July 12, 2006
It's a fine line between demonstrating to your children the absurdities of their grandparents' religion and teaching them to disrespect their grandparents.
It's a worry I struggle with every time my husband and I return from a vacation away from the kids. We have the world's best grandparents who love to spend time with my children. They are also extremely religious. Religion is part of their everyday, all-day, lives.
If it weren't for this, I would probably have a more balanced and objective approach to teaching my children about Mormonism and Christianity. But when the influence of religion on my kids is off-balance, so too must be my action against it.
Last month my husband and I came home from a trip to Mexico. It was Sunday and the kids had just gotten home from church with their grandparents. We have an understanding. The grandparents do not offer their religious beliefs to the little mushy brains of our children. But when we leave the kids with them on Sundays, they go along to church.
And then I spend the next week un-teaching the Sunday school lessons.
This time it was Blake's interest in the Book of Mormon that greeted us at the door when we arrived from our trip to pick them up. In Sunday school the kids did an activity where they raised their Book of Mormons at certain points in the song. Of course, my kids wanted to participate!
This stirred up immense curiosity for my eight-year-old advanced reader, Blake. During the worship service, he entertained himself with a missionary copy of the Book of Mormon placed near the hymnals. Always willing to seize a missionary opportunity, my kids' great-grandmother offered, "You can have that, Blake!"
My mother-in-law, who is more cognizant of our wishes than the great-grandmother, told Blake he'd have to ask Mom and Dad first.
We said, "No thanks."
It's a confusing matter. Our rejection perplexed my father-in-law. I want my kids to know about other religions. I want them to understand and even to some extent respect the traditions and beliefs of their grandparents and cousins.
But in our circumstances, in which we originally began raising my son as a Mormon, where he now goes to church at times and hears things we don't believe as if they are fact, where holidays and other get-togethers with the extended family always include a prayer and sometimes religious teaching and where the town we live in has a high Mormon population, I just feel the need to put up a wall. It's a wall we otherwise would not want there.
And this is where we walk the fine line between demonstrating the absurdity of our family's religion and showing our family disrespect. I want my children to respect their grandparents. But I don't want them adopt their beliefs.
The day after our return home I let Blake have one of our own Book of Mormons which we had stashed away in the garage. He carried it around for days. I had to make sure he didn't carry it into public places with us. I was concerned.
I said to him, "You know, Blake, I love to learn about other religions, but I don't actually believe they're true."
"Me, too!" he shouted. "I just think they're interesting to learn about."
I wasn't sure if I should believe him or not, but I took his answer as a potentially positive sign.
Later he told me that while reading the Mormon scripture in church, he came across a strange violent part. At that point, he said, he decided to shut the book and stop reading. He didn't think it was appropriate material.
Another score for our side! Maybe we are getting somewhere.
The next day he read as we drove to swimming lessons. He noticed a note in the introduction that said Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. Well now he was really excited. He had just experimented with the concept of translating when he decoded a language from his set of toys, Lego Bionicles.
He had something in common with Joseph Smith!
And here is where I had to straddle that line I mentioned before. I don't want my kids to think their grandparents are weird. But I do want them to know what is weird about their religion.
"Blake, I know the book says Joseph Smith translated it. And that is what I thought my whole life when I used to be a Mormon. But I later found out it was different than how they made it sound."
"Joseph Smith had this rock that he thought was a magic rock that could show him where to find gold. Have you ever heard of rocks that can do that?"
Blake started laughing at such an absurd thought.
"People used to pay him money to find gold for him. But of course, magic isn't real, and he was never able to find it. We know about this because some of those people sued him in court. We have the court records."
I almost cringed as I told Blake the story. Even though it's the truth, my family would not be happy hearing me tell it to my kids. They wouldn't like the candor with which I told it. They'd want me to give the white-washed traditional version.
"Later Joseph Smith gave up looking for gold," I continued. "Instead, he said he found a book made out of gold. He said he used his rock to translate the book into English. But when he was 'translating' it, he didn't usually even have the gold book with him. It was often in another room."
Blake was confused now. "How do you translate something when it is in the other room?"
"That is what makes the story so strange, Blake" I explained. "It's what they never told me. He stuck the rock in his hat, then he put his face into the hat, and he thought God was telling him what the golden book said. He wasn't really translating."
"That is weird," was Blake's comment.
I agreed.
But I worried he'd think his grandparents were weird for believing it. So he and I discussed the fact that not a lot of Mormons know much about that part of the story. We talked about how some Mormons are so convinced that their religion is true that even if they do hear that part, they don't really want to think about it.
I contrast these discussions with talk about how very intelligent and wonderful his grandparents are; it is important to separate the people from the religion. I guess that's the best I can do.
And perhaps, since their grandparents really are so wonderful, maybe I have no need to worry.
Noell Hyman writes for her blog, AgnosticMom.com. She has been blogging since August of 2005. Relatively new to the humanist landscape, Noell declared herself a humanist some time in the year of 2002 after leaving religion, specifically the Mormon Church. A stay-at-home mother of three young children, Noell's aim is to reach other non-religious parents who find themselves isolated in the struggle to raise a healthy family without religion. Noell wants to make "Agnostic Mom" a humanist and secular household name. Visit: www.AgnosticMom.com.
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