What Do You Do When Your Kids Are Indoctrinated Against Your Will?

I have had a similar situation in y family. Fortunately my mother only took my then 3 1/2 year old to her church for a service. but she knew it would upset me. the worst part was that my daughter had gone to a pre school  like environment while there and now only sees it as fun. I explained to her that mommy believes in different things then most people. When she is old enough i plan to show her about many religions. grandparents need to realize that thy had their chance to raise kids and now they do not get to dictate everything.

I often hear atheist parents mention VBS like it is no big deal. I went to VBS as a child and it is a place I would never let one of my children go. This is not a place where they just share cutesy little bible stories with children and do crafts.  VBS is a place where they begin to indoctrinate children in young earth creationism and in the fear of eternal damnation. There is also a huge emphasis on the belief that all people are sinners and therefore inherently bad.

If my children were at their grandparents and were put into VBS, I would drive back there, pick them up, and bring them home.

Where do I find to contact Donald? I looked on his blog and didn’t find anything. I live  close to where he lives and it would be nice to have an atheist so close. It is hard to find any where I live.

What I’d tell the kids depends a lot on how old they are.  If they’re quite young, I’d explain that only mean people tell scary stories like that to little kids.

I’d inform grandma that what she did was a serious betrayal of trust, and that I regarded it so seriously that for the next year she would only be allowed to see her grandchildren when I was present to supervise her.  If she succeeds in earning back the trust, she might be gradually allowed to take them on outings by herself–but no guarantees.  She isn’t the parent–I am.  And I will not have my kids exposed to superstition as though it were fact. 

What would I have said to the grandmother?
A) How dare you break our trust.
B) Thank you, thank you for proving how morally bankrupt your religion makes people.
C) It’s a real shame the kids didn’t stay with you guys instead of Bullshit-Liar Vacation School, because you might have liked spending that time with them. Now you will never see them . Ever.

If my daughter called me after one day at Grandma’s crying, I’d be there as soon as I could to pick her up. I’d tell my mom before we left that unless she can promise not to deceive me about how she would be spending time with my daughter, my daughter would no longer be visiting without my supervision. Then, I would explain, as age appropriate, why what Grandma did was wrong.

Uhm for starters I would have picked my kids up from the camp and taken them home the instant one of my children made it patent they were being indoctrinated employing fear. The post says the parents were told the Bible school was happening and agreed with reservations. For me that was their first mistake, if for no other reason that it showed grandma that she can be decietful and manipulative and get away with it.

However I’m at a total loss to understand why the very first reaction of the parents after their 7 year old daughter called them, crying and clearly terrified, wasn’t to say “stay right there sweetie, we’re coming to get you” and then jump in the car and take her home. There would be less “pieces” to pick up if they had stopped this ill-begotten exercise as soon as it was clear it was harmful.

My family is fundamental/evangelical to the nth degree.  I used to be, too, before I was exposed to the wider world – first in university and then in researching child development and psychology.  Reading about the way brain chemistry works in young children opened a door to doubting the concept of original sin – and if that was untrue could I trust anything else my religion said?  I decided no.  (There was also  a boatload of cultural and doctrinal issues I could no longer support.)

I live 3 hours from my parents.  When we used to visit, I’d allow them to go to Sunday School with my parents.  However, as they got older, my parents wanted them to go to “gospel” meeting as well and that is where I objected.  I told my parents that unless they could keep my children out of gospel meetings, my kids wouldn’t be staying there without me.  They respected my wishes until the kids were older and at that time we had another discussion.  By the time my kids were 8 and 11, I felt they were capable of sorting through the issues – or, at least, coming to me for answers.

For my daughter – the pragmatic child – this worked well.  For my son – the sensitive one – it didn’t.  I regret letting them take him to church at all as I am now forced to take him to a liberal Christian church simply to give him an alternative to the abusive fundamentalism in which I was raised.  I researched local denominations, wrote e-mails to various ministers, and chose a church which is open and affirming to LGBLTQ issues, heavily involved in social justice, and approaches the Bible from a perspective of myth and morality play instead of divine and literal instructions for life.

It’s not popular to say so, but if either of my children choose fundamentalism as an adult I will feel that I have failed as a parent – and will trace it back to allowing my kids to attend church with my parents.

Making a big deal about it seems more likely to result in the kids wanting to join the religion than anything. Making something a taboo just makes it more alluring. 

