How to Teach Ethics to Our Children

My last post, all about ethics and relativism, was all about leading up to this post about how to teach our children to be ethical human beings. Interestingly, it's a pretty easy process. Which is great because the statistics are climbing, the number of atheists in this country has hit somewhere in the twenty percent range. That's ALOT of kids not getting their ethics from a religion...yay!

How do we do it?
By living it.

Our children watch us. They learn from making mistakes (and from not making mistakes). They learn when we make mistakes. They learn from the world around them. They learn from exploring issues. They learn from interacting with the people around them. They learn by how people treat them. They learn.

It's not done in weekly lessons; it's done living day by day by day. In the moment and over time. Trust me, they learn.


In fact, and I'm being completely honest here, I'm not at all sure that raising a child in the church is the most ethical things to do...
Do your research; you'll see what I mean.

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You Might Also Enjoy:
Pro-Life on Campus and My Son
The Tooth Fairy
Secularity and Sexuality and My Family

Raising Our Strong-Willed Children

This blog post is for you, Dear Parents of Strong-Willed Children.

For my long-time readers, those who have watched my children grow up over these last years of my blog, you will know that my daughter is now nearly twenty-three years of age. If you've followed me for awhile, you know that Elizabeth and I have learned so much together about what it means to be mother and daughter, how one grows up with a strong woman in your life, and how to continue loving and encouraging each other in this dynamic relationship of ours.

We have both learned alot.
If you're in the market to learn about parenting a strong and amazing human being like this, I hope you will take some time and read some of the other posts on this blog that are specific to our lives together. I have posted some of my favorites below, but there are many others to check out. In this blog I have often referred to these specific blog posts with the label challenging children. But, I regret that. Now I might call them Strong-willed children. For now, until I find a better term. Not that challenging is wrong. 😉

Elizabeth is at a very significant place in her life right now. In about a week she will take her final class in undergraduate studies and will be readying herself for a quarantine graduation. She and I have been talking quite a bit about what it has taken to get her to this point in her life in one piece, with some real success, and with this moment of launch that she is facing.

The damn quarantine is a difficult place for our kids, teens, and young adults to find themselves. Their minds and hearts are so vibrant and full; our homes are loving, but small for them. It takes all of our care and love to keep them going in this freaking tough time.

Here is a brief summary of what parents of Challenging Children need to understand and to learn:

• The answer is to NOT "break" her
• Do everything to allow her to keep her pride, keep her spirit
• Including celebrating that spirit
• They have to learn to control their passions in this world, to survive, to thrive, to make it.
• ME controlling her is wrong; I learned that the hard way many times.
• She needs my love, patience, approval, and, most of all, understanding.
• How much can I say 'yes' to her
• I'm her tether, though she kind of hates that fact 
• This is NOT a "behavioral problem", this is who she is.
• I must support her, even when I don't understand.
• She doesn't accept lessons from me; she has to learn them on her own.
• Use positive language when describing her; she is already critical of herself in her head.
• She always prefers having choices and always resents my choice.
• Give them LOTS of latitude, LOTS and lots of latitude! to explore their strong interests.
• Although she often behaves in very unloving ways, she needs my love the most at those times.
• She hates arguing with me as much as I hate arguing with her. Maybe more.
• She can get very mixed up in her own strong emotion and finds our relationship both a touchstone for centering and something she resents.
• Always correct and educate when the storm passes or at peace time - never during the storm.
  
• She's the best friend a mother could ask for. 

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You Might Also Enjoy:
It's Going to be Worth it
My Thirteen Tips for Parenting your Strong-Willed Teen
My Best Days as a Mom

Pro-Life on Campus and My Son

One of my favorite times of day is when John gets home from school and he tells me about his day. I know. We all love that moment, but this kid is extra interesting because he thinks so much, he observes, and he's pretty darn hilarious. He tells his stories with such energy and I find myself laughing constantly. I love his unique observations. From what happens in the classroom to learning theories to current events to his own response to things, his stories both amuse and impress me.


