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Greetings, I am curious how any of you deal with mixed faiths in your family. Do the adults deal with it better then the children? vise versa? Does conflict arise during holidays and such? I am personally dealing with the issue of mixed faith family. My 8 year old daughter is having a small crisis in acknowledging both her christian grandmothers belief and holidays with her mothers pagan views and celebrations. Niether grandma nor I have tried to tell her one is better then the other or that she has to choose... however she seems to appear at a cross roads. My first parental instinct is of course to FIX IT ! but I run the risk of undermining either faith, which I would not do. For instance, we have discussed Easter, Ostara, and the Spring Equinox and what each of them are ... she was not impressed with the death and resurrection story (but wanted to know just what a dead guy had to do with chocolate bunnies), the Ostara was much as her mythology tales are (which explained the rabbit laying eggs) and the Equinox?... that was a long way of saying Spring has Sprung...lol I suspect that part of the issue lies in the fact that she loves her grandmother dearly and could not imagine NOT sharing everything with her (same applies to me) which includes a faith she doesn't understand but hears everyone else play lip service to, also there is the pomp and pagentry of the various christian holidays that catch the eye (lol.. and taste buds) Anyways.... all I can do for her at this point is keep her informed so when the time comes she can make an informed choice to her spiritual path. I'm looking forward to your comments and insights...until then ~ |
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| | | From: wabbus | Sent: 3/17/2003 5:58 AM |
Red,
I'm an Old Woman and I don't understand most of it. I think a child
should not have to really think about it much at all. Just eat the
chocolate easter bunnies, and hunt their colored eggs, ect. Around
14-ish is when we childs started exploring.
Peace
wabbus
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 Wabbus I understand your point and even agree with it to a certain extent. However it doesn't change the fact that my kidlet has always been observant of the world around her, these are real questions she has and a real internal conflict that she is coming to terms with. Consider that she sees my devotions, rites, and potion making and knows that I am active in my spirituality and my connection with the world... these are not discoveries made as a dissatisfied adult but a curious 8 year old who is exploring potential paths of faith. By 14 I can only assume that she will have found her path, but in the meantime I don't want her to experience a state of confusion longer then necessary (I have Fix-it Syndrome) and would like to help sheppard her through this...(chocolate and lovely eggs are always a nice prop, lol). However, that is the crux of the issue.... ways on how to blend or reconcilate mixed faiths. Bright Blessings ~ |
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Well, we have mixed faith in our own home. To be honest though I haven't taught my children many pagan beliefs yet. I'm still learning, I'm going to my first Ostera celebration this coming weekend, so I don't have any specific stories to teach them. But I have also been teaching my children about respecting and accepting all different lifestyles. This is my basis for this teaching. As the world and peaple evolved they all developed their own beliefs. Unless these beleifs harm anyone, they are all acceptable for exploration and acceptance. At this time in history many of us have become enlightened enough to accept that we can have different belief system but we are actually still a whole. Many times still celebrating the same thing, like spring and rebirth, that's what Easter is about also. To share in eachothers celebrations is an act of respect and acceptance of eachothers right to be different. Fourth of July is a perfect example. We know we all have different political beliefs and ideas about where our country's leadership will take us. Yet we celebrate our rigthts to our different ideas...together. I find that my children are more open than me sometimes to accept others differences.It's like evolution and creation theories,most are on one side or the other. I believe God must be a master scientist. There must have been much exploding, evolving and experementing going on to create the universe and all that it supports and comtains. Why couldn't He start out with a single cell organism? So many times when we think our beliefs are far from anothers we don't see that they may actually meet. We can't all see anb be the same thing, we all know that . We need diversity in order to grow.So I invite diversity because I''m growing human beings (children).
