Ask Richard: My Zealous Catholic Parents Are Indoctrinating My Kids

Agreed. Your parents were lousy parents to you. They were, and still are, emotionally abusive. Now they are imposing the same treatment to your kids. You are abdicating your own duty as a parent if you allow this. Of course they do it because they think it’s right. That’s what every intolerant bigot in the world does, whether it’s forcing kids to go to mass or stoning presumed adulterers.

Richard has given you wonderful advice, it is time for you to stand up for yourself and for your children. I only want to ask you what you are teaching your children at home? I have found that once I left the church and became an Atheist I still had to deal with my child who was still indoctoriated with beliefs I could no longer subscribe to. I dealt with it by teaching him about other religions and how they all think they are correct, yet they all can’t be. I discussed with him my reasons for no longer believing and talked about things logically.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, you also have a duty to your children to teach them your beliefs or lack of. Don’t just leave it up to your parents, you need to step up and be a teacher as well. When your children want to pray, talk to them about why you don’t. If they want to talk about Jesus rising for the dead, explain to them why you think its impossible. Talk to them about the simularities between the stories of Jesus and the story of the egyptian god Horus and how it pre-dates Jesus.

Take the reins, you and your children deserve it.

I have a somewhat similiar issue with my in-laws. However they are not quite the fundamentalist type that is described in the letter. My arrangement with the in-laws is that so long as they are comfortable with me explaining to my children (in a respectful manner wherever possible) how wrong and dilluted I believe their grandparents are for believing such an unproven fairytale, then they are free to pray with the kids, talk about god with the kids, etc., and even take the kids to church should they agree to go.

I’ve warned them that my kids will be encouraged to investigate all aspects of god belief. They will hopefully ask grandma and grandpa some pointed questions. And they will never be admonished by me or my wife should the answers that grandma and grandpa provide eventually lead to mockery and ridicule. They will always respect their grandparents as people and family…but my kids are not automatically required to respect their beliefs.

I only draw the line at threatening my kids with the awful fear of hell and eternal fire. I liken that to child abuse…and will under no circumstances allow my kids to be threatened and tormented by such awfulness.

I am fully certain, that a well rounded child that is not indoctrinated with this belief, and is alternately given the mental tools necessary to investigate, question, and form their own opinions, will NEVER choose myth over reality or fantasy over the facts.

To add to fuzzybunnyslipperz’s comment:

Also talk to your kids about fear. Point out that the fear of hell is another way they get you to believe. Also point out that, though it’s difficult to not be afraid of something that adults tell you you should be afraid of, there is no evidence that it’s true and there is no reason to be afraid of something that isn’t true.

I disagree @fuzzybunnyslipperz. Maybe it’s not a parent’s duty to teach children their own belief system. Surely there are many regulars that visit this website because their own parents did just that. It’s appropriate for a parent to offer to children a variety of knowledge. If children have questions, they can be answered in a diplomatic sort of way. Children do have questions, and whether a parent is atheist, agnostic, deist, hard core catholic, whatever, in an ideal world, children should have all kinds of information available to them – not to influence, but to help them learn. Otherwise, wouldn’t it just be creating the same situation that “Torn” is dealing with presently?

please help me address this before it destroys my relationship with my parents or leads me to quit work and be a stay at home mom. I don’t want to throw away my career and we can’t afford childcare,

This may sound harsh, but if you can consider the posibility of becoming a stay at home mom, then you can afford childcare. Unless your job is so terrible that it wouldn’t even cover the cost of a daycare center, it’s really that simple.

Your children are old enough to pray and argue with you? Then they are at the very least close to school-age. Soon they’ll be in school and the cost of childcare will go down, since the hours requirement will go down.

The current situation is totally unacceptable. Not only are your children being indoctrinated against your express will in a religion (do they go to Catholic church? Are they to take communion and cathecism? When does it end?) you dislike, they are being taught that the unfaithful go to hell (you know, people like you). Not only that, your authority as a parent is being undermined every time your parents do what they damn well please with YOUR children.

These are your kids. Nothing is more valuable. I can appreciate not wanting to give up your career, but there are poor parents that both work and send their kids to daycare. You may not be able to go on vacation. You may have to buy less clothes, cancel cable, wait to buy a new care or a new computer. Aren’t they worth it?

