Raising Children with Religion

It Makes Sense
I get it. Parents want the best for their children. They want to point them in the right direction and help them develop spiritually.

If parents have the responsibility to teach their children practical life lessons like the need to wash hands, eat healthy, and obey the law, surely parents also have the responsibility to give their children spiritual guidance. What could be more important than this?

Being raised in a Christian home myself, this was my perspective for a time. While my perspective has changed, I'll say on the outset that I certainly don't see anything malicious in this practice. It makes sense.


Faith is Different
Having said that, I think we can all recognize some things about faith that sets it apart from the kind of practical knowledge we pass on to our children. Faith is deeply personal, subjective, and controversial, more so than any other aspect of life.

Most of us tend to view faith as something people must choose for themselves. I think most would even say that coercing, manipulating, or forcing people to accept our faith is wrong. Attempting to do either of these might only produce a false or impersonal conversion anyway.

Contrasting this with practical knowledge, imploring people to eat healthy and even preventing them from consuming certain foods via regulation is not considered a serious breach of personal freedom. There is no "freedom of consumption" clause or concern over the "separation of food and state". For faith, there are such concerns.

While faith is deeply subjective and personal, the general prohibition against consuming rat poison is not.


On Brainwashing
With this difference between faith and common knowledge in mind, it is easier to see why some would view the act of imposing our religious views on children as a violation of something deeply personal and subjective. It can take advantage of their ignorance and malleability as they are incapable of making an informed decision themselves. We are essentially making a faith-decision for them.

Further, we wouldn't drag a complete stranger off to church twice a week, make them pray before bed, make them celebrate our religious holidays, or coerce them to read our holy book each day. However, when that stranger is our child, we feel we have some right to do this.

When it comes to our child, we no longer treat faith as something each person must choose for themselves. We no longer treat faith as something each person can only choose for themselves. Rather, we view faith as something we can impart to them and hopefully make stick for life.


But I Give My Child a Choice!
I imagine there may be parents reading this who are saying that they do not "impose" their religious views onto their child. That sounds too forceful. Rather, you merely influence, encourage, or persuade your child into making the right faith-choice for themselves.

However, let's be honest. When we ask our eight-year-old child if they want to go to heaven with mommy and daddy, be forgiven of all their bad behavior, and avoid going to hell, are we really giving them a choice? How many eight-year-old children would genuinely say no to any of that?

Children have very few options. They have very little ability or reason to doubt whatever someone tells them is true. Giving them an option between your belief in something wonderful and your belief in something horrible pretty much dictates their choice. There are no real faith options on the table. We are manipulating their personal choice in faith.


But They Can Change When They're Older!
In light of manipulating a child's faith choices, you might argue that your child can make a more personal and informed decision when they're older. So whatever you do now doesn't matter. No harm, no foul. You're merely giving them an advantage by cultivating the right conclusion in their minds while they're young.

Once again, I don't think this is a very honest argument. In the least, this isn't a very thoughtful or informed argument.

By successfully manipulating your child into carrying your religious beliefs, convictions, and fears, you're making it very difficult for them to make a personal decision on faith when they're older. You've made it part of their identity and part of what defines your family as a whole. It is emotionally binding. That is to say, the manipulation continues well after adolescence.

Not many people are comfortable distressing or disowning the family they love over religion. Not many people are comfortable losing an identity their family has cultivated in them since childhood. This would explain why hereditary religion has so much sticking power.

Viewing a map of the world by religious population and reviewing statistics on the traits of hereditary religion make it pretty clear that whatever religion you make your child believe when they're young, it generally sticks for life. Even if they fall away from it, they'll come back before converting to anything else. So, ultimately, we're still dictating the religious views of our children. There is very little choosing going on in the world when it comes to hereditary religion.


My Perspective
I don't think there's anything wrong in telling our children what we believe and why we believe it. There's also nothing wrong in telling our children why we think the rest of the world is wrong on the matter of faith.

What I do think is wrong is intentionally trying to impart our religious convictions onto our adolescent children. No matter how you do it, this takes advantage of their uncritical and malleable state of mind. I think it is also wrong to make them feel that there is only one religious identity or choice you will accept from them in life. By doing this, we're making a decision for them and giving them no real freedom in life to make a decision for themselves. It is emotionally manipulative, whether we intend it to be or not.

We don't emotionally coerce other people's choice of faith and we shouldn't do it to our children.

Instead, I think we have a responsibility to prepare our children to make a personal decision on faith when they are mature. Give them all the information and tools you think they need. Give them your personal conclusion as well. But assure them that the decision is theirs to make when they are older. Tell them you'll accept their decision as best you can but hope they accept the truth you found.

As I see it, anything less than this is manipulative and sets them up for some huge scars should they ever feel called to forge their own path later in life.