WhiteDawn
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Well,my mother always tried to raise me mormon,funny thing is you cant raise a child anything when you dont pay attention to them lol Anyway,i live in a household where religion is damn near frowned upon by everyone except my mother,and i was raised by a pagan woman.Quite the confusing situation really. I have to say i can understand the confusion that can come from a mixed faith situation and unfortunately i think the only person that can solve the problem,the confusion,is whomever confused.I celebrate all the pagan holidays AND the usual holidays that most people celebrerte be they religious or not.I have to say that celebrating both has made things so much easier on me and has made me feel less pressured to conform to anybody elses views.I think how its dealt with doesnt so much amtter when it comes to age but instead open-ness.For instance my aunt started screaming and yelling at my dad for being intolerant towards my so much as wearing a pentacle and familyt hats closer to my age,some of them frown upon the idea,otehrs nto so much. and RED as far as your kidlet goes,i can only imagine how confused she must be considering shes young(er) but i have to say she sounds like shes pretty intelligent one to be asking you such questions!in my oppinion id say perhaps you already are "fixing" it by trying to explain the answers to her questions..am curious have you explained to her that she doesnt have to choose a faith??id rather not assume you have though somehow im tinking you probably have.Anyway my thoughts are maybe you should offer up to her the coice of occasionally participating in celebrations from both ends,or studies on both ends to help her be informed??jsut a thought,i know if soemone had done that for me i would ahve ben much better off |
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| | | From: wabbus | Sent: 3/18/2003 4:48 PM |
Red, I am really bad about the 'let time take care of everything'
approach. My family pretty much flunked the communications classes and
there didn't seem to be a need to discuss religion -- you went to church
and that was that, so, I pretty much stumbled about in the dark (and the
library).
There was a time when some children had to go sit in the office, or
somewhere separate, from the class parties, valentines, easter,
whatever. That was something I couldn't understand. 'How could god
deny children parties'? Come to think of it, I still don't understand
it. haha
'Tis a difficult task ye have at hand, but seeing a bit of it all helps
makes the choices easier, later on when time does take care of it.
I just wonder what I'd have done if I wasn't allowed to have parties?
Happy Full Moon to ya!
~wabbus~
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| | | From: Runreg | Sent: 4/30/2003 9:47 PM |
Hi folks, sorry for taking so long to post to this, as with all things, life invariably gets in the way. lol As some people here may have noticed from our posts, Highlander and I are practicing in several faith paths at the same time. While Highlander is predominantly Christian and I am predominantly Heathen (no, I don't mean "pagan") we both meet in the middle when we recognize our inherent spirituality and mystic elements in our beliefs. We are currently exploring the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids as yet another way of understanding the Divine. In our household, all elements of spirituality are welcome and encouraged. We observe the cycles of the sun and moon, we celebrate the greater and lesser blessings with our children. Our meals are always met with a prayer, and we use many names to name the Divine within our home. God, Jesus, Spirit, Creator, Thor, Freya, (and that's the short list)! We honour our ancestors, we remember the Fey, as well as the spirits of the land and home. We do our best to differentiate one celebration from the next, though, and have managed to avoid the common traps of "Easter Bunnies" during the day of Resurrection. This makes our lives more interesting and full, we believe, as we feast at Yule and celebrate a quiet day on Christmas. (As Highlander is often exhausted following a week of music duties at the church a week prior to the Holy Week or Christmas proper). Now that Highlander has opened the doors to exploring clergy training within the Anglican Church, I am certain that much of his time will be spent exploring that part of his faith in greater depth in the time to come. As for me, while I am preparing to return to work, I am also called to ministry - but more from an interfaith perspective and will eventually, I think, end up going the route of the Unitarian Universalist Church. As for conflicts that we have experienced, our son (the 8 yr old) has the greatest problem with it because he just wants to be like everyone else at school. So, when the kids are celebrating Christmas and getting all in a frenzy because Santa is coming, he gets a wee bit upset until we remind him that he gets presents from the Fey and us at Yule, that he also gets a present for St. Nicholas Day (alright, so I have Dutch family) as well as for Epiphany (Highlander took this trad from his family). That Santa leaves just a stocking (and a well-filled one to boot) is plenty! And we also have to remind our son that he gets his Easter goodies WAY before his friends do.. (unless Easter just happens to be the week after the Spring Equinox, but we won't go into that).. lol. We have been blessed that our son's teacher is Jewish, and as such she has made a remarkable effort to teach the children (as part of the school curriculum) about all world religions. This was especially apparent during the winter Holy Season, when the class did a report on Festivals of Light. Well, that's enough for now.. more later, I am certain... |
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| | | From: wabbus | Sent: 5/2/2003 4:24 AM |
Your faith sounds to be very strong. I think that is good. But why
'heathen'? and why not allow your child to be included in the ?>,
socially accepted holidays, as well as the others? Can you not explain
the difference? Can't they do both? Life isn't easy when you're always
'rocking the boat'. And I think it's hard for child when they are told
that they have to rock the boat.
BB
~wabbus
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