When Children Become Christians, Should They Proselytize to Their Parents?

30 years ago, I was one of those kids. Without trying to sound too pedantic, there are relationships based on common interests and relationships based on support and love.
It is greatly rewarding to have both type of relationships with our children, but in this case, now the later relationship must be the focus of the parent. That relationship demands sacrifice, patience and all those other “Christian” virtues. Ironic, eh? One day, if the child ever deconverts she will remember her mother’s patience and support. Schizophrenics, when their confusion and pain are calmed, remember thankfully those that treated them well during their madness.

She could say to the grandchild, “Thank you for the invitation. I would love to see you, but let’s get together somewhere where we can talk and play.”

I would answer in ways that would put the daughter (27) on the spot to answer questions, e.g., “Thanks for the invite, but I don’t believe that church tells the truth anymore than Synagogue or Mosque.”

“What does that mean Grandma?”

“You will have to ask your mother sweety”

If we assume the daughter will never give up and we also assume that the mother wants the relationship to be reconciled, then the obvious thing to do would be to go to church with them.

“Two can play at this game. As soon as the kids are old enough to read, they might be getting a copy of The God Delusion.”

As far as I can tell, the grandmother’s goal is not to “play a game,” but to make the relationship better. Giving the grandkids Dawkins book is obviously not going to make any progress in that direction.

It’ll be a while before the kids are old enough for Dawkins. The oldest is just seven. His mother has already told him that Grandma doesn’t believe in God, and this worries him. He’s already well-indoctrinated, unfortunately. That’s probably why he goes along with it when asked to make the phone calls.

One funny thing about this is that the daughter lives in Hemant’s school district, so the grandkids may actually run into him one day.

It probably won’t work, Christians can be extremely pig headed, but she could try to reason with her daughter and try to reach a compromise.

“Honey I’ve respected your wishes to be a born again christian even though it breaks my heart. I wish you could respect my wishes to be an atheist.”

This is just me, and the mother will have to handle her daughter how she feels will be best:
Personally I would (sigh loudly, and in a ‘defeated’ tone) say, “Fine I will go with you this ONE time, if you promise to NEVER yourself or through your children force this issue AGAIN (lying is a sin remember). You also have to promise to listen to my thoughts about the WHOLE thing AFTER the service is over. (Make mental notes for future reference.) Once at the church I would chortle at the ridiculous parts and whisper to my child “you actually BELIEVE this crap?”.

–Granted this won’t help the ‘relationship’ part of it, but the daughter surely wouldn’t want that kind of embarrassment on a weekly basis.–

At the end of the day I would say, *sweet smile* “Tell you what you leave me to my beliefs, and I will leave you to yours. I love you, honey.”.

As mentioned before, that is me.
BTW I am 42 with one son.

It does depend on how much the grandmother-girlfriend is willing to compromise in order to maintain her relationship with her daughter & grandchildren – but, there’s not really a middle ground.

If she goes to church w/ the Christian branch of her family, her daughter is going to think she is a potential convert. Seems like a mixed message from grandma-girlfriend; almost like she’d be teasing her daughter, stringing her along (no matter what she says about how she’s not going to convert).

Here’s my 2 cents:

Grandmother-girlfriend needs to draw a clear line in the sand, stand her ground, state her position and indicate that she does not want to hear the Christian crap. She might tell her daughter that the daughter can pray for her (soul, conversion, etc) as much as she wants, but she does NOT want to hear about it.

Grandmother-girlfriend should NOT put the grandkids in the middle of this, or try to explicitly re-educate them out of their mom’s earshot. It’s horribly unfair to the kids to put them in the middle, unwittingly carrying messages back and forth. And, IMO it’s unfair to her daughter’s parenting to go behind her back to expose the kids to rationalism.

Grandmother-girlfriend can certainly choose activities to do with the grandkids which might open their eyes, like taking them to the local science center or natural history museum, stargazing with them, and should honestly answer their questions about the natural world & about her own beliefs (if/when they ask).

I really get upset when people use manipulation to get what they want, in this case, the daughter using her own child to get the mother/grandmother to go to church with them.

If the mother/grandmother goes because the grandchild asked, then the daughter wins and will never stop using the grandchild to achieve this every single week.

I think that MKB has the best response for the grandchild, “Thank you for the invitation. I would love to see you, but let’s get together somewhere where we can talk and play.”
That response lets the grandchild know that grandma still loves them and wants to see them, spend special time with them.

I totally disagree with “playing the game back”.
That should never be an option, ever.
It will simply create a never ending battle of who can play the game best and the longest.