On Monday the campus had some sort of stump speech by the Right to Lifers. John was nursing the beginnings of a head cold so he was lying in the sun in the quad, giving him an interesting vantage point on the speeches going on. When he joined the audience from a closer range, John told himself I don't know much about this; I'm going to really pay attention and learn something.  He observed the rhetoric and the barbaric tools the RtoLers showed their audience and he was quite shocked by what they were claiming. He was upset and bothered by the things that they claimed about abortion and he felt the need to educate himself on the issue.

He went back to his little place in the grass and started researching the claims that were being made as well as information essential to understanding the divide in points of view regarding abortion. As you can imagine, his research revealed quite a different reality that what the speakers were saying. He continued his reading on into the day and later that night.

TEN MINUTES, he said, only ten minutes of reading and I was already seeing the significant fallacies in what the speakers were saying, how they were trying to get people emotional and upset instead of informing them.

He told me about a conversation he had that day with three young women at the rally, all of them Right to Lifers. John was confused by their apparent comfort with having the government tell them how they can and cannot operate within their own bodies. He told me that when he say to them It's your body! Why would you want the government tell you what you can and cannot do?  The young women all claimed that they would not change their minds. He was flabbergasted. His word. 


Today he's revealing his growing passion to represent the Choice people. He's been talking about it constantly and doing lots more reading and researching on his own on both sides of the argument in a highly ethical way. He's now kicking around the idea of starting a Pro-Choice group on campus!

My point?
I am so proud of him for his willingness to entertain ideas that appall him, confuse him, that he disagrees with so vehemently. It shows a real sense of integrity to find out for himself, doesn't it? His energy at the moment makes me feel such tremendous love and pride and amazement with the human being that he is... 

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You Might Also Enjoy:
School's In
I Trusted My Gut
Heart Outside of my Body
Female and Atheist
He Sees It: How the World Treats Women

Are You a First-Generation Atheist or Humanist Parent?

Escaping the mind prison of religion is a grueling, effortful, celebration-worthy event. There should be Hallmark cards. The thought liberation is a tremendously life-changing event that few people have the strength, courage, and integrity to accomplish. Myself, it took me over two years to find my way out once the journey toward freethought began. 

So, New and First-Generation Freethinking Parents, gather round because I have some words for you.

I know the stress, the anxiety, the fear: for I have been you. I know the awareness that you are blazing an entirely new trail, the knowledge that loved ones will not and cannot understand and may not support you, the stress of feeling unable to trust believing loved ones with the hearts and minds of your children, the brightening world that is still unknown to you. 
It is a lonely path to liberation, this flight toward freethought, one fraught with anxiety that our hearts and minds walk without certainty in the beginning. But stay tuned, for soon you will experience the light.

The old way was well-worn, well-supported, extremely public, highly-sanctioned, popular, easier...choking, false, cloying, limiting, bloodthirsty, malignant. This new way is honest, cleansing, saving, liberating, essential.

So how do you do it?
How does one move forward into this unknown territory, albeit into the freedom that one craves, when our parents and friends and other loved ones begin circling the wagons? How do we PROTECT THE MINDS AND HEARTS OF OUR CHILDREN? I believe that this is a major task, to raise freethinking children.
 
Did we expect the battle of integrity that would erupt?

Fully knowing the massive division of belief systems between our beloveds and ourselves, most of us leapt into freethought and/or humanism with sheer relief. The religious systems of belief were too unpalatable, too intolerable, too objectionable. Knowing we would be entering into a completely incomprehensible place to our loved ones, we vaulted into the fresh and clear air. Aware that we were leaving all that we knew behind, 
we bounded into the light of freedom of thought.

Moving Forward

So you are ready.
How to move forward?
Please stay tuned. I will be writing tons more for you in the next days and weeks.
For now allow me to leave you with one suggestion: find a community. Online, in real life, whereever you can find them, a community of freethought or humanist parents who can support you, from whom you can learn, who will understand your fears, and with whom you can be honest. This journey into the light is just that, a journey. 
You will continue to learn. 
You can do this.
And check back soon!

I welcome your questions!

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You might also like:
Should I Let my Mom to Take my Child to Church?
My Gift to You
Christian Mythology for Kids...and Adults

Guest Post: Lizzie Wants World Peace

atheist blog

Guest post: Lizzie Wants World Peace

A couple of months ago in April, Lacey and I went to Chicago to see a Korean pop band called B.A.P. While the concert and trip itself were AMAZING and worth an entire post or eight plus pictures, there was one part of the concert that really stood out to me.

