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Post by Nimras on Jul 18, 2011 15:36:44 GMT -5
I think that while the child is young, the parents pretty much have a moral obligation to teach (or show via example and sharing) their own morals. Obviously if the parents hold to them, they're going to be working off of the base assumption that those morals are right, or at the very least, not harmful. If that means growing up as a vegetarian Hindu, or a family-round-the-BBQ atheist, than so be it. There's really no way I can think of that someone can raise their child without imparting their own morals -- short of giving the child away to someone else to raise or neglecting it at shocking levels.
As the child grows older, they may start to question those beliefs (either all or some) and the former child may end up as a vegetarian Catholic, or a meat-eating Hindu, or even a cheeseburger-eating atheist; and the latter child could grow up to become a vegan Seventh Day Adventist. Or they could grow up and have pretty much the exact same morals as their parents. While parents certainly help shape ones concept of morals, there are a lot of other influences too.
Though I can not but help when this topic comes up think of Sara. Sara was a girl I used to babysit when I was younger -- her father and my father had been friends since high school. Sara's dad was Catholic, while her mother was an atheist. Before Sara was born, the mom made the dad promise that he would never "force" their daughter to be Catholic, and that it had to be by Sara's choice. Every Sunday, Sara's dad would ask her if she wanted to go to Mass with him, and Sara's mom would offer to let Sara stay home and bake cookies/cakes/desserts with her. Sara always wanted to bake cookies.
The weekend of the 4th of July celebrations when Sara was 7, their neighbor accidentally hit Sara with his truck. Sara died instantly.
She never really got the choice to choose, and now her father has had to live with the guilt that he never, ever, took his daughter to Sunday school.
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Jul 18, 2011 15:39:45 GMT -5
*raises hand* So, can I ask a related question from the masses that won't turn into a battleground because it's one of those can-of-wormy topics? :3 Basically, how much should parents impose their own beliefs on their children? Basic things like morals and socially accepted norms go without saying, because that's what a kid needs to function in a society, but I'm thinking questions like religion, vegetarianism, political views, this sort of deal. Most developed countries have freedom of religion written into their constitutions but as a rule, Christian families produce Christian kids, atheist families produce atheist kids, Muslim families produce Muslim kids and deviations, while definitely existent, are most likely rarer than that rule. So wouldn't raising a kid after one's own set of beliefs curb their freedom quite a bit? After all, a kid who's been raised according to certain beliefs would need to go through a pretty radical rebel phase and inner turmoil of self-discovery to end up in some different set of beliefs and maybe defy their entire upbringing. Ooh. Good question. My response would be, from a pragmatic standpoint, it doesn't matter whether or not it's right for parents to impose their beliefs on their children, because it's going to happen regardless of what we as a society do. If we agree that parents shouldn't abuse their children (i.e. starve them, beat them, or neglect them), then we can at least try to enforce this rule by seeing to it that children who are known to be abused are taken away from their parents and raised in foster families. We can report cases of abuse, and pay taxes to support the police, the courts, and foster parents. But if we say that Christian parents aren't allowed to push their children to be Christian, that atheist parents aren't allowed to push their children to be atheist, etc. etc.... how on earth are we ever going to enforce that rule? I guess the only thing we can really do is make sure that young people have access to other, less biased sources of information such as the media. I'm in a university that's renowned for its journalism school, and while I'm not majoring in journalism myself, I've come to understand that the professional code of ethics in journalism is based largely on objectivity, presenting information from multiple perspectives so that readers are free to form their own opinions. I know quite a number of people - including myself to some extent - who have formed beliefs independent of what they were taught in childhood, and while this process was definitely not an easy one, having access to external sources of information helped. So, from a pragmatic standpoint, I'm for maintaining standards of objectivity in the media to limit the impact that parents' beliefs have on their children. Which actually led me to think about another related issue: school. Because a lot of what people believe is based on what they learn in school. So if a kid grows up in a very orthodox Christian family, for example, but then goes to a public school where he mingles with lots of other children from different backgrounds, he's going to have a wider sample of information to base his beliefs on than if he were to go to a private Christian school, or be homeschooled with other kids from similar backgrounds. But again, this area of influence on people's lives is harder to regulate than the media. |
