My 6 year old daughter has been pressing the god and religions questions and issue for awhile here, too. I should work on this…particularly as my reactions to Christian-babble she has heard elsehwere and spits out are generally not very…tolerant? I wasn’t prepared for the questions and I certainly wasn’t prepared for her to take up a prayer before dinner because some preschool teacher had them doing it before meals (private preschool, not state-run). It’s like s-e-x talk, actually…I knew in my head the way I intended and wanted to approach it, but the actual question coming from my then 4 year old’s mouth really threw me for a loop. Anyway, I think the best thing I’ve said to her about the religious thing is in response to a question along the lines of “Is Jesus God’s son?” (clearly heard somehwere). I said “Well, some people believe that. Nana does. Those people are called Christians. Other people believe different things, like that there are many gods, and there is not just one way that is the right way.”
My personal bent is toward a general pagan path in that we celebrate solstices and stuff like that and I refer to a goddess if I talk about it at all, with a lot of Buddhist sensibilities thrown in, but I plan to start taking the kids to a Unitarian church next year, because I like their social focus and their tolerance for everyone’s individual beliefs and my daughter seems to be craving some community-style involvment of that nature.
Like on Gilmore Girls! Bwah hah hah!
Li mostly just asks Why. About everything. WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY.
Also she wants to know why she can’t pee standing up like Daddy.
gilmore Girls? Maybe you should let her watch Joan of Arcadia and just skip the entire conversation! Luckily for us, Dumpling is already well on her way to being a good jew, thanks to synagogue morning school. nothing like outsourcing I say!
we tried a bunch of churches, including UU. The ones Lionmom and I liked (liberal lutheran and episcopal) bored the teens, and the ones that they liked didn’t feel like church to us, so we kind of blew it off. Next year the twins are going to an episcopal preschool. More Christian stuff than we would have picked, but the school has EVERYTHING else that we looking for. and they are good people. I miss the community of being in church, even though I’m not a Christian anymore. The belief o matic puts me at neo-pagan. go figure.
I am sooo happy, I am not the only one! C is throwing me religious curb balls (and unacceptable behavior) for a while now! I take 3 over 4 any time…
But see the positive: At least M. doesn’t have a little package that she can grab in best rapper routine and end every argument with a the triumphant cry of “Peeee!”
i love it that she watches gilmore girls!
anyway, religion is also an issue in my house and it doesn’t help that my son’s daycare is part of a church. part of the reason we did that was because we want him to have a choice in his faith and to experience different ideas. so far he doesn’t talk about it….mostly because he is 2. but my husband doesn’t really believe in anything and i grew up in a pentecostal church as a child. we have attened services at the daycare’s church and surprisingly my husband wasn’t scared away but i have no idea what we will do when my son realizes what “chapel” time is at school.
Do a google search on Unitarian Universalism and parenting, or browse around in BeliefNet a little more. There are some good Q&A type resources for non-God God talk.
Parenting Beyond Belief just came out, and might be useful for its chapters on handling one UU/non-believer and one believer mixed-marriage parenting. There’s a website and a study guide and everything.
All I See Is Part of Me is a good UU/neopagan/Quaker take on the world if you’re looking for a picture book that lets kids see the natural, evolved world as a wonder-filled place.
All the UU stuff here is so funny. I was raised UU and I just started going back, mostly because of my daughter’s religious questions. But I felt immediately at home, and it was a relief to have a place where it’s accepted and supported that we are trying to be the best people we can be. This message gets lost in popular culture sometimes.
Honestly, four is hard, but it’s sort of the beginning of kidhood, I think. My daughter is six, and she still challenges almost everything, and she’s getting more sophisticated about it. But, she’s also developing a more sophisticated sense of humor, and she is hilarious. I do yell more than I used to and I’ve been feeling bad, but I think it’s possibly part of having an older kid who’s not so compliant? I need to take a survey of my mom friends.