There was one part of the concert, somewhere in the middle, when the lights went red and the word "WAR" was on the screen, large and clear for everyone to see. After about a minute and a half of looking at the word, it gets smaller and suddenly all of the wars from the past 100-150 start scrolling past nice and slow. There are a lot, and past the mid 30's or 40's the scrolling speeds up and there are STILL more and more wars. I just kept going and going until the 2000's, where there were more names. The list was staggering. Every time you thought it was going to stop, it just kept going and going.
In the documented history of humans there have been approximately 286 out of  3,400 years of peace. Of no war whatsoever. Just 8% of our recorded history has been without war and it kind of struck a chord in me. 

The boys then performed One Shot which I have linked to with English lyrics. The song itself is very powerful and the music video is very intense and rather upsetting to some, but it surely gets the message across. 

How long are we all going to hate each other? How long are we going to have to fight over things that should be human rights? How long do we have to fight for what is clearly not ours? Why do we have to have country borders and hatred between them? Why do we simply hate people because they don't believe that a man in the sky exists? Because of who we love? Because of our god damned skin color. We're all different, but that's what makes it all so amazing. We have so much to learn from each other, so why does it always have to resort to years of fighting when something goes wrong? Why do people enjoy the concept of war anyway? What is the romance of bombs, bullets and death? Why can't we all get along? 

B.A.P is right. We only have one life, one chance at it, so why are we spending all of our energy hating people because of such trivial things? Why don't we spend it loving and learning and traveling without having to worry about what would happen if our country loses whatever war is going on now? Why is war the only way to decide things? We have one damn shot at life, and we need to make it worth something. We have to make it happy and healthy. Some of us have more time than others, so we have to make the most of every moment. Let's not waste time fighting.

The Tooth Fairy

atheist parent

When the kids were small I was far more uncertain of how to be a truly secular woman, how to be an atheist parent of integrity. Just as you do, I thought and thought about how to handle every single thing, especially those customary cultural things that everyone does with their kids in this country.

Santa, Halloween, Easter bunnies, the Tooth Fairy, fairies:  all of those dandy little magical stories we tell our children were swirling around in my head, begging to be considered.

I wanted to be honest and I wanted the kids to have the fun that the stories offer. How to attain both goals of honesty and fun?

The motley crew of
pretend we played.

My daughter was a huge fan of fairies. She believed in them fiercely. We had a small white ceramic house on the front porch that she would sometimes leave small notes in for the fairies to find. Sometimes they would leave her tiny treasures from nature. Personally I lost my taste for the ruse the morning we discovered a cockroach had taken shelter from the rainy night in the little ceramic house. But Elizabeth was in love with the fairies.

I remember the morning she woke up and ran into the room where I was. She was shouting with excitement Mom, I heard the fairy music last night just outside of my window!

I was struggling with the knowledge that I was perpetuating a false bit of magic. I tried so hard to be honest and to keep her mind free of falsehood. In fact, I remember my mom being very confrontational with me in those days with regard to my willingness to pretend fairies while being fully unwilling to pretend in a deity.

The Same Boat? 

I know that you, Dear Thinking Parents Reading This Blog Post, completely understand where I was going in those days. I got lost all over the landscape of how to handle these ongoing fantasies and my mother continued to point out the many places where I tripped over my own efforts of honesty and fun.

Knowing that magical thinking is a perfectly normal and healthy part of child development went a long way in helping me work my way through the struggles I was having. 

Eventually I decided that I was willing to play pretend and to appreciate that my daughter's magical thinking was very normal and natural and that I would roll with it until the first moment she displayed sincere effort to know what was real. For a period, the magic was real for her. I clearly remember the day she talked herself into believing that she could control the wind. The wind moved and she went with the magic without any outside suggestion. For months she and John John moved the wind with glee. 

Suddenly, Clarity 

One day we were driving down the highway, Elizabeth in her usual thoughtful way looking out the window. Suddenly she asked me, Momma, is there really a Tooth Fairy? I asked her if she truly wanted to know the truth and she assured me she did saying, It really doesn't make sense, does it, Momma?