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Post by Cow-winkle on Jul 18, 2011 16:02:59 GMT -5
*raises hand* So, can I ask a related question from the masses that won't turn into a battleground because it's one of those can-of-wormy topics? :3 Basically, how much should parents impose their own beliefs on their children? Basic things like morals and socially accepted norms go without saying, because that's what a kid needs to function in a society, but I'm thinking questions like religion, vegetarianism, political views, this sort of deal. Most developed countries have freedom of religion written into their constitutions but as a rule, Christian families produce Christian kids, atheist families produce atheist kids, Muslim families produce Muslim kids and deviations, while definitely existent, are most likely rarer than that rule. So wouldn't raising a kid after one's own set of beliefs curb their freedom quite a bit? After all, a kid who's been raised according to certain beliefs would need to go through a pretty radical rebel phase and inner turmoil of self-discovery to end up in some different set of beliefs and maybe defy their entire upbringing. I think it's impossible to avoid children being influenced by what their parents think. If the parents are vegetarians and they're deciding what to feed their child, their first instinct is probably going to be vegetarian meals. If the parents go to church every Sunday, it's convenient to take their kids to Sunday School. I think this kind of teaching is unavoidable, like it or not. I don't think it would be my place to ask religious parents to tell their kids "Please, consider quitting our religion and joining another one," but if the child finds it objectionable and is old enough to come up with a legitimate set of arguments as to why they shouldn't have to go to church, the parents should at the very least take their child's disagreements into consideration. I think the same is true of vegetarianism. In some cases, when religious parents find out their child doesn't believe in God, or goes against the teachings of a religion by being gay or dating or being friends with someone of another religion, the parents kick the child out, and I don't think that's acceptable. I also don't like children being referred to by their parents' religion. Calling a 5-year-old girl with Christian parents "a Christian girl" just seems like putting a whole bunch of unnecessary ideological pressure on them, like calling a seven-year-old boy with Marxist parents "a Marxist boy." As the child grows older, they may start to question those beliefs (either all or some) and the former child may end up as a vegetarian Catholic, or a meat-eating Hindu, or even a cheeseburger-eating atheist; a cheeseburger-eating atheist? Are we that endangered a species? (I kid, I kid...) On further thought, I think that, if I had kids, there are some things that I think I probably wouldn't let them do. If it looked like they were taking interest in a cult that was going to take advantage of them or hurt them in any way, I'd probably want to get them help, or at least know if they're suffering from any problem they're not telling me about that are causing them to turn to this cult. If they showed an interest in, say, Nazism or serial killers, I'd want to make sure that this interest is purely academic in nature. |
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Post by Komori on Jul 18, 2011 16:16:19 GMT -5
Well, it's all well and good to say, "If a child doesn't want to follow their parents' religion, then the parents should just let them go," if you aren't religious (or if your religion doesn't believe in a bad afterlife for the non-religious). But as a Christian, I'd probably have a hard time letting my child go and become an atheist/Hindu/Wiccan/whathaveyou. After all, I believe if you don't accept Christ as your Savior, you're going to Hell. So as a parent, I would want to do everything in my power to keep my child from going to Hell, which would include being persistent in regards to religion.
(Of course, you don't exactly accept a personal Savior through any sort of force, so it's not like making them skip soccer practice to go to church is a guarantee to saving their soul. XD; But still, I'd be persistent as heck, lol.)
