You may know that I am writing for an atheist parenting site.
(I'll post more on that later.)
For now, I need some questions that a person seeking to raise freethinking children might ask.
Please post some ideas for me below!
If I use your question, I will let you know.
THANK YOU!
I love your book recommendations and would love more of them! How do you deal with well-meaning friends and family who talk to your child about Heaven? What do you do when your child spends a day with a loved one and comes home saying she wants to believe what they believe, especially when the idea offers them so much comfort? What do you do when family members insist upon praying (and get offended if you don't bow your head) or saying random thoughts about what God is doing or wanting or planning, etc.? Every single thing in our culture features religion! The Girl Scout Pledge, money, the Pledge of Allegiance (which you're supposed to say at 4-H meetings, too), everything! How do you explain all of this, especially with young kids who get very confused about it? Even when you substitute words ("Earth" for "God" in the Scouts pledge, for example), they forget because their friends are saying it and they don't want to feel weird or different. How do you help them through that? Did your kids ever decide to be religious and if so, how did that work out?
ReplyDeleteThank you so much, we are really enjoying the elementary-aged books you recommended!
Woo hoo!
DeleteNow let's hope I have some brains and heart enough to offer "answers".
I'm glad you are enjoying the books.
As it happens, Sara, I have been writing a few books...how do I think about which publishers to send them to???
Search for publishers in your genre. I found mine by searching for "supernatural romance publishers" and "speculative fiction publishers," and, of course, by piggybacking on other authors. ;) There's a book that's released every year full of publishing companies, but I can't think of the name of it. Sometimes you can find sites that offer a bunch of publishers in one spot; here's my favorite: http://www.ralan.com/. I hope that helps! A lot of publishers are accepting e-submissions nowadays, which makes it cheaper to send to multiple companies!
ReplyDeleteHow do you deal with others not respecting your choice to raise your kids as Atheists and try to slip them their religion behind your back? How do you explain popular holidays (e.g. "Christmas" or "Easter") to them? How do you discuss the bible or Jesus with your young children? Where do you seek support and advice?
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to hearing more about the writing gig :-)
How do you deal with a very young child getting upset/anxious/afraid about death, when you feel guilty that you can't put the heaven spin on it all?
ReplyDelete