 

A few more minutes passed as I waited to see what would happen next in Elizabeth's mind. She looked at me with tears in her eyes...the Easter Bunny? Fairies? Santa Claus? Interesting that she identified all of the stories at the same time. Isn't the brain an amazing thing?

The house of cards we had built came tumbling down in a matter of about ten minutes. She was angry at the deception for about two weeks. I had heard about kids getting angry when they figured it out but I had never seen such a thing until this child. She was angry that her dad and I would deceive her in such a way.

Two weeks later she was smiling and secretly colluding with me to continuing playing the acts for John. 

A few years later Elizabeth and I were revisiting the moment of reveal and how it had made her feel. I asked her if, now that she knows the truth, she would have preferred playing the games or sticking with reality. I explained the struggle that I had with all of that. She smiled and understood. 

I'm glad we did it, Mom.

December Ideas for the Secular Family

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I've had it in my mind for awhile now to offer some ideas for holiday ideas for December for the secular family. Since I am awake late (early) tonight, this is the night (morning). In another blog post I talked about how important it is to create your own holiday practices and to enjoy the freedom to explore ideas the make sense to your family this month. 

In that vein I have been gathering ideas for alternative December traditions that you and your family might consider this year, or next. This list is simply a collection of ideas that I have come up with for this blog...there are certainly more and better ideas to explore and to consider. What will your family do to make your holiday meaningful?

• Turn off the screens and make holiday crafts for decoration or for gifting.
• Make your own holiday cards for mailing.
  And I don't care what others say, I LOVE the family letters that come in cards.
• Spread pinecones with peanut butter and nuts for hanging in the boughs of winter trees.
• Enjoy dreidel night or a scavenger hunt.
• Explore any other cultural December event you can find.
• Read a holiday themed story together.
  By the fireplace if you can.
• Go ice skating as a family.
• Gather friends and go caroling.
• Google Hangout with far away family during holiday gift opening.
• Volunteer at your local homeless shelter or meals on wheels.
• Adopt a family. Provide them with dinner, a tree, and gifts.
• Secret Santa among family members.
• December 1st begin collecting a gratitude list. Read it together on Christmas eve.
• Secret Santa: except, rather than gifts, do acts of kindness for one another
• Decorate ornaments for a tree. Keep some and gift them away as gifts. Have an ornament or decoration party.
• Go for a walk by candlelight.
• Hot chocolate and holiday lights!
• Sleep in front of the glittering tree. Have a slumber party with the entire family.
• Get creative with gift package wrapping by creating reusable bags or repurposed wrapping. Go green.
• Create a scavenger hunt for gifts or for nature items.
• Create gifts of warm socks, scarves, hats, or mittens for the homeless.
• Donate books to your local library, preschool, nursing home.
• Host a cookie sharing party.
• Include letters and art work in gifts to family. 
• Go for a bike ride.
• Host a bonfire
• Decorate your tree with something unusual. Jewelry. Beads, Household objects. Pine cones, seed pods, and natural things.
• Invite strangers or new friends to spend the holiday with you.
• Give the gift of service for use through out the year.
  Grass cutting. Meals. Child care.
• Game night.

What will your family do to make your holiday meaningful?

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Other Posts You Might Enjoy

What About Christmas?

'Tis the Season

Secular Sponsorship and Service

Books for Your Skeptical Children

A Secular Merry Christmas

What About Christmas?

atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent 

Back in the early days of my being an openly atheist parent I was far less confident about it than I am today. I was tentative, even apologetic about being a freethinker, especially with people that I didn't know well. I remember being highly aware of the reaction of people as I would reveal my skepticism, knowing that I was in the minority as a godless parent. My intuitiveness was a real bummer because I can read disdain, anxiety, and disapproval in an instant.

One day, some years ago, I was at a conference and I sat next to a woman named Cathy who became friends with me for a short period of time. She was over at my house in December and I was showing her the Kwanzaa candle holder I had just bought and explaining to her my plan to expose the kids to as many different holiday traditions as I could. I remember showing her a dreidel that I had picked up as well as a description of how to play the dreidel game and of its history.

Sitting there on my couch, in front of the huge tree with a star on top, she looked at me with her head tipped. With an obvious effort to keep the discouragement out of her voice, Cathy tipped her head and said What about the Christian tradition? Will you expose them to that too? I pointed at the tree and replied Do you mean like that?

