This is probably the most important subject for parents to address. Especially today, and in Canada, with so many mixed marriages. What are your core values? How will you raise your children? These are big questions and everyone faces them.
For Emil and I it was pretty simple, neither of us is a church person, neither of us is particularly spiritual but we have the same fundamental values. We both believe in family first, love, and helping others. We try to lead honourable, respectable lives and make important decisions that way.
Do I want my children exposed to religion? Certainly. Religion is fundamental to how our world works and should be a part of a child's education. I also think it's important to learn about community-building. Some of the best examples are churches. Not only that, children grow into adults who have to make their own decisions about how they will live in the world.
I know a lot of couples struggle with this. How did you handle the Big Guy/Girl talk? Is it evolving as your children get older? If you hope to have children in the future, how do you think you'll handle it with your partner?
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DH and his family are much more religious than mine, since he believes in it so strongly and me not as much. I took the easy way out and will let him make a decision on how to introduce Ed to religion. That's how it is right now, but I guess we'll see how things go as the little guy gets older, I'm fairly laid back :)
ReplyDeleteThe only religious thing I get caught up on is the fact that DH doesn't believe in evolution and I'm more into science and have a hard time with that, but we just avoid the subject and let each other believe what we want :)
Touchy subject for sure.
ReplyDeleteI've been wrestling with this one recently. I'm not big on religion, I don't believe in the "capital C" Church, but I believe in the values they instill. I'm grateful I had an upbringing that included teachings on morality and the ten commandments. I'm also aware, though, of the kind of psychological issues that can arise from guilt - often a byproduct of these teachings.
But what if your partner IS religious? What if they do want to bring your child to church every week? And what if that church isn't the faith of your upbringing?
Tough call.
In the end, I think that kids should be exposed to religion, if only as an exercise in anthropology. I think it's important to pass along a sense of morality to your child - whether you think that can be done without the assistance of religion is up to you.