Welcome back to Minor Dilemmas, where a member of Defector's Parents Council will answer your questions on surviving family life. Have a question? Email us at minordilemmas@defector.com.
This week, Albert answers a question about a child who has become Bible curious.
Mike:
How do I talk to my kid about religion? My wife and I are very non-religious and non-spiritual, and my kids know that. Somehow my 10-year-old has become curious about religion generally, and Christianity in particular. He says he's a Christian, Jesus is his dude, etc. Despite my non-beliefs, I don't want to snuff his newfound interest entirely and want to be supportive of his curiosity. I've suggested that we find him an age-appropriate bible (haven't really found one yet) or book with bible stories, and then we can discuss them—haven't gotten any books yet, though. I've also offered to go to church with him at least once so he can check it out. He's expressed concerns that I may go to hell if I'm a non-believer, which I've tried to deal with gently. He's also asked if the world really 6,000 years old, which I've pushed back on much harder, obviously. Any advice on how I can deal with this?
At the risk of being indelicate, a more immediate issue that this letter perhaps calls out is that of unsupervised internet time among children. Even a 10-year-old from a non-religious household who has read the Bible—a remarkable kid! That shit's long as hell!—will not have the idea that the world may be just 6,000 years old. That's an idea a kid gets by being steeped in ridiculous nonsense at home or by being exposed to fanatics and hucksters online. If your 10-year-old himself is not the vector by which this deranged bullshit crossed over from some spiral-eyed YouTuber into the world of smell and touch, then one of his friends at school might be to blame. In either case, somebody is spending way too much time online.
The age of the world is not a conversation about religion, and treating it like one cedes important ground to absolute lunatics. It's a conversation about fact, just as the number of heads atop your neck is; it has nothing whatsoever to do with faith or religious practice. If you can't say exactly how old the world is, you can sure as hell say how old it is not. It is not 6,000 years old. You are doing the right thing by pushing back much harder on that.
It's fine for you to say to your is-the-world-6,000-years-old–curious child, "People are free to believe anything they like. I can decide to believe that you have no head, if I want. But you will still have a head. Just like a person can believe that the world is 6,000 years old, and it will still be billions of years old. The people who say the world is 6,000 years old are people who want to believe that it is, or people who want other people to believe that it is." Then you can ask him if he can think of reasons why someone might want to believe the world is 6,000 years old, and be curious to hear his thoughts on the subject.
The question of how to talk to him about religion when he asks, thankfully, is not so much more complicated than that. To the extent there are answers to the actual Big Questions—about the ultimate reason(s) for things, the meaning of life and death, the source and definition and purpose of goodness in the world, the existence of God(s), and so forth—they are hidden by a horizon none of us smelly mud heaps can see beyond with our physical eyes while we live. We have beliefs about them. Their constituent stuff is faith. And if they are sincerely held, they come with commitments. Your 10-year-old will come to believe whatever he comes to believe. What kind of person do you hope he will become?
This stuff is actually more difficult for parents who do have religious beliefs, which might include the genuine, urgently held belief that each of us has a duty to the salvation of others' eternal souls. Imagine believing that, if your child lives their whole life without ever understanding the love of God, they may not know to return to Him at death—and so might miss out, for eternity, on a chance to be reunited with the people they love and with their creator. That would tend to add a little zing to the discussion when your kid comes to you all, "I saw on YouTube that Walt Disney invented God in 1936 to sell movie tickets." That way lies eternal damnation, Aeschtynne!!!
For you, Mike, a person who considers himself non-religious and non-spiritual, it is much simpler than that. Presumably you do not feel that the fate of your child's eternal soul is at stake when he bellies up to the beliefs buffet. Presumably you want your child, whatever he grows up to believe, to be a curious, tolerant, open-minded person. A curious, tolerant, open-minded guy who thinks Jesus is his dude will have crucial things in common with a curious, tolerant, open-minded guy who is privately baffled by the idea of Jesus being anybody's dude, and with every other curious, tolerant, open-minded guy. You can probably name three of those crucial commonalities, or else you should consider rereading this paragraph.
Be a curious, tolerant, open-minded guy. And you already are! Here's what you said in your letter:
Despite my non-beliefs, I don't want to snuff his newfound interest entirely and want to be supportive of his curiosity.
You're already dealing with this the right way. You've suggested finding the appropriate reading materials, and reading and talking about them. Hell yeah, Mike. That's the good shit. It's the good shit on the subject of religion, and on the subject of politics, and on the subject of haberdashery. It's the good shit all around.
I am here merely to reinforce it. Let your kid see that you are unafraid of the possibility that he may believe things that differ sharply from the things you believe—that you are curious about what he believes, and fascinated by it, and more interested in learning about it than in preventing it from taking any given shape, because you find him, his mind, and his interior world fascinating.
Because you are secure in your knowledge that he is a strong and good and decent person, and thus he will find his way to beliefs that, whatever shape they take, will channel what is best in him. Let him see that in his dad, and he will be fine.
These are their own kinds of religious beliefs. It's OK for you to have them. That is the meaning of being a parent.