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2011 16:21:56 GMT -5
Well, it's all well and good to say, "If a child doesn't want to follow their parents' religion, then the parents should just let them go," if you aren't religious (or if your religion doesn't believe in a bad afterlife for the non-religious). But as a Christian, I'd probably have a hard time letting my child go and become an atheist/Hindu/Wiccan/whathaveyou. After all, I believe if you don't accept Christ as your Savior, you're going to Hell. So as a parent, I would want to do everything in my power to keep my child from going to Hell, which would include being persistent in regards to religion. Sorry, I just had to post one last time. Thank you GLQ. Just a point I thought I'd make - if you show any kind of compassion, you automatically accept anyone who's ever preached it, including Jesus. That just seems fair, so that Christians don't have to worry about good people. (Besides, unless that rule is in place, the entire thing, to me personally, seems like tyranny. I just don't think any loving god is like that.) |
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Post by Nimras on Jul 18, 2011 16:27:06 GMT -5
I think we've all kind of agreed that with young kids, it's going to happen. It's when they get older that it really gets tricky. I was always raised with the "it's our house, therefore it's our rules" with my parents. If I was going to live with them, free of rent, than I was going to have to abide by their rules of no swearing, no smoking, no drugs, no pornography, no animal abuse, and church on Sunday. That lasted until I was 18 and I moved out. But when I moved back to Oregon and had to live with my parents again while I saved up to buy my house, it was quasi-different for a couple different reasons. 1) I was married. 2) I was paying rent. Many of the rules stayed the same: no swearing, no smoking, no drugs, and no animal abuse. Things that directly impacted them. And I agree that that's fair, because it is their house, and they could be comfortable there. But I got to make my own schedule. If I didn't want to go to church with them, I didn't have to. The issue of pornography never came up, but I assume that if I kept it quiet, they'd not make an issue of it.  Are my religious beliefs the same as my parents? No, not really. I'm also a vegetarian now, and was not when I was living with them. If I had been vegetarian growing up with them, I would have been required to supply my own food and cook for myself, but that's because it's really not fair for me to expect my mother two cook two different meals for my benefit, nor is it fair for me to expect everyone else to become vegetarian just because I'm one. My youngest sister still lives at home, and if she usually cooks for herself when the family is having fish because while my parents love it, my sister despises it. So she uses her allowance to buy chicken and will grill it herself. She still goes to church with my parents, though her beliefs are more in line with what our other sister holds -- I suspect that after she moves out she'll move down where our sister lives and start going to her church (Reasie lives about a 2 hour drive away, and the youngest sister is still license-less, otherwise she could go to church with my sister now and I don't think Mom or Dad would object) . For my parents, I think this is a good system. While we may not really see eye-to-eye on a lot of stuff, as long as I have good reasons to support why I believe the way I do, they're comfortable with the idea that I'm an adult and have the right to believe whatever I want. But they also believe that they have the moral responsibility to do right with my youngest sister and enforce the their-church-every-Sunday routine until she is an adult -- at which point her decisions are on her own head, not theirs. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2011 16:48:59 GMT -5
Well, it's all well and good to say, "If a child doesn't want to follow their parents' religion, then the parents should just let them go," if you aren't religious (or if your religion doesn't believe in a bad afterlife for the non-religious). But as a Christian, I'd probably have a hard time letting my child go and become an atheist/Hindu/Wiccan/whathaveyou. After all, I believe if you don't accept Christ as your Savior, you're going to Hell. So as a parent, I would want to do everything in my power to keep my child from going to Hell, which would include being persistent in regards to religion. Sorry, I just had to post one last time. Thank you GLQ. Just a point I thought I'd make - if you show any kind of compassion, you automatically accept anyone who's ever preached it, including Jesus. That just seems fair, so that Christians don't have to worry about good people. (Besides, unless that rule is in place, the entire thing, to me personally, seems like tyranny. I just don't think any loving god is like that.) Oh sheesh. ^^; Let's NOT bring religion into this more than is needed, 'cause honestly, if Sae was upset before, there's gonna be many more people left ruffled if that happens. Basically, derailment alert! Ye potential repliers, DO NOT TRESPASS! Aaaaaaaanyways, on to Sarnpinions! I kind of think along the same lines as Komori. To a Christian, the most compassionate thing we could ever do is to spread the good news of Christ, but I know that's the case for just about every other religion, because otherwise they'd've died out. x'D But that still doesn't, to me, justify indoctrination because, as Komo also pointed out, choosing to accept Christ fully and follow Him is something that has to be done with sinscerity of heart, and you simply cannot force that, nor can you force them to understand something like faith. You can help them, guide them, encourage them all you like, but in