[ahimsa]

Has anyone had this problem??? My inlaws are trying to push THEIR religion on our kids. We are atheists and do not plan to bring our kids up with a religion. Now, we feel very strongly about values and morals and our kids are already learning how to be a good person. However, they're not christians, and this upsets my mother in law. She is now buying them religious books, toys, jewelry, etc. in an effort to "expose" them to christianity. It really angers me because they're our kids and we should be allowed to raise them how we want.

What do we do???

Has anyone else experienced this???

THANKS!!!

[LisaCA]

we haven't but I can imagine the difficulty. I know that they disagree with my food fascism (only organic, very picky, dd's a veg and so am i) and many other things so I can just imagine.

I think this is one where your spouse has to step up to the plate and put his/her foot down. Otherwise you become the evil spouse. spouse can say that this is something that you'll expose your kids to, and not them. A united front is probably the only way to crush this, imho.

we decided to expose dd to religion, even though I'm truly a secular humanist. we go to church once a month, we had her baptised episcopalian, but for family reasons and to add to the worldwide anglican church. This way she can know about it but make her own decisions about church, whether to go, what to believe if anything. I think it surprised people that we would do this (not to mention getting up to go to church routinely), but I would be livid if someone were trying to impose their idea of religion on dd.

I wish you luck-it's a tough place to be.

Lisa

[ahimsa]

Lisa CA - Thanks for the response. We totally have the food issues too. We are both veg and my inlaws are total meat-n-potatoes type. They are quite baffled by our concern for things like animals rights, overuse of pesticides, injected growth hormones, overuse of antibiotics, etc. So we were already in the doghouse for being vegetarian. Now the religion thing! It's always something with inlaws!!!

[w8ting2badad]

Is atheism not a religion? I thought it was. anyways I belive you have every right to raise your children the way you want. And as a christian I think you instilling in them the morals, values and being a good person your halfway there to being a christian. :-)
Will you let your children, when they get older, to choose thier own direction? If so, why not expose them to other religions. If not, then ask your inlaws to stop. I dont want to come off confrontational, but religion is an important influence on a family and should be taken seriously imo and you should defend your beliefs!
Good luck.

[karenw]

I was raised a doubting Catholic. We lied to my Grandma often about which Mass we attended. It was awful to feel hypocritical as a child. Now we are Unitarian although we are not attending lately. I am sorry this is such a tough issue for you. Religion is such an emotional topic. For many people it is the organized religion part that is problematic, not learning about other or any religion. My daughter claimed she wanted to be Buddhist or Native American at age 4 because she liked the philosophies they espoused. As a non-religious person I do have a spirituality and morality that I feel needs to be passed on.
Our youngest is in RTC right now and I have a hard time that Church is offered at the RTC. As a lesbian family I do not want him getting the message that his family is wrong. Because he is a foster child still, the state mandates he gets to choose (ya right). Anyway I digress (sorry).
The way to impart these values is not your in-laws' choice. I agree with Lisa, DH has to help out with setting the boundaries.
Good Luck,
Karen

[spaypets]

In addition to having your DH talk to his parents, you can simply exchange what you can and toss the rest out. IMHO it's the same as if they were giving toy guns or anything else you found objectionable.

Speaking as a religious minority, it's pretty hard not to get exposed to Christianity in this country. Your MIL doesn't have to go the extra mile for that.

At some point, if she continues to disregard your wishes, you may have to drastically limit contact. I certainly wouldn't let them babysit, for example.

Good luck, I can certainly imagine how annoying the situation is.

[Howdy]

Here is a silver lining -- your kids will frequently run across proselytizing (I know I'm misspelling that, sorry!) people, so you can use the grandparents to role-model to your child how you handle that, and how they can handle it.

[ahimsa]

w8ting2badad - atheism actually isn't a religion. An atheist is just someone who doesn't believe there is a god or a higher power. There's no real dogma or anything. I don't feel that a moral person is half a christian. I have known some very compassionate christians and atheists, and I have known some very mean, hypocritical christians and atheists. Altough I think religion is definitely a way to teach kids morals, I don't think it is the only way. As far as letting my kids choose, I totally will. As a matter of fact, my husband and I are both vegetarians but we don't push it on the kids. When they are old enough and educated enough they will have to consider it for themselves. The same is true of religion. The problem is that they're not being exposed to all religions, they're being exposed to just one. I do agree though that we totally have to deal with this.

