Parent Time

Gloria Singendonk is at the cut-and-paste table helping a four-year-old girl attach a paper boat to a mobile. Nearby, others are colouring pictures of bearded men heaving a fishing net into the sea, while the older kids are making faux stained glass with tissue paper. If you stick around for the puppet show here at Symons Valley United Church in Calgary, you'll probably recognize that today's Sunday school lesson is about Peter, the Bible's most famous fisherman.

Ten years ago, if you had asked Singendonk if she thought she would teach Sunday school one day, she probably would have laughed. "The only time I attended church as a child was when I slept over at a friend's house and she took me with her. All I knew growing up was what I saw on TV at Easter and Christmas." Singendonk and her husband, Peter, today have three sons aged 3 1/2, five and 9 1/2, and the congregation has become an important part of their lives. "I want our boys to have more knowledge," she says, pointing out how often biblical and religious influences pop up in our culture. "I want them to know who those people are in the movies and books they read. I want them to understand where our values and morals come from."

As weekly churchgoers, the Singendonks are clearly in the minority in Canada. And their openness in discussing religion makes them part of an even smaller group. Every day parents trade advice - welcome or otherwise - about feeding, sleeping, handling difficult behaviour. But if there's one dead branch on the grapevine it's the role of religion in family life.

Adrienne Patterson of Brantford, Ontario, was raised in a strict Baptist household with rules she considered arbitrary and hypocritical. "We were not allowed to own a pack of cards - even Yogi Bear cards - go to movies, play baseball with other churches or dress fashionably. Females were discouraged from higher education. I had a real problem with this." Not surprisingly, even before their son Evan was born 16 months ago, Patterson and her husband, Dave, had made up their minds. "I am not against others wanting to practise religion or go to church. I just can't do it myself, and my husband and I do not want our children to be subjected to organized religion."

Joanne Kelly, a Catholic nun in Toronto, has worked with families for more than 20 years, particularly in helping them prepare for baptism, confirmation and first communion. She cautions that going by your own upbringing isn't always reliable, since the church has changed a lot in the last two decades. "Parents come prepared for the worst. They grew up in a church where you lived by rules and regulations, and they're surprised to learn it's not like that as much anymore. The emphasis isn't on questions and answers like catechism was. The idea is to get the children involved and participating. It's a way of living, it's not observing rules."

Kelly says that parents often have only a vague sense that religion is something their children should be exposed to. "They want a benefit for their child, but they can't identify what it is." Andrew Guy of Toronto can relate to that. "Religion, in my view, is a very personal thing," says the father of Liam, 2 1/2. "Faith isn't concrete, so while it's important, it's sometimes hard to put into words why."

Iris Yob, author of Keys to Interfaith Parenting and a researcher in religious education at Indiana University, stresses that it's OK for parents to have different religious beliefs, as long as they support one another.

Charlene Aiken and her husband, John, have run face-first into these obstacles. John sees no reason why their children, Mark, 3 1/2, and Jessica, 1 1/2, should receive any religious education. "We lived together for two years before we married and though we discussed this to a certain degree, I now see that we didn't put nearly enough thought into it," Charlene says. "John has always known that I wanted my children raised Catholic, and since he doesn't practise any organized religion, I had always assumed that would be the case. It wasn't until after our son was born that we had any serious disagreements."

What do they quarrel about? "Everything. Whether they should be taken to church, take part in first communion, confirmation, Sunday school. At what age can they decide for themselves whether or not they want to continue going to church, when they should be told that Daddy doesn't agree with anything the church teaches." Aiken wonders if the window of opportunity might be closing as her children get older. "If they are not exposed at a young age, why, in their teens or as young adults, would they bother to explore religion? I want my children brought up with a good understanding of Catholicism. Then they can take a look at what they have been taught and decide for themselves."

This notion of letting children "decide for themselves" is at the centre of many families' religious dilemmas. Anita Jensen of Tsawwassen, B.C. says she's not really a practising Protestant anymore. Still, she'd like her baby daughter, Sara, to be baptized and "brought up with what I knew, such as some Bible stories and the general Protestant beliefs." Her husband, Kenn, however, is an atheist and figures that these choices should be Sara's, not her parents'. "I don't feel it would pose that big of a problem later in life for Sara to decide what she wanted to do," he says. "When she is ready to choose a religion - if any - then she will do so."

Of course, those principles are exactly what make parents like Adrienne Patterson run for cover. But it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing proposition, Yob says. If a mother, for example, is uncomfortable with the role women play in her religion, she shouldn't be afraid to tell her child. "I think she must talk like that. No one's saying you ought to be a hypocrite - that's a false idea of what religion is all about. Just do it in an educating way: 'What are we going to do about this?' "

Yob recognizes that it's harder to deal with these ambiguities when children are young, and she acknowledges that sometimes it can be divisive. "A child can play one parent against another: 'I don't want to go to church. Daddy doesn't go to church.' Or a parent can play a child off the other parent just as easily: 'You're Mommy's boy, you're going to come to Sunday school, aren't you?' The us-and-them mentality is a real danger."

Sarah Chana Radcliffe warns parents that this can be a dangerous, if well-meaning, assumption. "You can drop something only after you've acquired it," says Radcliffe. "In order to give a child a real choice in religion, you'd have to raise them as devout Catholics, devout Buddhists, devout Jews all at one time so they could choose which religion they wanted to follow." Since that's impossible, a more likely situation is that children are not exposed to any religious teachings at all, and are then not equipped to make an informed decision.

Recognizing this danger, Nivedita and Bharat Kohli would like to at least provide a foundation for their daughter, Bianca, 17 months. The Kohlis are Hindus raised in southern Ontario and now live outside Buffalo. Both come from families who are still active in the Hindu community.

While they're not as observant as their parents, they want Bianca to understand Hindu teachings so she can decide which ones she will embrace. "Every generation filters things out," says Bharat, explaining, for example, that he and his wife eat beef despite Hinduism's opposition to it. "But we don't want to completely lose it. When you're growing up, you're not that keen on going [to religious functions], but as you get older you go back to your roots."

Shellie and Norm Grafstein of Thornhill, Ontario have no hesitation in imparting their beliefs to their children, Tittel, six, and Akiva, three. Raised in unobservant Jewish homes, the Grafsteins became Orthodox eight years ago. They say that their religion is a moral guidepost for the family, and it's not possible to separate it from their daily life. "People often ask if it's possible to be a good person without religion," Norm reflects. "The difficulty is, who sets the standards? If it's not grounded, if it's not absolute, then it's all subjective."

This type of questioning is important for devoutly religious parents as well as those who are wavering on their choices, as Norm Grafstein will attest to. "When we started taking classes," he explains, "one thing that struck me was that the teacher didn't say, 'I'm going to teach you this.' He'd say, 'I'd like to learn this with you.' There's a nuance there that's very important - that no matter where you may be in terms of your personal growth, you're always open to learning." As they explore their faith together with their son and daughter, the Grafsteins have taken that idea to heart. Says Shellie, "In some ways, they're teaching us."

* names changed upon request

Resources

Keys to Interfaith Parenting, by Iris M. Yob, Barron's, 1998. While it's aimed at parents in mixed marriages, this book also provides a good overview of the religious aspects of raising a child and offers practical advice for all parents whose beliefs are different from their partner's. Do Children Need Religion?, by Martha Fay, Pantheon Books, 1993. Fay talks to dozens of parents about their religious beliefs and choices, and while the book is a bit theoretical and discursive, it's still a thoughtful look at some of the big questions. Now out of print but available in libraries; also published under the titleChildren and Religion: Making Choices in a Secular Age .

January 1999