the end it's them and God and anything else is just excess baggage. To broaden the topic somewhat, we've all agreed it's kind of going to happen, this whole imposing of beliefs. And what's more, sometimes it's even for practical reasons. I used the example of my folks and church, stating that I wasn't old enough to stay home by myself. And why should a vegetarian family have to adapt their meal plan to give their kid the opportunity to eat meat? They'll get that opportunity other times, just like I got the opportunity to learn about other religions despite my Sundays being occupied by church. I suppose the key here is information. Are you sheltering the child from experiencing alternatives to your chosen path, or are you freely offering them information so that, when they are old enough to make their own choice, they can make it wisely? When I asked my mother why some people wear funny head covers in the middle of summer, she got down to telling me about Muslims and the Islamic faith insofar as you can explain such a complex thing to an 8 year old girl. xD She explained that the Biblical figure I knew as Ishmael was claimed to have been the origin and that, in Muslim cultures, the women wear a burka, etc. As for where the lines are drawn, with things like church it was established in the law that kids can stay home alone at age 13, so that was the sort of cut-off point at which I would be able to decide for myself. But other things are less set in stone, and I suppose it's a matter of when you personally determine they're old enough and mature enough to handle the decision themselves. A kid of 8 may well end up being more mature than a teen of 14 or so, which is why maturity needs to be taken into account. Personally, I don't think most kids are ready to have a boyfriend/girlfriend until they're 16+, but there are some kids who I know to be younger and just as mature - though that doesn't mean I think they should actively seek one or are emotionally ready for the results. That's just an example of my personal judgement, though. xD |
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Post by Cow-winkle on Jul 18, 2011 16:58:43 GMT -5
Well, it's all well and good to say, "If a child doesn't want to follow their parents' religion, then the parents should just let them go," if you aren't religious (or if your religion doesn't believe in a bad afterlife for the non-religious). But as a Christian, I'd probably have a hard time letting my child go and become an atheist/Hindu/Wiccan/whathaveyou. After all, I believe if you don't accept Christ as your Savior, you're going to Hell. So as a parent, I would want to do everything in my power to keep my child from going to Hell, which would include being persistent in regards to religion. (Of course, you don't exactly accept a personal Savior through any sort of force, so it's not like making them skip soccer practice to go to church is a guarantee to saving their soul. XD; But still, I'd be persistent as heck, lol.) You're not wrong as far as you go, but as an atheist, is always frustrates me immensely whenever I hear that. I hate the fact that being non-religious doesn't necessarily preclude accepting religious people the way they are, but religious teachings often preclude accepting non-religious people the way they are. If my parents had forced me to go to church even if I had told them explicitly that I genuinely didn't believe in God and that going to church was doing nothing but make me more and more miserable with every passing year, what that would tell me is that my parents didn't respect me, care about me or trust me to make my own decisions. I couldn't help but get the idea that they don't care about anything I think or take anything I say seriously, and they believe that children like me should be "seen and not heard." (My parents didn't do this to me, so I'm not basing this on my own emotional reaction). |
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Post by Nimras on Jul 18, 2011 17:07:15 GMT -5
Well, it does take all types. One of my students was disowned by her atheist parents for becoming a Muslim. I would argue that Sarn is on to something with the access to information point. I think that if one makes a choice without enough information, than it may not actually count as a consenting choice. You're not exactly choosing to be vegetarian if you don't know that eating meat is even an option. It's just what you do due to a lack of options. After information would come legal independence. If you're legally emancipated from your parents, they shouldn't be able to dictate what you do or what you believe. If you are still under the care of your parents, they're both legally and most likely morally obligated to make some choices for you -- as much as the minor in question may hate that fact.  Let's face it, going from a vegetarian Hindu to a cow-eating atheist is kind of a big change. |
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Post by Cow-winkle on Jul 18, 2011 19:13:12 GMT -5
After information would come legal independence. If you're legally emancipated from your parents, they shouldn't be able to dictate what you do or what you believe. If you are still under the care of your parents, they're both legally and most likely morally obligated to make some choices for you -- as much as the minor in question may hate that fact. Re: "Sometimes parents have to make decisions that their children don't like." Making a child who wants to be a Muslim or who doesn't want to be religious at all go to a Christian church isn't the same as making them eat their lima beans. If you're forcing a child to pretend to be religious against their will, you're drafting them into an ideological battle they don't want to have to fight, and one that I would argue children shouldn't be the ones to fight in the first place. |