If you find a book that helps with the god talk, please post about it. I am specifically thinking a “read to the child” type book. I have been looking for about a year and almost everything has a strong creationist bent–”and god made the flowers and god made the ground and god made you!” I want something much more in that spiritual and not exclusively Christian stance.
ohmygosh, I’m 100% “neo-pagan” or “uu” ! Alternatively, I’m 93% Mahayana Buddhist or Liberal Quaker. gadzookes! what the heck is a “neo-pagan” and how does it reconcile itself with an AngloCatholic?
We are having those conversations too and like you, I haven’t a clue as to what to say. I was raised Episcopalian but pretty much left church post confirmation. I’ve always been okay with “god” but that trinity/cruxification thing just sort of threw me. But when we had kids, I felt it best to go with what I knew so off we went to a VERY VERY liberal Anglican Episcopalian church. Meanswhile, husband the devout atheist has finally started attending this Zen center and is planning to take buddhist precepts.
Now I’m in a quandry as I STILL don’t get that crucifixtion stuff, the epis. church is bascially schisming over gays in the clergy, and the kids love the drums/bowing/ritual of the Zen Buddhist center [but NOT the sitting part, okay? Zazen is just not a kid thing, at least not MY kids] and we are moving to another city.
Do I look for another lefty anglo episcopal church? Do I give up on that and just find a good buddhist place?
Do I accept the commandment of the beliefnet quiz, declare myself a neo pagen and take to dancing naked in the backyard?
Decisions, decisions……………………
ps: and I hope I didn’t offend anyone by the reference to naked pagans dancing in the backyard. But we just watched “I Capture the Castle” with the kids and of course, there is the midsummer dancing ritual and the stepmother liking to be naked stuff and somehow that immediately came to mind…[PS Can you believe that movie got rated R!!!! just for having a naked woman in the screen for about 1 minute!!!!!]
sorry if any pagans were offended…..
I’m pretty clear on what I would like to impart to little Peaceful (“This is the only dance we dance;” if Sam Harris were a football team, he would be our football team; etc)–it is only since our move to the deep south, where the very best daycare centers have 8-foot-White-Jesus painted on the wall of his classroom, that I wonder if this will cause him undue stress.
I get Unitarian and Quaker when I take that test too. But the test is totally skewed to waht you think with your brain. I am an Episcopalian because the brain part is close enough to Unitarian or Quaker, while allowing for the occasional pretty crown. I say, let the kid be Orthodox if it’s crowns she’s after. Sometimes, practicing religion is just, well, fun.
One more UU chiming in. Their religious education is wonderful. Some UU’s believe in God, some don’t- sounds just right for your family. It has been perfect for us- I absolutely love attending the services- I enrolled us for the kids, but I have come to look forward to the services so much, I actually get up on Sundays thinking “Hurray it’s church today!!” (Honest!)
Tell her God was the father of Jesus and he created the world. When it wasn’t what he wanted he drowned everyone except for one family and all the animals… that somehow all fit on a single boat. Then, this family had sex with each other, which is called incest, and repopulated the entire planet.
Fast forward a bunch of years and the world goes to crap again. So, God (without the use of penis vagina sex as you learned in your little book) magically puts Jesus in his mom’s uterus. Jesus is born and tries to teach the world about peace and love but in the end is nailed to a cross which is called “being crucified”. The world goes to crap again and now Jesus is used as an excuse to bomb people. Finally, if you die without believing in Jesus or if you are gay, you will go to a place called “hell” where you suffer in horrible pain for eternity.
Ha ha ha! I love the comment above, and you should have seen my daughter’s face when I tried to explain Noah. I quickly said, “But that is not the way I see god! Um, I think god is nice and I don’t believe that god would do that.” Someone gave her a Noah’s ark as a present, and I was trying to tell the story, but it really is the stuff of nightmares.
That Gilmore Girls comment made me laugh out loud. M is officially my hero.
[...] M: Oh, like Mary. I can wear it when I play baby Jesus. [...]