Letters to the Editor
Bollinl
Published Letters: 17 Editor's Choice: 5
-
Make sure they've got the intellectual tools, and let them go
[Read the article: Our kids want to go to Christian summer camp]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is helpful to hear the kids' age--11 and 13 probably is old enough to keep their eyes open, if you talk about it thoroughly beforehand.
I had a parallel experience with my 11yo daughter; we're UUs and live in the deep South, and her best friend is an evangelical Presbyterian (the church-Wednesday-and-twice-on-Sunday sort of family). The family invited my dd to go with to their youth group--and the mom assured me that there really was mostly social justice type activities, nothing alarming etc. I talked about it with my dd: how I really didn't like the idea, and that the goal of the activity would be to persuade her to think like them--but it's her best friend, and she liked social activities at that church before (they've got as many kids *in her grade* as our small church has in its entire youth program, so it's hard to compete). She liked that they didn't know her as the militant atheist she is, and so they were nice to her. They're all nice people, perfectly pleasant--but I told her that having friends who like you b/c they don't know something fundamentally important about you is hypocritical, and she should really think about that. But I wouldn't stand in the way of her friendship (provided she came to our UU church on Sundays with us, for some innoculation and a broader spiritual education).
Flash forward a few weeks, and a "scientist" came to their youth-group to tell them all about the evils of evolution.
She managed to bite her tongue as opposed to being confrontational, but she's a science-all-the-way kid and she was viewing this experience as a budding sociologist, actually--came home saying she had wondered how "they" got people to think such foolishness against evolution, and what reasons they might possible have for it. A few days later she told me she no longer wished to attend--that it was too hypocritical to continue attending when she was so utterly opposed to their beliefs.
So, you know your kids--mine is unfazed by social pressure of any sort, but some kids fall in more readily with other people's behaviors and beliefs, and you'll need to know how strong your kids are--and if you give them the intellectual tools to observe sensibly, it should be fine. It might even be helpful.
My only worry would be that if you've left them with a spiritual and/or intellectual void that they need to fill, they may opt for that one. Sometimes people need to BE something rather than being an ex-something, and for kids particularly their parents' rejection of a belief isn't really a spiritual identity. But that's a whole different issue.
-
But they will vote to fund science--or not
[Read the article: The atheist and the creationist: Can't they just get along?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We live in a democracy, and those children will grow up to participate in the franchise. If they grow up believing that science is a fraud perpetrated by "them" on the "us" who have the God Given Truth, then they will vote against all sorts of candidates and issues where science is involved.
So, Cary, no--it's not all the same what they believe. And LW--go gently, b/c a doubting teacher may be better than the believing one they'll otherwise have, and perhaps he can be more respectful of science due to his doubts. But push him, if you can. That _Finding Darwin's God_ might be just the ticket.
I recently went on a dinosaur-themed field trip with my son's 2nd grade class, where dino fossils were handed around for the kids to feel. My son got into an argument about the bones with another boy, whose answer was "But that's not real, it's just science."
*That's* the outcome of teaching creationism/ID in church, much less church schools. Science =/= real. Science is a fraud. And when a kid like that grows up to vote--it's a bit scary. More than a bit scary.