The mother/grandmother MUST tell her daughter that they need to have a talk with no kids around, and then tell her something like the following;
I love you, I have always loved you, I will always love you, you are my daughter, always will be my daughter. My love for you is unconditional. No matter what you choose to do in your life, I will love you and be there for you, support you, lift you up. I feel (use “I statements” so the daughter doesn’t feel like she’s being attacked) that when my grandchild asks me to attend church with her, that she’s not asking me to go for her, but for you, because you ask me and I say no. I love my grandchildren and want to see them, but at a time and place where we can laugh, play, and share our love with one another. That cannot happen in a church setting.
I feel so very hapy that you have chosen a path for you and your family that makes you happy, I have always raised you to find your own way, be who you want to be, and if going to church and believing in god makes you happy, then do that with your life. Going to church and believing does not make me happy, and I feel hurt that you do not understand or approve of the life I have chosen, and always lived.
I will continue to always love and support you and your life choices, and I would be happy if you could love and support mine. If you can’t, if you continue to ask me to attend church with you, I will still say no. If the grandchildren continue to ask me to attend church, I will continue to say that I want to see them in a place where we can laugh and play, and talk. I would hope that eventually you will accept these answers and stop asking, and I would also hope that you will stop making the children ask me to go, and I would hope that my life choices will not be used to prevent me from seeing the grandchildren. If that happens, I will feel very hurt, sad, and upset to lose that relationship with them, but taking them away from me will not force me to believe what you believe, it will only destroy the relationship between you and I, between my grandchildren and I, and all of us will be hurt, sad, and feel a great loss. I hope that you understand all that I have said and feel, and we can all live our lives the way we see fit to live them, but remain an unconditional and loving family.
______________________

This is what I had to say to my mother, sorta reversed. My parents believed, I didn’t/don’t, and they would ask me to attend, they would tell my sons when they babysat or visited them, to tell me that god loved me, that we should all go to church as a family etc etc.
This is almost the identical conversation I had to have with my mother in order to make her stop.
I told her I would never stop letting her see the kids, but to please stop telling them to tell me to go to church, it was confusing them, and they were far too young for me to explain (at the time) to them about god and why I wouldn’t go to church, why I didn’t believe etc.
After this talk, my mother never did it again. She never asked me to go to church again, and she never said another word to my sons about church again.

I hope that Jon’s girlfriend can find the right words to have with her daughter, but a serious but loving, talk is needed to have. Not game playing, not manipulation.
Lots of “I statements” and unconditional love.

Live and let live. I’d offer to meet up AFTER they finish with their church services.

I think I’d say something like, “Oh, no, I don’t want to go to church – church is boring. Let’s do something fun instead.”

As for the daughter, I think I’d just laugh whenever she started talking about her religion. Laughter is far more effective than anger.

Let’s not forget priorities here. The priority is NOT to make a point against religion or even against proselytizing, the point is to maintain a good mother-daughter (and grandma-grandkids) relationship while maintaining intellectual honesty.

I think that the only way to handle it if it’s getting very intrusive is an intervention, so to speak. Since they seem to live close together, mother should ask daughter to lunch, no kids allowed (since their mother might be inclined to over-act the righteous Christian in front of her kids). Tell her that you love her dearly, and it’s not at all your intention to ask her to change her beliefs, but that her attitude is hurtful. Say on no uncertain terms that even though you understand that your daughter may feel that you are “missing out” or even in danger because of her atheism, you categorically do NOT share those beliefs. You are very happy as you are, are in no way lost or unhappy. That the only thing that does make you unhappy is that your own daughter would make her religion become a wedge between you. I would also say quite clearly that it’s especially hurtful to you to see your grandchildren being used as emotional projectiles and that such use makes you even less willing, not more, to consider your daughters position. Ask that she please refrain from the constant nagging and accept and respect your position, even if she cannot share it any more than you can share hers.

I think tone is very important and making clear that you very much value your relationship to your daughter and your grandchildren. It’s part of the reason I feel it has to be done in person, since it’ll be much harder for the daughter to reject her own mother when she’s sitting right there pleading with her. Too many families have been torn apart by religion, I wouldn’t want this to be one of them but also know that the solution is not knuckling under.

Or is the pastor encouraging his flock to gather more sheep no matter how? Some of the more cultlike might also encourage ties even with relatives be cut if they are non-believers.

I would not go to the pastor directly but instead if necessary and if a one on one talk doesn’t work ask the daughter to ask her pastor whether what she is doing is appropriate.