Our friendship didn't last long. It became clear to me that she had felt it was a goal to get me back to the Christian side; I was quite happy to allow the friendship to fade back into nothing. Her constant disapproval and discouragement affected me, even though she tried to keep it very polite. I was highly aware of where she stood on the matter and, though I had my doubts, I was sincerely trying to make that friendship work.

What About Christmas?

So what about Christmas? If you are an atheist parent you are either constantly thinking about what to do and how to do it OR you are being questioned by believers around you. Living in this country where so many areas are so very Christian, many atheist parents are unsure how to move their families through December without some real emotional struggle.

This month tends to bring out the unabashed allegiance of some Christians to their belief system. This makes some interactions with them far more tense and ticklish. And still you have the right, indeed the responsibility, to maintain your freethinking ways of parenting for your children.

Let me start out by telling you this: You have every right to raise your family in the considered and deliberate way you have chosen to move through the world. 

Do you want to put up a Christmas tree? Go ahead! We all know that the roots of the tree is pagan, and still that matters none. The cultural traditions are all fair game. Use the things that you enjoy, discard the rest, and add anything else that interests you. Explore cultural traditions from around the world if you like, adopt as many as you like. And even more fun, create new and personal traditions of your very own.

Do you like wreaths? Playing the dreidel game and eating latkes? Singing solstice songs and hanging fruit on trees? Lighting Kwanzaa candles? Exchanging gifts? Giving alms to the poor? Celebrating the festival of lights, Hogmanay, or St. Nicholas Day? The December holidays and traditions are endless and incredibly old, some over 5,000 years old. Check them out, inform yourself, and freely incorporate anything that appeals your family. Light yourself a bonfire and enjoy the feeling of the season.

Remind yourself and remind the Cathy in your life that each of us has the freedom and the right to open our minds and our homes to the beauty of the month of December. Atheist are the luckiest people because we truly have the freedom to do just that.

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Other Posts You Might Enjoy:
Kathryn Wants to Know: When Family Doesn't Support Secular Parenting
The Greatest Gift
Atheist Myths About Parenting: Morality, Ethics, and Santa  Claus

Part Two: Some Call them "Whiners", Drawing a Picture

highly sensitive children highly sensitive child atheist parent challenging child. atheist parent highly sensitive children eist parent challenging children c

I think that at times in my life I have battled my own tendencies toward being a challenging temperament...a little. But I'm generally a very mellow person, quite low key. In my family growing up, some major people in my family are people who are of this temperament, challenging. Now with my daughter being of a challenging personality temperament, I'm the dang sandwich generation. 

No wonder this personality type has been the bane of my existence and the focus of so much of my energy and thought. Both my mother and my daughter mean alot to me and my relationship with each of them requires that I spend time contemplating situations: what is going on? What is hidden? What is being communicated? What will help the situation that my challenging one has created? What part have I played? When do I need some space? What is unsaid in this situation? 

What exactly do I mean when I talk about a challenging temperament? Let me describe the type of things you might notice in a person. But the truth is, I'm just flying by my own experiences here; your post might read differently.

In some families the challenging person is very often misunderstood and maligned. They are often called whiners, complainers, killjoys, bitches, and more. This person has exhausted people. These people may complain and be negative so much and so often that they push people away from them. Many people choose to stay away for the cycle of negativity that a person of this temperament might bear with them. I guess you can figure out your challenging person by how exhausted you feel after an interaction with them.

In my case, I generally see some of these things:

• This person is inconsolable. Their problems are larger and worse than yours.
• This person vacillates between depression and anger and feeling simultaneously powerless and at fault.
• When confronted, this person will reveal a complex morass of confusion and anger that doesn't seem to be based fully in reality.
• This person is convinced that no one can understand how difficult their life is.
• This person tends to react in fairly large ways because they are convinced that their emotions are far too large to contain. Additionally, they are convinced that they have every right to express those emotions freely and without check.
• Understanding and investigation happens second: reactive explosion happens first.
• The complaints are ongoing and seem to reflect obsessive thinking, or an inability to see beyond their own situation.
• This person may have frequent minor physical complaints and require special care.
• This person will explain why their issues are endless and will up the ante if you attempt to bring in a larger-world perspective.
• This person finds a certain amount of comfort or familiarity in their depression or sad state.
• This person might seem to be seething much of the time.
• This person might seem to resist intimacy while simultaneously crave it.
• Any attempt to be solution-focused is met with frustration, indignation, or exasperation.
• This person may feel defeated by life in general and alone in their battle with it.
• This person's reactions to seemingly small things reflects their perception that the world is unfairly stacked against them.
• And this person is completely unaware of how difficult, dramatic, and unrealistic their reactions are to handle and they seem to operate from a position of expecting to not be liked or loved.