Giving a child an ability to participate in faith is not an evil thing. Most atheists I know, including myself, were raised in a faith setting, and ulitmately made decisions for themselves. Children are not Play-Doh, and you cannot mold them into what you wish them to be. If going to church and praying makes sense to these kids, then maybe that should be taken into account as well. When these kids are older, they will make their own decisions as to what makes sense. Give them choices and convey your beliefs as well as your parents. It is ridiculous to shield people from questions of belief or non-belief, even young children. It sounds as if they are good grandparents, sharing time and pieces of themselves with your children, don’t take that away. It also seems that they have respected your decisions by no longer inviting you to church. Perhaps you are villanizing them too much.

…why do YOU have to be the one facing the choice of being employed or being a stay-at-home parent?

Make a deal with your husband: you work on your relationship with your parents and their relationship with your children while he tries to figure out a temporary (though perhaps permanent, worst case scenario) childcare arrangement.

I have emotionally abusive parents, too, and I’m not going to berate you over the fact that it was your husband who spilled the beans over your beliefs to your parents because you likely did not have control over that disclosure in the situation. However, Richard is right about one thing: your parents, despite the fact that you are now a parent yourself, fail to see you as an adult and you need to exercise your right over your children NOW. Once your husband finds a suitable childcare arrangement, withdraw your children from staying with your grandparents IMMEDIATELY. They can still participate in the same activities (i.e., going to church with them) but they cannot stay with them.

I would disagree about Torn’s parents not being villains. She has already informed them that she is not Catholic, so they are actively undermining and disrespecting her by teaching these things to her children. Is that not villainous?

I wonder if part of the reluctance to confront the parents has to do with her avoiding objectively confronting the reality her own childhood.

By stating why the parents’ actions are harmful to her children, she is also confirming that they were harmful to her and went on for much, much longer.

Lots of people can dismiss problems in their childhood as “mostly good, with a few bad things” but identifying her parents daily actions as harmful and dangerous to her kids recasts her childhood and relationship to her parents in a whole new light.

If this is the case she may wish to discuss these ideas and her response to them with someone she trusts while taking the constructive steps Richard outlined.

cortex and others,
When we are dealing with an opponent in a conflict, it is very advantageous to accurately understand their motivation. Their greatest strength and/or weakness is in their motivation. If, in our anger we characterize or stereotype their motivation incorrectly, we will misjudge their strengths and weaknesses, and we will be far less capable of persuading them, or countering them, or manipulating them, or even defeating them if need be.

People might do destructive things that we must oppose, but it’s their motivation that differentiates villains from just well-meaning pains in the ass. A villain wants to cause suffering and loss as well as to gain for himself. Torn’s parents don’t seem to want that, they just want their grandchildren to become good little Catholics and be saved. Even their bullying of Torn is probably not from sadism or the desire to be cruel. It is probably a ruthlessness rationalized from the same desires they had for Torn when she was a child. Very destructive, very self-defeating in the long run, yes, but not villainy.

Correctly understanding their motivation can help Torn respond to their resistance in the most efficient, effective, and very importantly in her case, the most mature and adult ways.

Demon-Hype-

I am an adult in my mid-20’s and I have been thinking “differently” and questioning for about 8-10 years now. I was raised Christian and I can certainly attest that even though it is illogical and I know realistically I am a good person and if there *were* a punishment system, I feel I am good enough to get in (even thought I don’t believe in it), the fear is still very real. It is something people not raised in the church just cannot understand. The fear starts from a very, very early age. I could recite Bible verses and understand the concept of eternal pain at a fairly young age. It is terrifying and I agree with you that children should be spared from it, regardless of how loving the intent is.

Richard, I appreciate your insight very much. You read a lot into my short email, and it was all spot on. After sending it I discussed the issue again with my husband, and suddenly felt very empowered, like writing to you crystallized for me the path I need to take. They don’t fully appreciate my position because I was not the one to deliver it, and I apparently needed to be more specific about how it related to my children. I realized that only I can fix this. Only I can prevent my children from coming home one day and telling me I am hell-bound, or from the torture that results from realizing something they have been brainwashed with is not true.

I also appreciate all the comments from your readers. While some of the comments seem not to appreciate that I am just coming into my atheism from a 40 person family of Catholics that includes a nun, I do not feel the need to defend against every post. It should, however, be noted that not all conversions are so easy as others. And contrary to the comment that a backbone cannot be had over the internet, this first “public” announcement of my newfound beliefs and the supportive responses to your post, have given me considerable strength and “backbone” to do what is required of me as a parent.