I’d explain to the grandparents that while I respect their faith I do not want my kids enrolled in something like that. They would be welcome to share their faith with the kids so long as they did not scare or threaten them or make the entire visit about proselytizing. It would be a good way for my kids to learn about other people’s beliefs and to think about what they believe and why.

Then I would sit down with my kids and talk to them about it. Ask them what they thought about what was said and if they had any questions. I would encourage them to think critically about the claims made and to learn more about anything they were curious about. 

I really don’t much care if my kids become Atheists, Christians, Muslims, or whatever so long as they do so because they thought critically, skeptically and rationally about what they were doing and were doing so out of their own free choice. Though I don’t personally see how approaching things that way could result in someone becoming religious 😉  

I don’t think I’m going to be looking toward raising Atheists as much as kids who have the tools to analyze claims and make good decisions. 

Plain and simple when my daughter called me crying I would have dropped everything and moved the sun to go get them.  Secondly, I would inform the grandparent(s) that they would under no circumstances ever have my children unsupervised again.

Until the grandmother was an adult!

Hate to say it, but this is where the old joke about “what’s the fastest way to become an atheist? Read the bible” holds a kernel of truth. I’m willing to bet that if the kids were God-bothered and scared into believing, they they have probably been set on the right path to rejecting that nonsense. I applaud Donald’s efforts to show them bible stories in context of mythology – that’s gonna help put things in perspective. I reckon the real issue here is respect for Donald. I have a similar situation: my inlaws (as well as my own parents, I’m discovering) completely ignore my stance on religion and continue to assume I will raise my own kids Catholic. It’s a slap in the face. I hope some way of gaining respect for our position among family members can be found among the collective experiences shared here. We can choose our friends, and social circle, but we can’t choose our family. We have to live with them, but respect for each other is not one-way (ie: for their deep-seated religious way) They have to respect us as members of the family as well.

Dammit, I’m giving my father-in-law a piece of my mind this weekend cos of this. I feel for ya, Donald! I hope you find a good resolution to this problem!

I have two kids who are 9 and 6. Here’s how my wife and/or I would’ve handled the “We’re taking your kids to the Sky Fairy camp” situation.

The kids go back in the car and we drive away.

Oh, I talk to my kids all the time about religion (I run an atheist/comedy/parenting blog), but we talk about like it’s a form of deranged comic book.

My response would be simple: “I’m coming to pick you up, right now,”  and stayed on the phone with them during as much of the drive as possible. 
They’ll remember the incident, yes – but they’ll remember it because their dad dropped everything to come protect them, without thinking twice; not because of the scary stories some stranger told them.  They may even take away the lesson that the torments promised by the church are trumped by the demonstrable love of their parents.

The grandparents should lose all unsupervised access to the kids.  The grandmother’s actions clearly show an intent to deceive – I’d wager good money that she volunteered to take the kids for specifically that week with the intention of putting them through VBS.

As for damage control, I’d introduce them to Greek and Roman mythology.  Tell them that people believe all sorts of silly things (yourself included!), and that simply because somebody believes something, doesn’t make it true.  At one time people believed in those other legends as much as the scary church lady believes in the Bible story – so there’s no need to that horror story seriously.  

Thanks. You’re right: we’re not respected. This is evidenced by my mother-in-law’s description of my wife: “She thinks she’s an atheist”. What the hell does that mean? Like she thinks she’s an atheist but she’s wrong?

Anyways.

“What would you have said to the grandmother?”

You are never, ever, EVER going to see your grandchildren again unless you promise to never pull a stunt like that again. What you did was a serious violation of trust. We have the right to raise our children according our own values. If you can’t respect that, we can’t trust you to be around our kids. Period.

You appear grounded. You obviously love your children. You’ll all be fine. I recommend Richard Dawkins’ letter to his daughter for further re-enforcement. I don’t know how to insert a link so, just google dawkins letter to his daughter.

I’d raise two freethinking adults and then sic them on grandma’s deceit. Watch her face turn in horror as young adults parry her every apologetic and pierce with striking logic at the heart of her faith. Then, throw your smug face on and light up a cigar!

I would have said “F-ing C&nt, you will NEVER see my children again.”

I went to vacation bible school as a kid, and it was very boring. We did some tedious crafts, and we were taught some meaningless platitudes. The sheer meaninglessness of the experience turned me off of christianity. So, some people may not be so harmed by it. It depends a lot on the church.

