Children are the Challenge-Kiera

Kiera is my youngest child. She is spunky, spirited, manipulative, smart, and cute. Of my five children she has the strongest need to fit in and to be liked. This makes her very susceptible to peer pressure. I have seen this child make decisions that are contrary to her own personal welfare or interests to keep friends and she is only 10. Unfortunately she believes what her friends tell her and does not frequently challenge them. I personally think that Kiera’s has more of a fear of rejection than a need for acceptance.

Kiera has lived in three different homes two in the same neighborhood. It was our last move that has proved to be the most difficult. Kiera has found herself on the outside looking in. In our other neighborhoods we had plenty of non-religious families in the neighborhood and Kiera had a choice of peers. The one we are in now she has been excluded from Sunday play while the religious families and their kids associate and play together.

Recently, Kiera has been invited to attend “Activity Days” with the girls who attend the local LDS Ward. I have, until this last week, approached this cautiously. Wanting to provide her with the opportunity for association but wanted to limit opportunities for indoctrination. This unfortunately proved disastrous this week. Two weeks ago they all went up to the Temple to have their picture taken. This week they made frames for those photos. Now on its face it seems okay. I don’t have an issue with the Temple. It is a local landmark and my daughter is cute!

The one thing that rocked me back on my heels was a booklet that I found on the end table: “Faith in God for Girls.” The booklet was distributed at the activity last week. The booklet outlines what the child must do to achieve their potential as a child of god. It assumes that first the child had been baptized and second the parents are on board. In my neighborhood it is not secret that I am not on board. I explained to Kiera that I do not agree with the contents of the booklet. She became very upset with me and demanded I give her the booklet back. She went on to tell me that she wanted to go to the activities because she had fun. She also stated they had started a binder for her to track her “personal progress”.
The content in the booklet may be fine for the parents of her friends but it is not acceptable in our home. There is little probability that she would be able to meet the achievement or the award at the end of the program because she is not a baptized member and her dad does not see it as harmless.

I do not spend anytime indoctrinating my children to be atheists. We just do not give them a religious identity. One of my favorite quotes from Richard Dawkins is

“There is no such thing as a catholic child…Only a child with catholic parents.”

In his example he applies this concept to other religions and political philosophies. Religion has to be taught and as a result, for most of us, the religion we end up with is the religion of our parents. It is that phenomenon that allows religions to regionalize. There is a certain smugness that results from believing we have the answer and as a result we do not have to stop and consider the other person or family that may be affected. In Kiera’s case the activity days are agenda driven and she will not be attending in the future. This will be viewed as a harsh decision but they would feel the same way if I invited their children in and told them why I don’t believe there is a god.

This video illustrates the above paragraph. The discussion starts at about 5 minutes in.