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A discussion about parenting and liberal religion, with Michelle Richards, author of Tending the Flame: The Art of Unitarian Universalist Parenting. | Welcome | Subscribe
By Michelle Richards, on November 7th, 2011  ©RonTech2000/iStockphoto The Winter Holiday season is looming upon us, and with it often comes thoughts of traveling and spending time with extended family. Sometimes, the members of our extended families can be accepting of theological differences. Other times, not so much, because when a grown child rejects the faith of their parents, some parents will interpret this as a rejection of their very morals, ethics, and parenting values. In short, they may perceive this as a rejection of themselves.
In some families, the arrival of precious grandchildren raises the stakes even higher. Grandparents who had dreams of attending a christening with the baby wearing the same beaded and lace gown you wore as an infant, or who had been looking forward to sharing Passover dinners with the children of their children, are forced to face the harsh reality that their dreams may go realized. Because these realities can cause acute feelings of loss in our parents, we need to expect that there will be some disappointment and hesitation in accepting that there will be no baptisms, bar mitzvahs, or First Communions in their grandchildren’s future.
Accepting our parents’ feelings about this may be hard to do, especially if their feelings are offered with hostility or if we have unresolved issues with feeling accepted as adults by the people who raised us. However, when we recognize that these grandparents are indeed experiencing a loss, then perhaps we can understand that, as with any other loss, it takes time to work through the grief and to accept the reality of the new life situation.
Even people who were raised with no religious affiliation may be surprised at their own parents’ reaction when they decide to raise a child with particular spiritual practices. If your parents never particularly valued religion or have even been openly hostile to it, there may be just as much disgust or sneers expressed when you state your beliefs. There may even be accusations of your inability to accept logic or reason and charges that all their efforts to raise a freethinking child were in vain.
In most cases, presenting aspects of your theological beliefs and spiritual practices which have some similarity to theirs will generate more positive results than focusing upon the differences that exist. Focusing upon the similarities is also more non-threatening, which can allay any fears they have of an unknown religious culture and any unfamiliar spiritual practices.
Even if you are unable to articulate any parallels between your beliefs and theirs, it is crucial to avoid being defensive and to refrain from criticizing the beliefs of your parents. Being defensive places you in an inferior position that perpetuates the parent/child dynamic and makes it harder for your parents to accept you as a mature adult with your own positions and opinions. And criticizing their beliefs can make them defensive, which does nothing to help them accept and understand your position, and may provoke them to argue back that their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) are superior to yours.
Instead, modeling tolerance and acceptance while calmly insisting that your beliefs are as important to you and your new family as theirs are to them will force them to accept—even if over time—your sincerity of belief. Furthermore, when you are able to emphasize the loving, life-affirming aspects of your spiritual path, and even use the language of your traditional religious past, you create bridges rather than divisions between different religious paths.
Inviting the grandparents to share in the rituals and ceremonies of your chosen faith can also help bridge that gap. When my own parents attended the Naming and Dedication ceremony of my daughter Shannon and we shared a meal together afterward, they felt a great deal of joy at being part of the service (even though it wasn’t actually a baptism). Inviting both my mother and stepmother to have special roles in the Maiden Ceremony, which marked my daughter’s passage into adolescence, made it difficult for them to feel disappointed over not attending a Catholic Confirmation.
For while they may never really understand my Unitarian Universalist beliefs and my decision to raise my children this way, they have been invited to share the important rituals of their grandchildren’s life. Sometimes, this is enough.
By Michelle Richards, on October 24th, 2011  ©2009 Aldo Murillo/iStockphoto Beyond the unconditional love, loyalty, and affection we expect, a family pet can also offer children a chance to develop a sense of responsibility and learn about the cycle of life right in their own home. Taking care of a pet has also proven to facilitate the development of compassion and empathy with all living things. For Unitarian Universalist children, having a beloved family pet can help them understand many of our Seven Principles.