I would definitely be making phone calls and my mother would not see that child again.  Ever.  The grandparents have no right to make decisions like that without clearance from the parents, ever.  And if my child called me in tears because of attempted indoctrination, there is little that would keep me from getting my behind there immediately.

My mother has often said she is praying for us and that’s fine… it’s her dime and her time and it makes her feel good.  But she would NEVER do what this grandmother did.  And if she did, she wouldn’t have access to him for awhile.

I’d be trying to sue the camp for holding my kids without my knowledge or permission (not to mention for mentally abusing them).  The grandparents would never see them again AND would have a new hole ripped.  End of story.  I am an atheist mother of two and FUCK if I’m going to let my Christian family indoctrinate my kids.  If they’re going to become Christians, they’re going to come to it on their own terms, not cause they were terrified into it as children.

I would not use the word “respect” in any way to the grandparents, except in demanding how they could have such little respect for us, and how they have now lost any respect we ever had for them. And to wave goodbye for the last time to their grandchildren.

I am guessing that if the child called home crying than this particular VBS was probably more Jesus Campy than crafty and boring. When I went there were daily altar calls, pledges to the Bible, the Christian flag, and the American flag, a heavy emphasis on creation stories, and some rather serious guilt inducing sermons.

I am glad there are more mundane versions than what I experienced, but I wouldn’t take the chance with my young children.

Bugger showing respect to her religion – if she isn’t going to respect your beliefs or the way you choose to raise your children, then she deserves no respect in return. I have lost all patience with hypocrites who demand respect while spouting hateful, disrespectful bile against those they disagree with.

I would have been bloody furious actually, and wound up saying things about Grandmother in front of (or even to) my kids that I would regret painfully seconds after saying them… But I’d also be powerless to stop for quite some time.

And yeah, I would’ve headed to get them straight away. But I’m also not going to judge this parent for waiting a day or two to see how things pan out. Unlike some of the commenter here I can see where a parent would react the way he did.

I don’t like the implications in some of these posts that the failure to act sooner should be regarded as neglectful in some way. I call bullshit.

Grandma is familiar with the 9th (8th for RC/Lutheran) commandment, no?

I figure the best defense I can give my son is to expose him to the stories.  And teach him how to ask LOTS of questions.  And not give him BS answers, or sometimes ANY answer.  When he asks why cats have sharp claws, we get into a discussion as to what the alternatives are, and why sharp claws might work (or not work) given the rest of the ‘cat package’. 

I wouldn’t trust the grandparent’s word. It sounds like they are the type that believes anything for Jeebus is good, so lying to a heathen is completely acceptable. I’d give them the rant, but mostly for my own satisfaction. I think it’s unlikely that they’d ever understand that sending their grandkids to Bible camp was wrong under any circumstances.

Similar thing happened with my 3 year old.  My mother-in-law took her to Sunday school a few times and I allowed it because its a pretty liberal church and I always talked to her about it afterwards.  She still doesn’t know anything about Christianity because all they did was play and make vaguely Jesus related crafts (foam crosses with stickers on them stuff like that).  But when she started half singing “Jesus loves me” I gently put a stop to those outings. My m.i.l. is the nicest Christian I know so I didn’t want to offend.  Mostly we just started planning family activities on Sundays so she wasn’t able to go.  

Like other people have said, I teach my kids about different religions and we emphasize compassion, respect, curiosity and critical thinking.  

  I have no children yet and being in the UK religion is pretty inconsequential to most people.  My parents are evangelical christians living a couple of hours away, they would never try anything like this as they know my views on the subject.

  If this situation was to happen hypothetically to my family, first I would never allow them to any bible camp, I’d cancel my holiday or ship them off to any number of other non-religious relatives.  If it went ahead without my knowledge, I’d be at the camp kicking down doors after the phone call, I’m not known for my restraint and have some experience with kicking down doors – best entrance ever. 

  The grandparents would no longer see my kids unsupervised and I would take a break from visiting for a few months to make my feelings clear.  Perhaps, only let them visit us for a year so it is in my home on my terms, people act differently under their own roof as opposed to being guests.  I would give them a dressing down, and I wouldn’t feel the need to hold back but I wouldn’t do it in front of the kids.  Probably a letter so I could compose my thoughts and edit out the swearing, they would get a clear picture of my feelings on the subject.

