Another s/o of the "former" thread. The kids.

[Xuzi]

Ready for another spin-off? :D

 

For those of you who are "former [whatever]" and you went through the change with children still at home, did you bring your kids along with you? And how did they react? Did you do anything to prepare them for the change?

 

Meaning, if you went from one denomination to another, was it just assumed that your kids would attend with you, or did you wean them over to the new denomination, or let them still attend the old one if they wanted to? Or if you went from belief to non-belief, did you just stop taking your kids to church, or do you let them still attend? Or did their beliefs shift with yours?

 

I'm thinking of this as a born-and-raised LDS person who probably would have raised a *huge stink* if my parents had decided to change denominations, or just stop attending church altogether. I have loved my faith for as long as I can remember, and it would have been a huge wrench for me to give it up, so I'm wondering how parents who have been through this kind of change handle the transition with their kids.

 

And I guess this is also a thread for "grown children of former [whatevers]" as well, since I imagine there's some here.. :lol:

[Parrothead]

I can relate as a child whose parents jumped ship midstream.

 

There were issues and about the time I was 13 or so my mom and dad decided to try the Lutheran church. I was in my mind firmly Catholic. I went along as I should have to respect my parents, but as soon as I was allowed to stop attending I did. That would have been about age 17. I attended confirmation classes at the Lutheran church, but refused to be confirmed saying that I am Catholic.

 

I never went back to church until I left home and started attending the Catholic church.

[JenniferB]

I'll contribute. As I said in the other thread, I'm a post-evangelical. My DH has not defined himself yet. We are attending the Orthodox Church and we might test out some other options for DH. It's still unknown. Our three youngest kids are acclimating to the Orthodox Church well, and my third child keeps asking when she can be baptized. My oldest child, however, loves our/her old church, which we were attending 2 weeks per month until late October when something awful happened between us and three other families in the church and we were excommunicated. Since that happened, she's shown signs of slowly warming up to Orthodoxy. Ideally, we would all be in the same Church and communing with our Lord and each other as one big happy family. This is my prayer. However, I respect my DH and my oldest daughter's comfort zones. They are uncomfortable with it right now, so we are moving ever so slowly in the direction of Orthodoxy, with the guidance of our priest and patience with everyone.

[Melinda in VT]

Our kids were little when we left Mormonism. The only one old enough to express an opinion was barely 6. He far preferred the other churches we visited, but for very six-year-old reasons! ;) (More child-appropriate worship and lessons, shorter overall church time, more relaxed clothing, and snacks after church.)

 

When we are looking for a new church, we do take the kids' feelings into consideration and we never ask them to pretend to believe something they don't, but their religious education is our responsibility as parents and church attendance (how often and where) is our call. We do give the kids an increasing amount of say as they get older.

[laundrycrisis]

This isn't really about a change as much as a revelation. I was raised going to church - Sunday school, choir, VBS, youth group, church camp, baptism by immersion....only for my mom to reveal to me when I was around 16 that she had never believed any of the doctrine that was taught......we only went because she enjoyed the music and feeling of spirituality and community and thought religious education was culturally important. Fine...but THANKS for all those years of indoctrination in which I was told this is the one truth...and she never thought to mention that many people choose to take it with a grain of salt ? She said she assumed I would make up my own mind about those teachings when I was old enough. Again, fine, except the indoctrination started at age 3, so it ran very deep. It would have been nice for me to have felt the same mental freedom to do my own thinking that she enjoyed all along. I felt really betrayed.

 

I have done my kids the favor of explaining from the start that different people believe different things, and that it's all okay, and they are free to explore what they want. I do not want them to live in fear of having the "wrong" beliefs as I did from an early age.