According to the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, having the opportunity to share secrets and private thoughts with a special animal friend can encourage a child to develop trusting relationships with others and even help with the development of non-verbal communication skills. You might say that just having a pet improves a child’s role-playing skills because they must put themselves in the pet’s position in order to feel how the pet feels. It’s only natural to then assume that this can transfer to determining how other kids might feel. In this regard, a pet in the home can help a child not only conceptualize the interdependent web of life, but understand the inherent worth and dignity of all people through developing empathy and compassion for other beings.
Children can experience the miracle of birth if their pet has offspring and become acquainted with loss and grief when a beloved pet dies. In between these two events, the cycle of life is witnessed and felt in a loving, touching way that no other childhood experience can match. Whether that pet is a goldfish swimming in a makeshift aquarium, hamsters in a wire cage, cats who rule the roost, dogs offering unconditional love, or even those odd-looking iguanas, that pet will hold special meaning in your child’s life. When the time comes to say “goodbye,” the loss and grief can be acute, but death is a natural part of life and all of us must learn this lesson at some point in our lives.
Pets are such an integral part of many of our lives that many Unitarian Universalist congregations celebrate this unique relationship though an annual Blessing of the Pets worship service. Families are encouraged to bring their pet(s) on Sunday morning, being mindful of other who might have allergies and pets that do not get along well with others. However, most people who’ve been part of such a worship service have thought the animals were generally as well-behaved as the humans in attendance. And at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Elkhart in Elkhart, Indiana, one year the only accident on the floor was the result of my two-year-old toddler’s excitement and not that of one of the many four-legged friends who were present that day.
Other resources: In Praise of Animals: A Treasury of Poems, Quotations, and Readings, edited by Edward Searl (Skinner House Books, 2007).
By Michelle Richards, on October 10th, 2011  Christopher Columbus (iStockphoto) Columbus Day, a federal holiday held annually on the second Monday of October, commemorates Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas in 1492. Despite nationwide closures of post offices, courthouses, and other federal buildings, not all of the fifty states celebrate this event. For instance, it is not a public holiday in California, Nevada, or Hawaii. As an alternative, Native Americans’ Day is celebrated in South Dakota, while Indigenous People’s Day is celebrated in the community of Berkeley, California.
This holiday is controversial for Unitarian Universalist families and many other liberal religious families because the European settlement in the Americas led directly to the demise of indigenous peoples and their cultures. There is also evidence that the first Europeans to sail across the Atlantic were not led by the Italian Columbus who was financed by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, but were actually Viking explorers from Scandinavia hundreds of years earlier. And since the land was already populated by indigenous peoples, Columbus had merely “discovered” the Americas for Europeans bent upon building a great empire overseas.
So what do we do about Columbus Day? Since many of our school systems still teach the version of history that favors the empire builders, it may be necessary for parents to “fill in the gaps” by explaining not only did Columbus not actually set foot in what is today the United States of America (his ships actually landed in the Caribbean Islands) but he could not have “discovered” America because there were already people there.
Jennifer Orr, a first grade teacher at Annandale Terrace Elementary School in Fairfax County, Virginia, says we often simplify history in order to make it more understandable for children, and the story of Columbus’s discovery is merely an example of this. She believes that one thing even young children can understand about Columbus and what he achieved is that he did so by learning from those who came before him and building upon it.
Older children can also learn about how history is often written by the victors, and usually given voice by the dominant culture. From this perspective, we can help them understand how Europeans felt they had discovered this new land and why they believed they were entitled to settle in this New World despite the fact that there were already people living there. In fact, teenage youth can explore the very nature of colonialism, global domination, and Manifest Destiny that has been the legacy of the United States even before its inception.
We can also take time to acknowledge the culture and heritage of Native Americans who were here long before the arrival of the Europeans. By exploring the differences between the European colonial culture and the agrarian or nomadic societies of many indigenous peoples, particularly when it comes to the concept of owning land, the conflict becomes clear. The Europeans brought the Christian viewpoint underscored by the words in Genesis which gave them dominion over Earth and Sky, whereas the Native Americans could not even conceptualize the idea of selling their land because they did not believe they owned it. It was theirs only because they had it “on loan” from their magnanimous gods of nature or they had won the territory righteously in battle with neighboring tribes.
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