Skip to main content

Fishing for Religion

Having a child makes you want to do everything the RIGHT way. I remember preparing like a New Year's Resolution for all of the good changes we were going to make after Caroline's birth: no more watching TV; no more swearing (I know- good bye F-bomb); no more fighting; eat more vegetables; drink more water; go to sleep earlier. Caroline was going to make us better people. It was just that easy.

Being the perfect role model for your child is a daunting responsibility. It's also impossible. We have learned to fudge some of our perfect parenting. Watch a little bit of TV until the baby figures out that TV exists; remind each other to stop swearing and drop as many F-bombs as you can on the car ride from work to daycare; discuss don't argue; sneak veggies onto pizza; drink a glass of water for every cup of coffee; at least sleeping on the couch is better than staying up late. We're on our way to being better.

F-bombs and veggies aside, our biggest role model decision is about religion. To be religious or not be religious: that is the question. I do not have an answer or a story, just questions. Can you share a religion with your child when you question its truths? Is it better to pick a church and then let your child decide whether she will continue with it into adulthood? Are you a "faker" if you join a church after slacking on going to one for years?

I like to think of myself as an "ethnic Catholic" because the rituals of Catholicism are ingrained in my upbringing. I find comfort in the memory of being religious but I'm not sure what the religion means to me anymore. I may also be a "cafeteria Catholic" because I want to pick and choose what I believe in, those ideas which best fit my lifestyle. Maybe I choose a scoop of Catholicism for the entree and a dallop of Buddhism for dessert and drink it all down via Quakerism. How do I explain that to a two year old?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Charlotte's Story

What can you do in seventeen minutes? Watch an episode of your favorite sitcom without commercials? Run two miles at a good clip? Eat a meal, or in Andy's case, microwave a meal and then eat it? Have a baby? Because that's what I did. You heard me right. I birthed a baby in seventeen minutes because I am a machine. I am a machine ! I am a baby birthing woman of steel. I am not much of a bragger and you may recall that I was never good and never bad at anything. I have no particular achievements to tout, academically, physically, professionally or otherwise except baby birthing. I'm really good at this and I'm pretty darn proud of it and I'd like to brag about it to you now. This is Charlotte's birth story. For the first four or five months of my pregnancy with Charlotte, most people forgot that I was even pregnant. This does happen to you with multiple pregnancies. I never forgot that I was pregnant. Morning sickness heart burn and frequent bathroom t

Spoiler Alert!

It's no big shock that I opened my mouth and got myself in trouble earlier this week. This time it was my virtual mouth, and we all know that can be the worst. Saying something stupid, online, is like spreading a highly contagious virus. Speaking of which, with all of my recent coughing and sneezing, I've been really good at spreading a germy virus around. I teach students to be social media savvy, and gosh darn it, I did so as recent as yesterday. I provide them with some rules to protect them from looking like a virtual ass, but low and behold, I fall victim to assiness every once in a while. How am I supposed to know every single rule in life, and particularly online? I'm just a simple human being, with a big mouth, who wants to over share! So, here's what went down, if you didn't get pissy pants over my FB faux pas. I watched the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead on Sunday night. Andy was in the can and I just needed to talk about the episode. I needed t

The guilt epidemic

Women are wonderful at time management and I've been told I'm tenacious about time-on-task and follow-through. Parenthood has really put a damper on my ability to follow a rigid schedule that enables me to do everything. When morning sickness showed up at week 5, I hung up my a.m. workout sneakers. Those shoes continue to collect dust although I'm proud to say they are dusted off once a week for 30 minutes. Just getting to the gym for that short amount of time has been a major accomplishment in a world full of parent-guilt. Guilt. A feeling traditionally reserved for Catholics has been spreading into the female parent population for the past fifty years and has become increasingly prevalent over the last decade. Lucky me to be raised Catholic, born a woman and now gifted with parenthood. I had a .01% chance of escaping the guilt-disease. I have "attacks" or "flare ups" when I decide to do something for myself. In addition to going to the gym once week, f