Truly each challenging person has their own constellation of provocations and characteristics. Probably the threads running through many of these folks is the certainty that their conflicts are harder than most people's, that no one understands or appreciates their challenges, and that they don't have good self-soothe skills. Also, please note that these characteristics are listed from an outsider's perspective and not from the perspective of the person in question.

Does any of this sound familiar? Have I caught the essence of you or of your loved one? If so, please stick around. I have devised some efficacious actions and interventions that might be useful to you to explore and to understand.

___________________

In my third post of this series I plan on talking about what works if you are a challenging person or if you have a challenging person in your life. And the fourth and final post will talk about additional ideas and suggestions.

Figuring this temperament out has been an important goal in my life, yet I'm sure my efforts will fall short. Not only is my own beloved daughter of this temperament but others in my family as well. If you are of this temperament or if you love someone of this temperament, stay with me. I hope you will share your thoughts on this series of posts as well. I'm not a scientist, but I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this and I'd love to hear your thoughts, struggles, and insights as well.

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Other Posts I Recommend:
Part One: Some Call them Whiners, The Challenge
A Parental Confession
It's Going to be Worth It
Shooshy: Raising My Daughter
Her Face

Death, Grief, Loss: Atheism Style

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One of the easiest steps to trip over as an atheist parent is helping our children to understand and to face the realities of death, grief, and loss. Some people want so desperately to help their children avoid the pain of loss that their self doubt sneaks in and suggests that the idea of heaven is a good place holder for reality...until their children are older.  After all, isn't it easier?

It can be tempting, easy to tell our children that there is a lovely heaven waiting at the end of our lifetime. We look into their frightened faces, we see their eyes pleading for another answer, we know how difficult reality is to deal with. We know because reality is difficult for adults to deal with too. And yet...

The shortcut offered by magical thinking has a very high cost. It gives a fertile ground for fiction and mythology to grow like a weed. It circumvents critical thought. Often...often it challenges parents who are still very uncomfortable with the concept of death being the final point of life.  Brainwashing can be strong and we can be weak.

Some recovering first-generation atheist parents still feel the guilt, the pull of the supernatural. It might seem so much easier to offer heaven to reality. But it's not easier because it's not true.

They will look at you with those faces, those adorable faces, asking questions like Will you die, Momma? and Will I die, Momma? and, though your heart is breaking, you will have to answer those questions...so I've made this video for you so that you will be prepared...a little.

The video is on SecTv's channel and is called 

Death, Loss, and Grief Without Religion

Peace.

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Other posts you might enjoy:

How to Talk Religion with Kids as an Atheist or Skeptic

This Big Question:  Death

How to Explain Religion to my Child

Biblical Parenting

atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent atheist par

I've been reading around the internet a bit this afternoon as I prepare some lessons for John. Just as he slips into gaming while he is doing lessons, I slip into reading stuff unrelated to my work too.

This afternoon it was Christian rants.
Specifically Christian Parents ranting....ALOT. There was lots of spanking, discipline, certainty, and fear mongering. 

My co hostesses on Brunch with The Secular Parents, BeAsia and Rayven, and I spend time talking about topics for our show and researching those issues. I enjoy the process of researching because it encourages me to read outside of my comfort zone and that is fun. But this stuff is kind of ridiculous. These woman, the women who choose biblical parenting, live in such fear of so much of the world and I think that that is such a waste of human beings.

The point is that so many of the blogs and writing have answers: The Answers.

I find that truly bizarre. I did find a few perfectly reasonable sounding articles that didn't grate...right there, among the freaky hell articles, lists of why some deity doesn't plan on saving you, shaming is a great tool for discipline, demons, spanking, the essential evil nature of human beings, why you should control the friendships your children have, why homophobia is OK, tantrums equal misbehaving and defiance, and well, etc. Just the titles of the articles were prickly, not even mentioning the content! 

