Parents Converting Children

This situation popped into my head recently, inspired by a dream that I had involving my mother converting to Islam when I was still in primary school...

Suppose you and your partner separated and they took the children/they just spend loads of time with the other parent even though you had custody of them. One day, your oldest comes home and says: "Mom/Dad! Dad's/Mom's converting to (insert any religion here) and I want to convert too!"

What would be your reaction to this? How would you respond? How would you talk to the other parent about something like this?

My initial reaction would be to wonder what could have possibly influenced the other parent to convert in the first place.

Then of course, I'm sure I'd have a rather... interesting conversation with the child's father to make sure that they weren't being pressured into it. And if I talk to the child and I'm satisfied that they truly understand what they are getting into and are happy about it, it wouldn't be a problem for me after that.

edited 18th Jan '12 9:28:21 AM by TropicalSnow

Depends on how old they are and how the child was being influenced by the other parent. I'm personally not a fan of religion, if someone can find faith when they are in their teen years instead of being indoctrinated by fairy tales, then go ahead and let them do it. it's their life.

Like it's been said, get some kind of understanding as to how the child found out about the religion and what the parent's role is in the child's conversion. I believe that a child can make decisions for themselves (albeit perhaps not well educated decisions), so if the child wants to do it, then I'm fine with it so long as there's no pressure with said conversion.

I'd probably be very angry at first because any person whom I would end up married to would have first consented that any children we would have would be raised secular.

Ultimately however, it would be my kid's decision and if they weren't be coerced into it, there wouldn't be much I could do.

If they've divorced you, I'd say any agreement to raise the child secularly has been thrown out the window and the most they're required to do is not to use the child as a weapon against you. Or indoctrinate them to hate you.

In any case, if they're a teen, chances are they'll have plenty of chances soon enough to buck the parent's desire for them to convert.

As long as the US has freedom of religion there's not much you can legally do about it, but frankly, I don't think I would care.

How do you think the child got their first religion?

I'd probably be more concerned about the current mental stability of my former lover than my child. That's how the kid's going to get a large portion of their beliefs anyway. The teen years are a more fruitful time to work with since that's when the kid actually starts thinking to an extent and begins their EVIL REBELLION. That and...she's not a fan of organized religion and has expressed that she feels little need for one in her life as her own. So her converting would be very worrying indeed.

Of course that's assuming that it's my current partner.

If it's not...This really depends on the individual situation I guess.

Now if they were deconverting the child and getting them to think that all religion is stupid and religious people are I would be incredibly fucking pissed. Much more so than if the kid became Catholic instead of Buddhist. Assuming my kid ended up Buddhist under my watch...In fact I might not be pissed in that case anyway. It really, really depends on the situation though. The person's actions, the kid's actions, the religion itself, the school of the religion, how they're introducing it to the kid...

edited 18th Jan '12 1:39:19 PM by Aondeug

All Parents want their children to join the One True Church.

There is a thread for Would you date someone from a different Religion?

And these are the consequences: while the Marriage is still active, they can agree to covenants such as the boys join the Father's church and the girls join the Mother's church or the odd numbered children versus the even numbers.

Rules can be applied for a real marriage, but when they divorce. Mother and Father will both try to convert all the children to their One True Church.

And then teenage rebellion set in.

edited 18th Jan '12 4:59:09 PM by Glyndwr

...but parents can't decide 'you get the daughters' minds, I get the sons.' That's not how people or, ideally, religion works!

Except when the parents aren't christian. Not all religions work like that.

My wife and I are actually followers of different gods but, being polytheists, that's really not a problem. I wouldn't really care if my kid followed my gods or hers, given we both of us accept the existence of the other.

A while back, my mom, an elderly couple we're close with, and I were talking about something along these lines actually. Apparently, traditionally the children in your standard nuclear family would take the religion of the mother if born to parents of two different religions. For the record, the elderly couple was a Jewish lady and an Italian man, and of their two children, one became Catholic while the other became Jewish (of their own volition), so they didn't exactly follow the tradition, but, then, they were breaking social norms by even dating in the first place when they first started going out.

While the Marriage is still alive, loving parents of different tribes and churches and classes will make reasonable arrangements how to raise the kids.

When the marriage dies and the love and trust die, both parents will cheat and bust the deal. That is what they are there for.

Parents converting their children? Might as well say that the sky is blue.

One of nature's most powerful urges is to Procreate. This isn't just in the biological sense, we share our beliefs, our hobbies, our ethics, and seek others like ourselves. Barring that, to make others like ourselves.