The kids have not been with my parents since the day I sent my email to you. They will not be going back for childcare, though I will not cut my parents out of their life. My husband has rescheduled his work and has been staying home with them for the last two weeks.

Richard, you made excellent points and I intend to have this conversation with my parents before the new year. For months I have been actively seeking out ways to teach my kids to be free thinkers (currently I am reading “Parenting Beyond Belief” and “Raising Free Thinkers”), I and I would appreciate further recommendations from other readers.

Thank you again. Your forum is so helpful!

@Demonhype:
You are soooo 100% right.
Torn must learn to accept that they love their deity more than they love her.
Remember this is a religion which praises a man’s willingness to kill his own child because his god asks it of him.
Not all christians accept this (or even know about it!) but these parents sound as though they fall into this category.

@Torn:
May I suggest you are also afraid to insist to your husband that the children must go to daycare because this would require that you admit the truth of your parent’s mistreatment?
Will you be believed? What will others think of you? Will you be accused of being hysterical? What of the commandment to honour one’s parents? (I hate that one!)
It takes courage to stop making excuses for bad parents. It takes the love of and for your children and husband to gain the strength needed to break through the fear of being a bad person because you exposed your parents.
Do not let them undermine these strengths, they may try to get between you and your true family by claiming that you are exaggerating.
Be prepared and be proud.

Since you have thrown your own parenting skills to the wolves, I will also toss in my own two cents.

You are not being a good parent to your children. You are not demonstrating to them that you are a strong, independent woman. You are not putting their needs in front of your own (“can’t afford it” = “can’t conveniently afford it”).

The good news is that your children are young and there is still plenty of time to rectify the situation. You asking for help is definitely the first step. Doing something about it is the 2nd, and most important, step.

Which is more important to you? Be a child of your parents or a parent to your child? You have to choose and live with the consequences.

Fei,

Actually I’ve answered several letters where the roles were reversed between the parents and grandparents being the believers and the atheists. Each of my responses is tailored to the complexities of that particular family’s dynamics. The difference in any one detail can make a complete difference to what I suggest, and my meager efforts to help are only a shot in the dark because of the limitations of a brief email. There are no formulas to follow, no neat, clean, simple, or guaranteed solutions to these problems. Reversing the roles does not automatically, mechanically warrant a perfectly reversed, mirror-image response.

I’m always open, no, eager to hear better suggestions than the ones I offer, and I’ve often been pleased to read them in the readers’ comments. You ask challenging hypothetical questions. I think it’s only right that you present your own answers to them first. Whatever you challenge other people to do, be ready and willing to do yourself. I agree that black-or-white responses are not as helpful. What would you do with all the details hinted at in this case?

@Muggle

“Not to mention how disgusting I find it morally to use the grandparents for babysitting then to say that it’s perfectly okay to remove the grandkids from their life. That’s fucking horseshit!”

What is the motivation for providing free childcare for your grandchildren? How much grandparent abuse should a parent put up with before removing the kids from the grandparents’ lives?

If the grandparents are knowingly undermining the wishes of the parents, they have forfeited their ‘rights’ to visitation by playing a lying game. If the mother and father are of sound mind and body (and it sounds like they are), she can certainly use visitation with her children as a tool to control her parents.

Are you saying that if you spend X amount of hours caring for the child, you deserve X amount of influence over the child’s upbringing?

I had assumed that grandparent childcare was typically free because the grandparents gained something from it; time with their grandchild and helping their own child. Not so they could earn points for future situations and/or control their own child.

@Torn,

Glad to hear from you and to hear of your first steps in alleviating what surely must be a horrible situation all around. It’s not going to be easy by any means, so I sincerely wish you luck. Please keep us posted, if possible.

JJ

Torn, I’m glad you’re finding an alternate method of childcare, but not specifically for the absence of indoctrination. As long as your parents are still providing such a valuable service to you, you’re still in their debt, and the dynamic is heavily tilted to them still thinking of you in the “child who needs to be taken care of” mode. That will lead them to override your decisions simply on the basis of them “knowing better” and you staying in the role of their child. Separating that out not only takes you out from under your obligation to them, but might help them to see you as an independent adult who can make your own decisions.

goodman, did you not read my whole comment? Look, I would not have ever agreed to babysitters bringing my daughter to mass but the fact here is they did because it was convenient to them and then only grumbled when the kiddies brought it home. As I said, were they asking the grandparents to sit at times they would have been going to mass.