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Post by Crystal on Jul 18, 2011 23:16:20 GMT -5
After information would come legal independence. If you're legally emancipated from your parents, they shouldn't be able to dictate what you do or what you believe. If you are still under the care of your parents, they're both legally and most likely morally obligated to make some choices for you -- as much as the minor in question may hate that fact. Re: "Sometimes parents have to make decisions that their children don't like." Making a child who wants to be a Muslim or who doesn't want to be religious at all go to a Christian church isn't the same as making them eat their lima beans. If you're forcing a child to pretend to be religious against their will, you're drafting them into an ideological battle they don't want to have to fight, and one that I would argue children shouldn't be the ones to fight in the first place. You know... when you're a little kid, being religious usually means going with your family to a place where lots of other kids go to to hear stories, sing songs, and other things. I'm not exactly sure where the concept of an 'ideological battle' comes in, or why a kid would even think about whether or not they wanted to fight it. When I was a kid, Sunday School meant games, songs, and sometimes prizes... and when I was no longer a kid, it meant friends, teachers, camps, and sports. It was a lot of fun. Yes, I know that there are people for which that isn't true. But the vast majority of kids don't struggle, kicking and screaming, against going to church, particularly if they've gone all their lives. They just go... up until they reach, as Nimmy said, the age of legal emancipation, at which they choose to keep going or not. In the end it's the choice of the parent to do what they believe is best for the child. As for parents forcing kids to go, I definitely hated music classes a lot more than church, but they forced me to go anyway... kicking and screaming. Now I'm rather bitterly regretting that I kicked and screamed my way out of Chinese classes and guitar classes. Would sure have come in handy. |
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Post by Cow-winkle on Jul 19, 2011 0:55:10 GMT -5
You know... when you're a little kid, being religious usually means going with your family to a place where lots of other kids go to to hear stories, sing songs, and other things. I'm not exactly sure where the concept of an 'ideological battle' comes in, or why a kid would even think about whether or not they wanted to fight it. When I was a kid, Sunday School meant games, songs, and sometimes prizes... and when I was no longer a kid, it meant friends, teachers, camps, and sports. It was a lot of fun. You can't avoid telling kids about Hell or the rapture forever. Some children might have some questions about the idea that non-believers like myself are going to be punished for eternity -- that is, unless the parents try to shelter the children from even knowing that people like me exist, but that seems unlikely to happen. If you say "That child is a Christian/Jew/Muslim/Hindu/Atheist" for no other reason than because their parents take them to a certain church (or don't) you're putting a lot of pressure on them and implying that they stand up for a cause they may not fully understand, particularly if they're very young. Generally, if you're teaching a child that X religion or ideology is correct, you're teaching them that all other religions are wrong and that they live in a world of people who are going to be punished in some way (e.g. hell, an undesirable reincarnation, some kind of karmaic balance) if they're not "saved". I know that some religions aren't like that, but in general, a religion that doesn't look for converts is one that doesn't last very long. If you teach a child to be part of a religion, you're telling them to take a side in an argument that you care passionately about, but they might not. That's the "battle" I'm referring to. Yes, I know that there are people for which that isn't true. But the vast majority of kids don't struggle, kicking and screaming, against going to church, particularly if they've gone all their lives. Who's saying they all are? Certainly not me. But they do exist. In case it's not clear, my position is not that children should never be allowed inside churches, it's that, if the child or teenager seriously doesn't believe or is repeatedly upset by what the church is teaching, the parents should at least take the child's thoughts seriously enough to listen and talk to them rather than just make them go without the child having any say in the matter. And as unpopular as it may be for me to say this, I think the same is true of music, sports and language classes. Maybe you'll dismiss me as naive and idealistic, but I'd like to think that a parent should at least attempt to treat their children as growing humans to be understood rather than pets to be trained. They just go... up until they reach, as Nimmy said, the age of legal emancipation, at which they choose to keep going or not. In the end it's the choice of the parent to do what they believe is best for the child. If a parent is only respecting their children's decisions to the extent that they are legally required to, I wouldn't exactly call that person the world's best parent. |
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Post by M is for Morphine on Jul 19, 2011 9:56:38 GMT -5
Man, do I even wish more parents would take this opinion.
I struggled with religion from pretty darn early on. I was a curious little idiot; I had a lot of probably stupid questions and my Sunday school teachers got so fed up with me that they stopped answering them. So I was left to stew in my own confusion while I drifted further and further away from Christianity.