[MinivanMom]

My biological father jumped ship. My parents had been lds (though not very active and our home was essentially nonreligious). When I was in grade school my father decided he was an atheist. He very aggressively tried to prevent my mother from practicing any religion or taking us to any services (not that we had gone much before). There were several tense years where the compromise was that we children could attend church activities as long as it didn't inconvenience him and as long as he did not have to witness any kind of religious activity in our home. Then he became much angrier and demanded my mother choose between him and religion . . . they divorced (though there were many, many other issues in the marriage). After the divorce, convincing the children to take his side on religion became an obsession, a way of winning in the divorce war. It was very ugly . . . picture the worse kind of emotional abuse and manipulation. Of the four children in my family, two chose to remain lds and two became very polite agnostics. All of us are estranged from our father.

[dangermom]

After the divorce, convincing the children to take his side on religion became an obsession, a way of winning in the divorce war. It was very ugly . . . picture the worse kind of emotional abuse and manipulation. Of the four children in my family, two chose to remain lds and two became very polite agnostics. All of us are estranged from our father.

 

Something quite similar has happened to a family I know, but the mom changed over to a very Reformed church. She has relentlessly pressured and manipulated her children, trying to force them to agree with her new beliefs. She kicked her oldest son (a truly nice kid any mom would be proud of) out of the house right before Christmas, and while she wouldn't file for divorce because it was a sin, she was happy to torment her husband until he did (he was the one who wanted to work it out). The poor kids have had their lives ripped apart for no real reason, and I wouldn't be surprised if they all decide that religion is horrible.

 

So that's how not to do it...

[simka2]

My family is not neccessarily your normal situation. The kids had already been ripped from the church they loved, against all of our wills. Then we were in survival mode. They of course did not know this, but when dealing with being stalked by a Sr. Pastor....welll. We did land in a similar but safe church.

 

As we started to explore Orthodoxy we capitalized on a pretty large geographic relocation. We did attend a non-denom, post-modern church sat nights and the EO on sunday mornings until the kids got their feet under themselves relationally. Once they had developed some friendships we stopped attending the other church.

 

Mine are younger though. Dd was only 9 when we began. I was very thankful when we sat down with our Priest to discuss becoming catechumen's. He asked the kids ages and agreed that they would convert with us, but if they had been a bit older it would have been completely up to them. It would not have mattered if I desired for them to convert, the priest would not have allowed it against their wills. I really appreciated that.

[MinivanMom]

Something quite similar has happened to a family I know, but the mom changed over to a very Reformed church. She has relentlessly pressured and manipulated her children, trying to force them to agree with her new beliefs. She kicked her oldest son (a truly nice kid any mom would be proud of) out of the house right before Christmas, and while she wouldn't file for divorce because it was a sin, she was happy to torment her husband until he did (he was the one who wanted to work it out). The poor kids have had their lives ripped apart for no real reason, and I wouldn't be surprised if they all decide that religion is horrible.

 

So that's how not to do it...

 

My situation and others like it are more about the parent having a mental illness/personality disorder (and no respect for their children as individuals) than they are about religion. Religion can just be a very easy medium for the parent to use when lashing out at those around them. As a child I would have said religious differences destroyed our family, but now I would say narcissism destroyed our family.

 

I am impressed by the thoughtful responses of those of you going through religious transitions. Many people have genuine shifts in their personal beliefs and I am glad there are so many parents who respect and support their children through that transition. :)

[Onceuponatime]

We have not changed churches. However, when I began to see that fundamentalism was not for me and was not working for our family, I stopped making my kids read certain books and do certain Bible studies. I also stopped "preaching" and touting certain philosophies. I did explain some of my shifts in thinking and they took it very well. In fact our household is much more relaxed and comfortable discussing harder topics. My kids have been encouraged to think for themselves more. It has occasionally caused discomfort for them in their Bible classes, but it is also teaching them tolerance and patience for the beliefs of others. :-P

 

There are still some things that I don't discuss with my kids or my dh. I've done so much studying in the last couple of years that I don't know if they would understand how I got where I am right now in my beliefs.