  As for the kids depends on their ages, I’d read them some Terry Pratchett and explain how people make up stories to explain where the world came from before science was around to figure it out.  Much like magic turtles, fairies in the sky don’t exist either.  Unfortunately, because these books have been around a long time lots of people still believe them.  But, if believing was supposed to make you a good person why did it make grandma lie to us and betray our trust, and send you kids off to a horrible place where they made you cry?  I plan on teaching the kids about mythology and ethics anyway so I guess the rest depends on their ages.  The bible is full of terrible stuff, if the Easter story doesn’t show kids what a vile religion it is then there’s plenty more in there.  

I also have a very Catholic mother… and if you aren’t expecting it I would urge you to think twice about believing that they will do this. My mother knows I am not very deeply religious but not that I’m an atheist and she has already made a comment about taking the (non-existent) future children of mine to be baptized.

Although I have calmly and repeatedly expressed the point that I don’t wish to have children, she continues to pressure me into having them. If she refuses to accept my ability to make this decision for myself as an adult, why should I sudden believe she that she will respect my parenting choices if I should change my mind?

Actually I’d like to put that out as a separate question. What would you do if your parents/in-laws baptized your child and specifically if it was into the Roman Catholic Church? (Since that baptism is on an infant and records them as part of the Church and supporting it forever in the US).

Not likely to happen to me but…

Actually I’d like to put that out as a separate question. What would you
do if your parents/in-laws baptized your child and specifically if it
was into the Roman Catholic Church? (Since that baptism is on an infant
and records them as part of the Church and supporting it forever in the
US).

Well in the US baptism has no legal ramifications (in contrast to some other countries where you would have part of your taxes diverted to the church until and unless you formally removed yourself).  However if a priest (not a requirement but likely necessary to get formally on the church’s books) baptized a child without the formal consent of the child’s legal guardian, he could be facing a lawsuit (canon law also seems to forbid it unless the child is likely to die).   Such lawsuits have been filed and been successful (though the ones I saw were when no relation was involved and were not Catholic).  

Fortunately this would not happen in my family, because even though my parents are quite devout christians the wishes of the grandkids’ parents have always been given complete deference — even if they disagree. Period. So my parents would have asked first, and if I had said no — which I would have — that would have been that. (For the record, my mother-in-law is the daughter of a retired Presbyterian minister who, at his retirement dinner, outed himself as an atheist. So no worries on that side of the family.)

That being said, I have to echo what most other posters are saying: If my young daughter called from anywhere, even her grandparents’ house, crying and scared out of her mind about something she’d heard or witnessed, I would drop everything to go get her. Over the course of a 2-1/2 hour drive I can work up a pretty good head of steam, so I imagine the grandparents — MY parents — would get an earful. And the kid(s) would no longer visit unsupervised. Ever.

Yeah, I find it hard to believe that they made the kids stay the week!  And forget the “unsupervised”, they should never *see* those children again.

I don’t have this issue. My parents are atheists, and my wife’s parents, although very strong fundamentalist Christians, live several states away. The kids won’t be going to visit them alone any time soon. If I did have to deal with it, there would be strong words between me and the grandparents. I don’t believe in cutting them out of the childrens’ lives, but I would certainly be much more adamant about knowing exactly what their plans are, in advance. At least until they can show that trust is deserved.

But the most shocking thing about this, at least to me, is that the VBS was willing to take the kids for the week without having all manner of parental consent and liability release forms signed by their legal guardians. Even if it’s just a day camp sort of thing. Any time I get my kids involved in an officially organized activity, there’s half a ream of paperwork to fill out. Either the church was being extremely negligent, or Grandma signed the forms illegally.

I am a lawyer, and — forgive me for being blunt here — this is terrible advice.

I am sure you’re well-meaning, and I’m sure we also agree on how horrible this story is.  It is truly awful.  But suing people is not the solution, not the least of which is because you have ZERO chance of winning.

The camp’s obligation is to get consent from the parent or actual OR APPARENT legal guardian.  When grandparents bring in children, that discharges the camp’s duties.  The camp is not responsible for understanding the private relationships between a child, their parents, and their grandparents; the camp’s job is just to make sure the kid is being taken there by someone with the actual or apparent authority to take them there.  That’s all.

The bit about the First Amendment is irrelevant, of course; the First Amendment applies to *government* actions, not actions of private churches.

Finally, even if you could clear these hurdles — which you can’t — any tort claims would be evaluated under the “reasonable person” standard, by which a court will ask “how would an ordinary, reasonable person react to these circumstances?”  Since the answer to that is “by ignoring it,” the court is going to conclude that there was no actual harm inflicted.