I was encouraged to read the bible, like all kids were in Sunday school. I've always been a voracious reader, so I did. I read about the Lord's vengeance on Midian, where the boy children and non-virgin girls were slaughtered en masse. I read about how a girl could be put to death for not being a virgin on their wedding day. I realized that I didn't even like God, but I had been brought up all my life to believe in him. So I was at a very bizarre point of my youth when I very seriously believed that I was going to hell.
I remember thinking, "Such and such is a sin. If I pray for forgiveness I can be saved. But I'm not sorry and God will know that."
A great example of this was a somewhat comic episode when I was about 12. My mom had taken me out to visit my Aunt in California. We were set up to have a really great time, and I was super excited about going to Disney and riding Space Mountain. The day before our Disney trip my mom and Aunt informed me that I was to be Baptized at my Aunt's mega-church. I could refuse, but I would be placed on a plane home instead of going to Disney. I decided to be Baptized, though I didn't believe. Leading up to the event, I got to hear a sermon by the youth pastor about how you had to honestly and sincerely accept Christ as your savior and if you were baptized falsely, it was a very grave and terrible sin.
I really needed more time to explore and come to grips with my spirituality, but I didn't get it. I needed someone I knew and trusted to confide in and get guidance from, but I didn't get it. I was in a room full of strangers. So I went through with it, knowing in my heart it was a lie and even further convinced of the idea that my only lot was hell.
I had a lot of existential angst for years and years from a ridiculously young age. I was very, very depressed growing up. there were a lot of reasons, but I'm sure that was one of them. I'd fake illness to try and get out of Sunday school, which only occasionally worked. I wanted to talk to someone, but they were all friends of my Grandma and I knew it would get back to her, and break her heart.
All through this, talking to my mom about it was never an option. Any indication that I wasn't a totally sincere an awesome Christian was met with screaming or crying. The crying might have been worse.
The idea that there could be no God and no afterlife was an immense comfort to me. I didn't become agnostic until my mid teens or so, and my mother still made me tell her I believed in God, to say my prayers and grace, and to go to church.
So yeah, being allowed to opt out of my religion instead of having to fake it for a large portion of my life would have been way better for my mental health and well being.
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Post by Killix on Jul 19, 2011 11:39:20 GMT -5
"Choose our religion or no Disneyland for you" is a terrible thing to do to a kid. :{
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Post by Yoyti on Jul 19, 2011 22:08:06 GMT -5
Well here's a debate I can get interested in! Regarding religion, it's all very well when you teach a child that there is an all mighty being who watches out for humanity, but I operate on the assumption that people can not only comprehend, but actually think. When a child starts thinking, it's not right to oppress that thought. And threats like hell and such can be scary for young children. I'm glad I was brought up Jewish. The basic Jewish principles are to be happy, and make others happy. Obviously there's some dark stuff, but none of that "eternal damnation" that some parents teach their children. I think, speaking as a thinking human as well as a budding cryptozoologist (although I know that there's no future in that field), I say that growing up means learning to think. Being able to question things that were taught as fact. Typical examples would be religion, but I don't want to get into that, so I'll talk about Pi. We learn in school about the circle constant. The ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. However, there's a change. We don't use the diameter for anything else in a circle except to define pi. We use the radius. There are several books out about why the circle constant should actually be twice pi. I used this as an opportunity for an experiment of sorts. I questioned people about there faith in pi. Several told me that I was wrong with no other argument than "Archimedes proved it." But others thought about it, debated with me, and some even converted. But most of them simply accepted certain advantages of using twice pi. My parenting style, I would bring up my children without religion, but Jewish by culture. If my wife wants to bring them up with religion, so be it. But I will insist that they learn about other religions as well. I will teach my kids both sides of every argument, tell them my standpoint and why. And about fairy tales, and more far fetched freedom of thought, I'm a budding cryptozoologist. None of that can be completely destroyed in my mind. I will teach that as of yet, nothing like in the fairy tales has been discovered, but that's not to say it could never happen. |
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Let's face it, going from a vegetarian Hindu to a cow-eating atheist is kind of a big change. 