It's expected for parents to do this with their children, is it not? You teach what you know and believe in. Anything you feel strongly about, is worth telling your kids about.

I sense much bitterness in this one.

Sometimes marriages end on good terms, you know. Not often, admittedly, but it does happen.

That aside, not all religions have an insane 'one true church' outlook and sometimes practicing more than one at the same time is entirely possible.

edited 19th Jan '12 11:55:48 AM by InverurieJones

I'm with Barkey on this one.

I object to the notion of a child having a religion. I don't think a child can understand critical thinking properly before they're in at least their early teens, and before that, it's better not to needlessly expose them to the supernatural in any form except pure entertainment (like Santa and fairy tales and so on.) Even then, you're supposed to tell them at some point (even if they show signs that they already know it) that the magical stories are fiction.

I wouldn't object to my child (if I were ever to have one, which I probably won't) becoming religious; but it would have to happen when they can at least plausibly explain to me why things like ghosts and the Flying Spaghetti Monster probably don't exist. If they can't defeat (in a debate) the claim that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists, they're not mature enough to participate in a religion. If they become religious before that, I'd still try to do my best to teach them about critical thinking so that they'd at least have the tools to honestly examine their beliefs.

My girlfriend is religious (in a very vague sort of way,) and we've agreed that if we were to have children, they'd grow up without any religious indoctrination. Instead, we'd raise them to be rational, to practise critical thinking, and to be social. How well those lessons would sink in is, of course, not predictable.

They wouldn't be baptised, either, to avoid paperwork. Here are the scenarios:

• They get baptised (paperwork) and choose to leave the church later (paperwork.)
• The get baptised (paperwork) and never leave the church.
• They don't get baptised, but choose to join a church later (paperwork.)
• They don't get baptised, and never join a church (no paperwork.)

If we don't baptise our child/children, there's a smaller risk on unnecessary paperwork.

All of this is kind of moot, of course, because we're not planning on ever having children. But it's a good idea to talk stuff like this through in any case because then you won't have to do it later if you do choose to have a child, thus saving you more time to worry about other things.

edited 19th Jan '12 4:59:15 PM by BestOf

I'm sort-of with Best Of and Barkey here, despite being rabidly anti-theistic.

If my ex-spouse decided to attempt to indoctrinate my young child into a religion, I'd probably stop letting my child visit them. My ex-spouse would know that I have deep-seated personal issues with religion, and anybody that's willing to get at me through my unknowing child isn't deserving of visitation.

If my ex-spouse was trying to get my teenage child to attend a religious service, and my child seemed genuinely interested, I'd allow them to go. They'd be raised to think rationally, and they'd know about my irrational dislike of religion. But they'd also know that I'd unconditionally support them in their personal explorations of the universe, and that I wouldn't disown them if they wanted to try religion and judge it for themselves.

If my ex-spouse was badgering my teenage child into going to a religious service that my child did not have any interest in, I'd have a serious discussion with my kid about peer pressure, and about how they shouldn't let anyone push them into doing something that makes them uncomfortable.

I guess my planned actions are indoctrination seeing as I plan to take the child along with my partner to a wat on a regular basis for holidays. Any and all important services held within our small family would also be held in said wat. Though I wouldn't preach to the child, because I find that hideously annoying unless you know how to do it right, the kid would most certainly be raised with and taught Buddhist ideals. They probably won't be explicitly told that this thing is X BELIEF FROM Y THEORY OF Z CHART FROM SUTTA F, but they'll be taught such things in some form. Often times through example. Not killing things without good reason (annoyance or fun isn't a good reason) would be a rule in the home for example.

They wouldn't be forced into going to meditation classes or performing rigorous practices like taking the Eight Precepts however. They would, along with my partner, have to respect my taking the Eight every so often and going to said classes though. I don't feel it's right to force such things onto people. Hell many Buddhists don't take the Eight Precepts nor should they be forced to do so.

This is all something I've discussed with my girlfriend and she's okay with this from my understanding. She's told me that she likes how I manage to express Buddhism in most everything I do without coming off as a preachy, pushy asshole. While giving talks on the Dhamma in specific is something I do on occasion and something I feel is important I feel that it's more important to venerate it through every facet of your life in a subtle fashion and lead through example.

So I guess I plan to indoctrinate?

I would like to agree with Best Of, especially as my religious beliefs and those of my mother never were in alignment (starting at around age eight or so). The problem with this, however, is multi-fold.