The motivations you mention are exactly why I babysit my grandson so much. They are my sole motivations. I babysit because I love him.

However, it’s ridiculous to say grandparents don’t interact with kids at all and don’t share their worldview with their grandkids. To threaten them with alienation from their grandkids, especially when they have extended themselves by helping out when childcare was needed — we don’t know for how long their generosity was taken advantage of — is reprehensible and disgusting. And, as I pointed out, they may not be as without recourse as you think.

As I also said, we don’t have full details here. We don’t know if they were going to mass as was their custom and would have had to stop or bring the kids along to babysit when needed. I’m assuming this to be the case or else mass wouldn’t have been occuring at the times they were babysitting and they wouldn’t have been able to bring them. She knew before asking that they were very religious and probably that they attended mass and she put them out anyway.

How much of the stuff they were bringing home came from her parents and how much came from church, Torn knows better than me. I’m assuming that much came from her parents and that’s why she wrote and stopped using them as a daycare service. I’m very glad, however, since there is obvious some love there yet between her and them, and because her children do have a loving relationship with them, that the compromise was reached and she is not taking their grandchildren away from them after they helped out for we do not know how long.

As for allowing abuse, well, my daughter was never even allowed to meet my fundie nut job mother who I disowned years before I even thought of having a baby. I can only assume Torn’s parents aren’t quite as bad as her because she probably would have done like me and left home and never looked back. It would have been over my dead body that my mother was ever allowed anywhere near my child and I’d have fault every court in the land, even skipped state or country to prevent it, but then my mother was never able to establish the necessary relationship to enforce grandparent rights as I, for example, would be able to do because she just is not that loving. I don’t think even the most Christian-loving, Atheist-hating judge in the world would have granted her visitation when they heard my stories of abuse and estrangement.

I took flak from siblings for never letting my mother anywhere near my daughter until she hauled off and hit one grandkid and called her half-Vietnamese greatgranddaughter but I stood my ground and said I am not subjecting my daughter to that woman. If I had, yes, I’d be out of line to turn around and then say, no, you can never see her again for just exposing her to an opposing worldview. However, my sister and my niece were utterly right to no longer subject their kids to her after hitting and name-calling the kids themselves. I don’t see being honest about what they believe as amounting to the same thing. I just don’t.

Where they do cross the line is telling the kids that mommy and daddy were going to hell instead of saying it’s up to god or something. For that reason, it’s right of Torn to pull them off babysitting duty and to be present when kids visit but these kids are old enough to voice such things to their parents so it’s likely that grandparents have been sitting for them for years. It’d be morally wrong to cut them out of their grandkids’ lives all together and, yes, morally wrong to even threaten to.

Frankly, yes, I do find it disgusting to use kids as a weapon. Point blank. It disturbs me that it is promoted as something to do with a regular basis on here.

Of course, I also think if you feel your parents were abusive, the thing to do as an adult is just walk away from them. Not try to be tit for tat and abuse them in turn as they age. Revenge is stupid and childish.

Richard, thank you for replying to my comment. I don’t really have answers or ideas or solutions to the issues that I raised. I have never been in a position to offer any such advice, and I hope that I never have to be put in that difficult position. I’m sure that I haven’t lived enough to possess the wisdom to offer better suggestions.

I simply wanted to raise awareness about a possible double standard, which may point to a troubling hypocrisy of which many unthinking but very well-intentioned nonbelievers are guilty. I see that in the comments of most people in this thread. There’s a distinction between an objective and a moral justification for that objective. In this case, the objective is to protect vulnerable children from the poison of religious indoctrination. The most common moral justification that I see here is that grandparents have no business undermining the authority of parents, but this is flawed because it doesn’t work when the tables are turned and the grandparents are the nonbelievers instead. A different justification should be used and a game plan devised out of it.

I agree that what you and others have offered would be highly effective and makes sense, and as such the advice could be considered “right” in a limited sense. But my concern is not about what works but rather about what actually is “right.” And what’s “right” should be universal to a significant degree, not applicable only to certain people in specific situations. Otherwise, wouldn’t we be admitting that the moral justifications behind the advice are more or less arbitrary? I understand that rarely is any piece of advice “one size fits all,” and I’m not arguing that any advice should be. What I mean is that the basic principles should be universal, while the details and specifics can definitely be tailored for different people.