karenw - you bring up a great point about hypocrisy. I don't ever want my kids to feel that way. We never lie about our religious beliefs to anyone. Actually, we were prepared to lie, if we had to, to adopt, but it was a non-issue so we didn't. We too discuss morals a lot. We hear our kids repeating things that we say. The funniest one is that every so often my son will say "it's not nice to pull horses at Berry Farm". When we were at Knott's Berry Farm they had a stagecoach pulled by horses. The kids wanted to ride. It was a scorching hot day so I told the kids that it wasn't very nice to the horses to make them pull us around on such a hot day. Instead we watched the horses and now my son repeats his little phrase every so often! Too funny!

spaypets - I totally agree with the exchanging thing. We have done that with several gifts that we had issue with: the fishing game, the farm set, any Disney princess anything, books with only white faces, etc. However, the christian stuff is at their house in their toy box for the kids. It's not a gift to us. I did consider hiding it under the armoire when my MIL wasn't looking! Could take her a few months to find that! LOL!!!

Howdy - you totally have a point. They will have to learn to deal with those that want to "convert" them. We often have to. At some age we will tell her what we think about religion so that she has some armor against it. I just think she's too young now. My husband brought up the fact that it's hard to explain that people like to believe in things (i.e. god) to make themselves happy, when she still believes in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy! We did explain angels to her because that came up at school. We just told her that they weren't real, just like unicorns aren't real. We didn't apply any negative connotation to them, other than that.

[T&T]

First let me state that I believe that parents should raise their children as they see fit. Your parents and your in-laws had that opportunity to raise their children now it is your turn.

I do not have any real advice as to how to best handle the situation, but I did want to clarify something. Being moral is not the foundation for being a Christian. Accepting Christ as your Savior is what defines a Christian. The morality is like icing on the cake.

I realize that there are many who are offended by people who try to "push" their religious beliefs on them. I myself am a Christian and I have friends that are not. If a time arises that I can share my faith based beliefs with them, I will seize the moment. I do not try to push my faith on them, I simply share it with them. What they chose to do with the information is entirely up to them.

One final point, and I am not sure if this will help you understand your relatives motiviation, but Christians are called to share their faith with others, including non-believers. You may not like what they are doing, you may not agree with it, but it is a part of who they are, it is part of being a Christian.

By nature people are diverse and so are their beliefs and idologies. I may not agree with other people, but I do my best to respect the fact that diversity is what makes life so darn interesting. Religion is one of those things that garners very strong reactions, whether it be positive or negative. You can be an Athiest, I can be a Christian. Luckily we live in a country that embraces the ability to voice our points of view.

Tracey

[SadieAnn]

I'm sorry you are going through this. For your family it is in-laws pushing religion, for another family it's something else. So it often goes with in-laws. I hope your in-laws also bring some good things to your children!

I also wanted to "ditto" the post of T&T. I am a Christian and was basically taught that if a person has faith but doesn't "do something with it" through deeds, actions, words, then we are not doing what Christ asks us to do. Some religious denominations or individual Christians really take that to mean getting out there and telling the world about Christ. For me personally I handle myself much as T&T. When the opportunity is there I am thrilled to share my belief with another. But I don't push myself on others, and have a diverse network of friends.

Recently my own mother-in-law told me about her brother who has strayed away from Christ. Raised in the same Catholic family she is shocked that at the age of 83 he is no longer attending Church. She told me she believes Christ is calling her to "get her brother back to God"! (I was THRILLED to encourage her.... if she's busy with him... she'll be more inclined to focus less on us! LOL!) Good Luck!!!!

[LisaCA]

have to agree: christianity has no lock on morality. many other religions and those that express no religion feel very moral and ethical and act accordingly.

part of the problem about being called to "share your faith with others" can be perceived in many ways, not necessarily as a positive or welcome event. This is where the conflict comes in.

one of the ways we introduce a variety of religions to dd is that we have books that have kids from a variety of religions. we have calendars sent to us from unicef and others that have kids of all ages, from all parts of the globe, some veiled for instance. When dd is older we'll take her to a few different christian services so she can see what they're like (episcopalian is so very diff from baptist services ), we'll take her to synagogues and mosques, and other religious places and we'll travel the globe hopefully so she can meet all sorts of people. the one message I do not want her to get is that one religion has the lock on truth. I think that's the most disturbing thing about having a relative or whatever push a particular belief.

ahimsa, it's harder if all the stuff is at their house. you'll either have to get them to put it away or not go over there til the kids are old enough to comment on what's being said.

my sympathies ahimsa, it's a difficult one.

