Wendy Thomas Russell - Relax, Its Just God: How and Why to Talk to Kids About Religion When Youre Not Religious

RELAX, ITS JUST GOD

HOW AND WHY TO TALK TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT RELIGION WHEN YOURE NOT RELIGIOUS

Wendy Thomas Russell

RELAX, ITS JUST GOD. Copyright 2015 by Wendy Thomas Russell.

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or book reviews. For information, contact the publisher at www.brownpaperpress.com or at the address below:

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FIRST EDITION

Designed by Andrew Byrom

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014955707

ISBN 978-1-941932-00-1

ISBN: 978-1-941932-01-8 (ebook)

14 13 12 11 10 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my husband, who is my heart,
and my daughter, who is my heaven

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Id like to thank my parents, James and Nancy Thomas, whose love and encouragement led me to where I am today. And Jennifer Thomas Gravoismy sister, friend, confidante, and editor; she is the first lucky thing that ever happened to me.

I wouldnt have written this book without the early and enthusiastic support of my dear friends Pernilla Gost, Jenny Marder, Jennifer Volland, Tim Grobaty, Catherine Gritchen, Veronica Jauriqui, Kim Mishra, Peter Thompson, Valerie Takahama, Erin Einarsson, Lucy Watson, and Heather Wood. Very special thanks, for a variety of reasons, go to Dale McGowan, Will Shuck, John Pope, Chris Bartley, Larry Thomas, Gene Russell and Carol Russell.

But most of all, Id like to thank my husband, Charlie, and daughter, Maxine. All the best ideas in this book came from them, one way or another.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Talking openly with children about sensitive subjects is hard. It always has been. In my parents generation, the three-letter taboo was S-E-X. My sister was thirteen when my dad gave her The Talk. It was the eighties, and my dad dodged it the way any educated man of his time might have. He tossed her a sex-education book and said, Read this, but dont do it.

Luckily, things have changed. Discussing sex isnt scary nowor quite so scary anyway. Americans are more open with their children than ever before. Modern fathers dont flinch when their daughters ask about that thing dangling between daddys legs after a shower. Many parents have no more trouble talking with their kids about sex than teaching them how to spell it.

But progressive thinking has a way of replacing certain taboos with others. And today, for a great many parents, there is a new three-letter word: G-O-D.

My daughter, Maxine, was barely five years old when she piped up from the backseat on the way home from preschool one day.

Mommy, she said, you know what? God made us!

I felt like a cartoon character being hit in the back of the head with a frying pan. My heart raced. Im quite sure I began to sputter. Visions of Darwin and the evolving ape-man raced through my mind, followed closely by my childhood image of the big guy upstairs in his flowing white robes. I couldnt speak. And, in the awkward silence that followed, I was forced to confront the truth: The idea of talking to my kid about Godand, more specifically, about religionscared the bejesus out of me.

I swallowed hard and forced myself to speak.

Well, I said, Who is God?

Now, I dont remember if Maxine actually said duh, or whether she simply bounced a duh look off the rearview mirror. But I can tell you that the duh message came across loud and clear.

Hes the one who made us, she said, her eyebrows knitted.

Okay well, what is God doing now? I tried for casual.

Again with the nonverbal duh.

God is busy making people and babies, she answered.

This information could not have been delivered to me with more certainty. My little girl, who had never heard an utterance of the word God in our house, aside from decidedly ungodly uses of the word, now had it all figured out thanks to a Jewish classmate who also happened to be her very first boyfriend. I was beaten to the punch by a cute preschool boy.

I let the subject drop, but my chest constricted all the way home. It stayed that way for hours. Why hadnt I been prepared for this? What was I supposed to say now that she was getting her information from this boy at school? What words should I use? Was I to sit her down and tell her that evolution, not God, was responsible for her existence? Was I to impose my own beliefs on her, the way other parents seemed to be doing? Or should I leave her alone to explore on her own timetable? What was the difference between guidance and pressure anyway? What was I willing to let her believe, and what wasnt I? As a science-minded non-believer with a generally non-confrontational personality, I was stumped by how to handle the situation.

Luckily for me, I have a husband who is cool under pressure. Later that day, after Id rather breathlessly presented him with all the facts of the disastrous car ride, I asked him, What if she believes in God? His answer, my wakeup call, has become a mantra I repeat often. He said, Its not what Maxine believes, but what she does in life that matters.

What I took from this was: Relax... its just God.

So I set aside my own irrational concerns and began to talk with my kid about Godlots of gods, actually.

And it was good.

Still, each time we hit a new channel of thought, I would sometimes feel that familiar tightening in my chest. It happened when she started talking to her religious friends about her own doubts about God. It happened when a fellow kindergartener told her that people who dont believe in God go to a very bad school.

In those early days, a lot of things caused me anxiety because, in those early days, there was a lot I just didnt know. I turned to books and websites, but no single source offered the answers I was seeking. I began interviewing parents, then parenting experts, then secular leaders, researchers, authors, psychologists, and religious scholars. In August 2011, I started a blog for secular parents, and the following year I circulated an online survey to nonreligious parents all over the United States.

My work has connected me to thousands of non-religiousand progressively religiousparents, all going through similar experiences. Some are atheist or agnostic. Others consider themselves humanists, searchers, or New Age spiritualists. Still others are religious, but non-traditionally so; that is, they loosely associate with a religion but want to teach their children about lots of belief systems, give their kids a choice when it comes to theology, and raise kids who judge people on the content of their character, not the fundamentals of their faith.

Neither religious conservatives nor anti-religious zealots, these parents occupy a broad middle ground. They do not wish to push children into one single system of belief, but rather to raise kids who are both open-minded and well-informed.

Like so many other parenting authors, I wrote the book I wanted to read. It is full of information and advice from experts, fellow parents, and me. Lots and lots from me. But none of it is gospel. Skepticism and independent thought are to be valued and exercised at all times. Its true that many of the concepts raised in these pages are unique to non-religious parents, but most apply to open-minded religious parents, too. Just as most religious believers pick and choose the beliefs that make sense to them, so should you pick and choose from this book what makes sense to you.