This happened last summer, but I was told that I'm required to include it here, so here it goes.
The Husband and I couldn't have been raised more differently when it comes to religion. He was raised to be atheist. I was reared so conservatively and Christianly that for all intensive purposes I grew up in the 50's. Neither really ended up working out for us. So, when we started having kids, we had no freaking idea what to teach our kids about religion. We decided, more as a proverbial punt than anything else, to educate our kids on as many different religions as possible, teach them love and tolerance, and celebrate whatever choice they eventually made. If you think that's a cop-out: 1. suck it 2. according to the principal, I have the nicest kids in the school.
This dogma (or lack thereof, I guess) is in stark contrast to the small, rural town in which we live. Everyone else is basically Catholic or Lutheran. And not those crazy ELCA Lutherans, but good solid Missouri Synod Lutherans. As one might imagine, this leads to considerable suspicion and some uncomfortable situations.
Case in point:
My son is seven. He is nothing if not a very logical, fact-embracing, rules oriented kid. Those are obviously all recessive genes, but that's a topic for another day. Anyway, this son of mine comes home from practice this summer, obviously disgusted. He throws his glove on the floor and proclaims that his friends are all stupid.
"First of all, don't say people are stupid. And, just out of curiosity, why do you think so?"
"All of my friends actually think that they were made by GOD!"
Fuck! What the hell am I going to say? How am I going to explain that? What should...
"Don't they know that they were made because their parents had sex with each other?!?!?"
FUUUUCK!
"Honey, ... did you say that to your friends?"
"No."
"Okay! Do you want a snack or something?"
Sometimes you just have to take the Scarlett O'Hara approach and think about it tomorrah.
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