The scenario: Donald‘s wife dropped their kids off with her parents for a week. (A mini-vacation. Yay!) But grandma knows Donald and his wife are atheists… (Damn sinners.) So she knows exactly what she’s going to do with the grandkids: Send them to a weeklong Vacation Bible School.
Donald talks about his concern:
… no rules were broken here. Still, though, her mom had to have known the kids would never have arrived at her house had she told my wife about Vacation Bible School before she left for that long drive. These things aren’t just dreamed up at the last minute. They have to be planned. So, it’s fair to say that she knew it was going to happen for sure way before hand. She chose not to mention it until afterwards.
Even worse is that his daughter called her mom after Day 1 of the VBS — crying. It’s obvious that this Bible study is trying to scare the kids into belief in god. You can read more details here.
Now, Donald’s trying to figure out how to handle the situation when the kids come back home:
… we’re left to pick up the pieces. We’ve decided to begin showing our oldest daughter some bible stories before bedtime. We’ll also be including myths from other cultures as well. We’ll try to make it fun and interesting. And hopefully we can teach her that she can be a good person regardless of what she believes.
How would you have handled his situation?
What would you have said to the grandmother?
What would you say to your children when they came back home?