perfect_parent, posts by tag: religion - LiveJournal

When your kid asks you what being dead is, what are you going to say?

Personally I'm agnostic and have no idea what my religious views will be when I actually have children. I saw a few books that deal with death and dying for children, books like Cat Heaven and others, but the majority seem to be of a religious nature. Are there any books or resources that can help children in a similar matter that are not religous?

I don't want to raise my kid within the 'confines' of a particular religion.  


I want them to be free to explore a variety of religious beliefs without being told what to believe.  I guess my ideal is a sort of Sunday School program where they explore all the different religions in a way that explains what they are, the differences between them, their rituals etc. but doesn't put a "X is better than Y" spin on it.  


Then, as they get older, they may develop particular interest in one (or a few) religous groups, and choose to delve further into those. Or they may choose none at all.  Basically I want them to know there is choice.


For the longest time, I felt like I had no choice as I was born into Roman Catholicism, and went to Catholic school from JK through to gr, 10.  Only once I transferred to public school did I have the oppertunity to take a World Religions class, but then again, it was only one semester.


Now at 25, I am finally taking it upon myself to educate myself about different religions. Deep down, I have abandonned strict Catholicism (for a while actually), but haven't found that I really 'fit in' with any other groups (generally throught a lack of knowledge about them on my part - although I recently found one I'm very interested in...more research needs to be done).  I want to give my kid the oppertunity and the confidence to explore their options from the start.  I just need to figure out exactly how to do that.

There's an idea being tossed around that we shouldn't say things like "Catholic children" or "Scientologist children" and instead say "the children of Catholic parents" or "the children of Scientologist parents" - for example. Sortof like we wouldn't normally say "Republican children" or "Communist children".

In my case, they will be the children of atheist parents. I think it's important to reinforce this notion to children as they are simply too young to know for themselves which way to believe, both about religion and politics. Of course I hope they will come to believe as I do, but it is more important to me that they feel uninhibited in their search for truth and meaning, and know that their parents will love and support them in whatever conclusions they make.