You say that you’ve tried to help people in such situations as the hypothetical ones that I mentioned. Why not give us a sampling of some of the things that you’ve said to them? I do have a couple of thoughts. They may not be the most useful or effective, but they entail no problems with basic principles. First of all, in the case that the grandparents are not zealots and are willing to listen to reason, I think that a good argument would be that children should simply not be introduced to any belief systems before their minds are mature enough to rationally think through them. (This would include not only religion but politics as well.) Any reasonable person should agree that this is a fair policy.

Believers who object could be answered in the following way: If they are confident in truth of their religion, then they should have no need to take advantage of young, impressionable minds; the children would come to accept the religion on its own merits once they’ve grown into adulthood. If they are concerned about making sure that the children are “saved” before something terrible happens, then they should just pray to and have faith in their god to make sure that the children are safe until they come to accept the religion. A loving and just god who wants people to worship him would surely be amenable to that and would surely not punish innocent children for not believing before they’re given the relevant information.

Children should furthermore be taught to think critically, not just for the purpose of questioning religion but because it’s one of the most useful and important skills applicable to almost every aspect of life. And children would be allowed to ask questions about anything, including religion, and they would be answered appropriately, without any hints of persuasion. I think that this is something that Torn could use to help reassure her parents, who might be concerned that she’s telling her children, “There is no God.”

All of that comes from the moral justification that children should not be exposed to things that they are not yet psychologically and intellectually equipped to handle. The vast majority of parents shield their children from violence and sex, so why not also include belief systems? However, this notion would almost certainly be rejected by the zealots, who would most likely be too deluded to accept reason. However, this is not a problem for the “basic principles” that I’ve been emphasizing, since the principles are still valid for all, whether they like it or not. In the more extreme hypothetical case that I described, perhaps the best advice is just to leave it alone; let the kids be indoctrinated. It may just be a hopeless situation until the kids are grown and step out into the world, and trying to fight it will probably cause too much trouble. Unlike the proselytizing zealots, we atheists are not obsessed with scoring points (i.e., the tally of people “saved”), are we?

Hi Fei,

Thank you for elaborating on your thoughts. I understand what you mean about having consistent principles, and that reciprocity should be one of them. Certainly if every single detail in a pair of cases is identical except for the atheist/theist roles, then reciprocity would be easy to follow, but I haven’t found that match yet. Still, if none of the differences are pertinent to the action I suggest, then as in your hypothetical cases, the theist parents should have the same rights, leeway, and consideration as the atheist parents would.

I also understand about the problem of doing what is right versus doing what works. In my posts I often overtly articulate that conflict, and call it “principles vs. pragmatics.” Because life problems are hardly ever simple and black/white, I try to recommend finding a balance of those two. The fulcrum of that teeter-totter is never in the same place twice, often shifting over time.

I tend to be a real stickler for following ethical principles when it comes to my own behavior even if it causes me hardship, but I try hard to not cause someone else suffering by my following a principle too rigidly. That would seem to me to be vain and ego-based more than being genuinely principled. It’s tough sometimes to find the balance. I have to use my own judgment and accept the consequences, good or bad.

You’ll see in my responses to the letters a frequent tendency for me to suggest something that will hopefully bring about the best outcome for everyone involved, and especially something that keeps the relationships open to future interaction, negotiation and reconciliation. People can change over time, and their hard and fast positions can soften; their black or white views can gain shades and colors. I consider that maturing, and I have seen it happen at all stages of life.

Here are two previous Ask Richard posts, one with an atheist grandfather struggling with a poor relationship with his fundamentalist son, and concerned about his grandchildren, and the other is about an aunt or uncle wanting to intervene in the religious indoctrination of his/her nephew. In both cases the fact that legally they are very limited overshadows the scene, but I try to suggest what will heal and benefit the relationships first, so that their benign influence on the children toward free thinking can still be available, and even if not, and much more importantly, their love is still available.

This is the “help” of an atheist? “Think of a creative 3rd option”???? Wow, so we would solve world hunger with “think of a better way to feed everyone”. There, that’s done. If ever there was a more clear example of how wrong atheism is, this is it!! Poor advice, that a bunch of wannabes agree with, and no real answer to the question “what happens to you after you die?” The trouble with atheism is that AFTER you die, you can do nothing to correct your error. Being Christian, I have already moved away from error and toward where I need to be. Are all Christians perfect? No, but neither are atheists. Please, as is typical, you atheists can start your namecalling and other juvenile behavior. What might be better is for you to honestly take a look at what atheism has “given” you. Yes, you are correct – nothing.