I'm sad and angry that truly well-meaning parents choose to parent this way.

The Secular Parents and I have been talking about having a show on biblical parenting. The idea was that we would would biblically parent for a week and discuss that. I refused to do this completely but Rayven thought she would be willing to try it.  I simply didn't want to learn their rules and try to live by them...not even for one second, much less for a full week.  

Have you ever attempted to parent while in a cult?
How was that different?

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Posts you might also enjoy:
Secular Parenting: Going to "Church"
Secularity and Sexuality and My Family
When People Undermine Your Secular Parenting

RELAX...it's Just God!

atheist parenting, Wendy Thomas Russell, Relax...it's just god atheist parent atheist parent atheist parent

Being a freethinking parent even ten years ago was such a different proposition. Books, public role models, and an openly secular vibe did not exist...anywhere! Those days were so different; what a difference a decade makes. We parents who worked so hard to find our way out way out of religion's grasp back in those days had very little published support. So atheist parent and blogger Wendy Russell Thomas did what so many of us wish we had done: she wrote the book that she would like to have read.

Wendy is the author of an eponymously named blog that I have read for several years now called Wendy Thomas Russell, Relax...It's Just God. Her comforting and informing voice hasn't been on her blog lately though because she has embarked on an exciting new adventure as an author of a book for first gen atheist parents, a book called Relax...it's Just God: How and Why to Talk to Your Kids about Religion When You're Not Religious.

Since Wendy and I are driving similar roads, writing and creating projects for secular parenting, it has been my pleasure to have some time in her busy life for a lovely chat about what is going on with her and what is meaningful for her. I'll pass that conversation on to you soon.

I'm reading RELAX... now and I
HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT! 

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Other posts you might enjoy:
It Takes More Faith to be an Atheist

On Being Religion-Free

I Took John to Church

One of my Worst Parenting Days: Making Mountains

Raising Atheist Children

ACK! Parenting Wars

Secularity and Sexuality and My Family

atheist pareting, daughters, sons atheist parent atheist parent
I've got to tell you, this is a subject I've been thinking about so much lately. Most grown ups grew up with had so many weird and awkward issues around sex. I, myself, had the virgin/whore dichotomy to deal with, which is fun. Also in the house that I lived in as a little girl were stacks of pornography in the house and magazine photos of naked women on the walls...but women were to remain VIRGINS.  So,  yeah, my understanding of healthy sexuality took me years go figure out.

Actually discussing sexuality was simply not done when I was a kid. Maybe it was the same for you.

And there is more. But that's all I'm going to say about that except for how determined I was to do it right for my own kids. 
I know you know what I mean.

While I was involved in the church I was always questioning things and I was always confused about why the authority of the church tied women's hands so much. I couldn't understand why only a very narrow definition of sexuality was considered OK. The church organizations that were important to me back then were incredibly rigid and prudish anytime the issue of sexuality was on the table. It kept me in the closet completely.


I remember one time I was working for the Catholic family services organization in pregnancy care and adoptions. The diocese newspaper called me as an agency rep for pregnancy care and asked me questions for a story they were writing. The story was about child care in high schools for teen girls who have babies, seems the caller was looking for the church's authoritative stance on the issue. So the reporter was asking me about it and I thought, HEY, great idea for those girls!  lol

A few days later I get a call from the director of the organization asking me to never speak to a reporter again.  LOL...sometimes I forgot that request and took several more calls from the diocesan newspaper office.

Leaving the church was a tremendous boon on my sexuality work. Figuring out that the church was the source of so much confusion and shame and absurdity actually made it so easy to question everything and to begin to work through so much of the crap in my head.


Move forward a decade or two and I'm married to an absolutely wonderful man who is on the same page with me. We are all for sharing knowledge with our kids as fully as possible with respect for their age...

Turns out I need more time to write about this important subject...stay tuned.

And join us this Sunday, May the 10th at 8pm CST for

The Secular Parents show on

Secularity and Sexuality.

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You might also enjoy these past posts:
Sex and God and Shame
Sex Ed
Why Do You Hate God?