You might not like these conclusions, but they are what the law *is*.  I don’t think we atheists do ourselves any favors by encouraging people to bring losing lawsuits.

This would not be a sensible lawsuit.

I’m not even going to bother making a big long post when you’ve already done such a great job saying what I would have also done. So:

THIS^

this actually happened to my friend 60 years ago when she was a young child of a mixed religion marriage, left with grandma for the day, gran (who had obviously planned in advance) quickly whipped friend and her siblings to the local Catholic church and had them baptised. It completely broke all relationships between her and the parents (very bitterly) and gran never saw her grandchildren again through their childhood.
 I thought it very sad that this woman missed so much joy and pleasure of sharing in her grandchildrens growing years through her own narrow minded actions.

Andrew,

Please note that my advice was not to sue, but to get legal advice on a potential strategy.  I said I was not a lawyer.  So, if advice to get the opinion of a lawyer is bad advice, then I guess my advice was bad.

Suing is the solution sometimes.  You seem to rule out nearly all lawsuits.  We should rule out lawsuits that are not winnable and those with too high of an opportunity cost.  I don’t know if a suit on this is winnable or not, that is where the legal advice recommendation came in.  I appreciate you providing some advice, though I think you are missing a few things.  

The part about guardianship makes logical sense, and hopefully, that is what the law is.  Of course, I was not going to assume that is what the law is given that in many other areas, the responsibility does not fall on the person making the representation.  For example, in many examples that I have seen, bars are held accountable for someone drinking underage, even if that person presented a fake ID.  I have a friend that went to prison for taking nude pictures of an underage girl and she presented him with a fake ID as well.  In this situation, we have the equivalent of a fake ID presented, except it is the grandparents misrepresenting themselves.  I think it is great if that liability is on the grandparents, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if you had said otherwise.

Would the camp be back on the hook if they knew that the children were there against the wishes of the parents?  It would not surprise me if the grandparents bragged to someone at the camp that the children’s parents were atheists and they were finally getting the chance to indoctrinate the children.  At this point, woud the camp have conspired to violate the children’s rights to not be psychologically abused?  I don’t know.

The bit about the First Amendment was completely relevant, because not all of it only “applies to *government* actions, not actions of private churches.”  I was not referring to the Establishment Clause.  I was referring to the Free Exercise Clause, which applies to individuals.  It is the one that apparently gives the right for parents to psychologically torture their children with stories of eternal hellfire and  blinded “magicians” (aka people who don’t believe their myths).  I am not sure if this Free Exercise right would extend to people teaching a child against the wishes of the parent.  This appears to be irrelevant if the camp did not know about the parent’s stance, but if they knew, then it would be interesting to find out if the Free Exercise clause would be a viable defense.

As a layman, I totally disagree with your assessment that a reasonable person would ignore what happened.  Donald has not ignored this and we can see the extreme emotional reactions of other people on this forum.  Apparently, most people would not ignore what happened.  Most people would be horrified that their children have been indoctrinated against their wishes and would then have to take specific steps to undo the psychological damage.   

I do agree that we should not encourage people to bring losing lawsuits.  But, I do think we help people by encouraging them to find out where the law stands in relation to how they have been harmed in relation to their atheism.

This is something that I’m struggling with as a young mom. I don’t claim to be an atheist, more agnostic, but I see no need to go to church. My husband is an atheist, so it’s been easy to not go to church. But now that we have a child, I’m struggling with how to raise her outside of the church, since I know no other way.

A very similar situation with my family.  My family no longer sees us after our daughter (aged 3!) held a wedding ceremony for two Barbies. 

Thanks for posting.  

This is exactly what my mom thinks about me. She thinks I followed because my husband became and atheist first.  Despite my telling her many times I came to my own conclusion. She figures no child of hers who she raise as a christian could deny god.

Hi The AW,
Two of the Ask Richard letters have similar conflicts with grandparents. They have differing circumstances, so my suggestions have different emphases. Read them and all the comments. Maybe someone will have said something that will help you decide what to do.  At the very least you’ll know that this is a common problem and you’re not alone.

Good luck. Let us know what happens.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2010/12/27/ask-richard-my-catholic-parents-are-indoctrinating-my-kids/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/07/18/ask-richard-single-mother%E2%80%99s-parents-are-proselytizing-her-kid/