1. It's a constitutional right for parents to force their religious beliefs on their children. Nobody is allowed to interfere with the parents' religious upbringing of their child barring severely extenuating circumstances. And quite frankly, interfering with someone's right to practice religion at all is, at best, to be done very carefully, and at worst it's plain wrong.
2. Children need to be educated in morality. Religion is the normal source of morality for religious people, and it's a fairly good teacher of morality for middle-of-the-road people (those who are neither inclined towards fanaticism nor towards philosophy).
3. As a corollary to #2, many religions explicitly do label religious faith as a necessary aspect of morality. Jesus Christ said that there is one road to Heaven and that's through him. Islam is less uncompromising on that front, but still mandates submission to the will of Allah as The Law.

I'm honestly more-or-less okay with (so long as the religion is itself functional, and nobody's suggesting banning Christianity in its entirety because of the idiots, or even banning Protestantism for that matter) parents teaching their religion to their children. I would like to legislate the child's right to reject their parents' religious teachings, but that law would cause more headaches than it would solve; fortunately, as children get older, they often learn just how little power their parents have over them.

edited 19th Jan '12 6:55:58 PM by Ramidel

As a side note (this is gonna be off-topic but I don't think it really matters it the post is such that it doesn't encourage a derail,) I'm always amused by references to Protestants are more conservative than Catholics. Of course, that's how it often is in the US; but I'm from a country where more than 90% of the people were baptised Lutheran (which is named after Luther and is the oldest Protestant church there is,) and our churches are soon going to start carrying out gay marriages and we've had female priests for ... well, decades. We (Finns; I'm not a Lutheran but even if I was, I'd say this) don't care about abortion, we don't believe that Hell exists, we don't believe that most of the Bible is literally true, and so on.

Not that 90% of Finns even are Lutheran; Agnosticism and Atheism are really common here, and something like 20% of the Lutheran Church's priests admit in anonymous polls that they don't believe in God.

Kids (and young teenagers), I believe are entirely unprepared, intellectually, emotionally and possibly most importantly, socially, to deal with religion.

I do not think that I agree with the "avoiding religious instruction prevents indoctrination" idea.

The point is, all children will initially take much of their outlooks from the ones of their parents. If you are atheist, even if you never say anything to your children about religions (and good luck with that, since they are bound to ask you something related to it sooner or later), chances are that they will initially take after you, at least for the beginning.

That's a very natural thing, and not a bad one at all.

Now, as they grow up, the children will hopefully learn to examine their own beliefs and come to their own conclusions; but, in my opinion, the focus should be on enabling them to do so, not on striving towards a mythical, entirely unattainable and in any case pointless religious neutrality.

A parent, no matter whether atheist or religious, should definitely teach their children about religions, and about their own beliefs on the matter. That's not indoctrination, that's teaching.

edited 20th Jan '12 9:31:00 AM by Carciofus

Yeah, obviously you have to educate your child about religion in the same way you teach them about other aspects of your culture. But like you would teach them about figures of speech or social customs or other stuff like that, you can do it without saying that "by the way, you are not to doubt this truth" and if there's a supernatural element involved, my opinion is that you ought to say "this goes against our current understanding of science and is thus very likely untrue," same as you would about the Tooth Fairy.

I must say, my family is definitely religious (the number of members of my extended family who took up some form of religious life borders on the ludicrous) and I cannot say I remember any occasion in which they said or implied something along the lines of "by the way, you are not to doubt this truth". There certainly exist Scary Dogmatic Catholic Parents somewhere, but mine certainly were not so — and on the other hand, I have little doubt that there exist Scary Dogmatic Atheist Parents too.

As for something going against the current understanding of science and being very likely untrue, well, obviously if a parent thinks this to be the case they will teach it to his/her children. But, to make an example of something in which we are (I guess) in complete agreement about factual data, a young-Earth Creationist parent quite plainly would not believe that YEC is almost certainly untrue. He or she would be wrong, obviously; but I cannot really expect they to teach their children something they do not believe in themselves, and this alone does not make them bad parents. Hopefully, their child will eventually learn better.

Also, most religious beliefs I know of do not really go "against science" in the least — they are in contradiction with scientific materialism, of course, but that's just a philosophy (and a fairly vulgar and shallow one, in my opinion, but that's probably best not debated here).

An atheist priest (who won't have much of an interest in preaching, lest he feels a hypocrite) and a secular, liberal and somewhat apathetic congregation (who probably don't want to be preached at that much either) looks like a match made in Heaven.

I imagine it might be the closest thing to a non-job short of an actual no-show job, and you need Mafia connections to get those .

edited 20th Jan '12 12:03:15 PM by SavageHeathen