[Lexie]

We have the EXACT same problem ....with both sides. My DH's family are sort of ( my words) fundamentalist atheist. They are not just atheist....they are very passonate about it and really don't think that anyone else could possibly feel any other way ( unless you think the world is flat). They are all scientist...I completely understand how they feel. DH is Buddhist in that he is an avid reader and follower of teachings of Buddha. My family are religious Christians. I am sort of a non-denominational Christian ( Unity), but really believe more in the importance of knowing all religions as a way of understanding different cultures in the world ( as opposed to believing any of the doctrine, which I cannot really say that I do). Well, the philosophy of Unity is pretty close to where I am spiritually......

anyway....My DH's family would be shocked to find out that my DS has ever been to a church. My parents cannot believe that my DS doesn't know anything about church. I do let my parents bring DS to church when they are visiting just like I allow our nanny to teach DS prayers from Islam. My DH has a children's book that explains some of the teachings of Buddha and he reads that to DS. I am not sure what DS thinks about religion in terms of what he is ( probably thinks he is Moslem...but I really don't know). He also loves Ganesh, but he really doens't know much else about Hinduism.

My only dilemma is that I do believe there is an important cultural lesson in religion. I am AA and in my community the church is very central to culture. The music, songs, preaching style etc., are all ways that we express our culture and right now DS knows nothing about it. I don't want to teach something I don't believe in so going to church every week ( one that would provide the cultural thing) would be difficult for me ( and of course the in-laws would disown us for being so backward).

I have no solution----I just wanted to say that I understand.

In the end---do what you believe--
Lexie

[spaypets]

Ahimsa--I agree with Lisa, that the situation is tougher if the toys live at your MIL's house. Then, truthfully, I kind of think you don't have a right to really say anything because it's her turf. I think though, you are within your rights to bring more acceptable toys and books and discourage the playing with the prostletizing stuff.

Regarding Christians' obligation to share their beliefs with others, I can only say as a Jew, that "sharing" has taken sinister forms throughout history: the Inquisition, pogroms, forced conversions, child stealing, blood libel, murders etc., etc. So, while Christians may think they are sharing "good news," to me, in the historical context of my people, it's simply threatening and really, really, deeply offensive.

[numbr1dbcksfan]

As always I think Lisa is WISE.

A few weeks ago I had an issue where my daughter was teased at school for not being a Christian (by some hidieous little girl who was obviously not ACTING like a Christian ) And we talked about it all.

I used to be Lutheran and she and I attended church regularly so she has been exposed to it. And even though I no longer have any beleif in the foundation (father, son, holy spirit) I do think that there are great morals at the end of christian stories.

So anyway.. my daughter and I talked about it and she defined the bible as "Historical Fiction" (she is so smart) and we talked about taking the peices out of it that were true and separating them from the story.... but mostly just reading them as a story with a moral at the end (like a fable). There are things in the bible that actually happened and there are things that are highly metaphorical... I dont think that there is anything "wrong" with exposure..... I would just talk to your daughter about different people's beliefs and just because someone else believes it-- that doesnt make it true... Is there an easter bunny because someone believes? No... but our children are exposed to it... it is all how you spin it. If your Inlaws are touting "god is Good" then I would prime your daughter for that by saying that some people believe in God and the story goes like this....


Does that make sense?? I mean... the kids are going to be exposed to it their whole life... and IMO the best way to get them to embrace our beliefs is to expose them fully to others...

I tell my daughter all the time that if she wants to believe in that stuff (God...etc...) then she can... but she gets caught on the logistics of it, too.. lol

I wouldn't call us atheist... more agnostic really.. there may be some kind of a supernatural being out there somewhere.... but I dont think it is in the Christian God capacity.


Anyway... ramble ramble.... my short advice (lol) is to just not fight them and reach your kids in a stronger way-- first!

[LisaCA]

the fundamentalist atheists are as scary as the born again vegetarian/vegans . the polite thing is to just keep it to yourself .

lexie, we have the same problem. both dh and I were baptised episcopalians and if you've been to a high service you know they're nothing like my dad's black southern baptist church. We were definitely cut off from the cultural aspect of the black church by going to episcopal services and never attending baptist services. Still, we survived and thrived, reading about how the church was central to the black experience but not experiencing it that way ourselves. finally decided I'd find my own definition of blackness. I think that our generation and the next will find their connections to the black church as defined in the 50s and 60s diminishing and will redefine spirituality for themselves and that definition will include buddism and many other religions. And hey, there's always grandma/grandpa/aunt/uncle to smack some sense into us