http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/parenting/archive/2009/11/25/is-it-wrong-to-label-your-child-with-your-religion.aspx

http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/parenting/archive/2009/11/25/more-thoughts-on-religion-and-parenting.aspx

I am also all for protecting the rights of minorities. In fact, the school curriculum related to religion and ethics in our school system is based on that need in particular. The former curriculum was too heavily slanted towards the Roman Catholic majority where I live. The new curriculum recognizes the role the Roman Catholic Church has played in the history and traditions of our area, but celebrates the current multicultural and multi-religious context. I think by teaching the people from the majority heritage about minority heritage, we give those in the minority a better chance of being able to pass along and preserve their heritage rather than being assimilated or shunned.

But how can anyone pass down any minority heritage if the children are presented with all options?

Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone should learn about other cultures and be respectful. And it is each person’s decision to choose their own path. I’m not an advocate of fanaticism or even religion. There are so many influences on children — from TV, from school, from friends — none of them being shy about teaching their values, good or bad. Why should parents opt out of the equation?

Frankly, I don’t see the world presented in this idealistic vision as a happy one. In all practicality, when left to their own devices, 99% of everyone will just choose the common choice, the primary consumer or religious culture, and those with minority views will even be seen as odd ducks. I am more for protecting the rights of minorities than advocating a boring world where everyone assimilates into a majority culture.

This is a tricky issue. I think that it’s very important for us not to label others as a religion and make judgments based on that. And yet I do think that religion is so much a part of some people’s lives, families, and culture that it just doesn’t make sense to NOT pass that along. And yet, it also seems that you can pass along those values without it being about the religion, but then supplying the religious reasons when asked. It also seems possible to be religious and share religion with our children, while not attaching too much importance to the label.

I think that the labels themselves are not all that problematic, but the importance we (and I mean as a culture, as individuals, parents, etc.) attach to them is the problem. If I find out someone is religious and I assume I have nothing in common with them simply because of the label, then that’s not right (and I’m possibly missing out on a wonderful friendship). Of course, even if the labels aren’t the problem, it does seem that the only way to disconnect labels and judgments is to get rid of the labels. I do understand that point of view. And I totally agree that this is true for all kinds of labels, not just for religion. I was the Smart one and my brother was the Athletic one and those labels were very, very limiting.

I don’t know…. these are just my initial thoughts on this. I know there are some religious families who would basically disown their children for choosing a different religion and that is a problem, too. So there are a lot of problems with labels, and yet I think that people can teach their children religion without it being limiting. So perhaps there just isn’t one right answer to this? No one-size-fits-all way to deal with labels.

That said – the not telling kids what their religion is… I wonder if that could be confusing. Would you not tell your kids that they’re Canadian? I mean, they can, after all, choose to leave Canada someday. If a child’s family is, say, Jewish (and here’s the other issue, when religion is also a matter of culture and heritage), why not acknowledge and celebrate that? They can still be made aware – as they mature and are able to understand these things – that they can forge their own path, spiritually. Why deprive a child of some key aspect of his identity v.v. his family? Or is it the idea that religion shouldn’t be part of their identity? Being Catholic, being Christian, was part of my identity growing up – but it no more circumscribed the parameters of choice for me than did being Canadian, Anglo, a British Columbian, a ‘Connors’, what have you. Some aspects of that identity I abandoned, some I did not. Having had them attached to me at any point in my life did not chain me to them, and they were very important to my sense of self and family and community as I grew up, and I’m grateful for that.

I could draw a parallel to food. I cook for my children and probably more often than not, I prepare foods that I like and that I think are good for them. However, I do not force them to eat those foods if they do not like them and I do give them opportunities to try food that I do not cook and do not like.

So I am exposing them to my preferences and perhaps even educating them about why I think they are best, but I am not imposing my preferences on them. I will tell my son what my favourite food is and what my spiritual beliefs are. But I will not tell my son what his favourite food is and I will not tell him what his religion is.