#Secular Parenting

[bli-o]

hey parents. never fucking name your kid “christian” or other religious titles. you failed “respecting my child’s self agency” before they could even walk.

if that kid grows up to be an atheist—which it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to be prepared for, because your kid is their own person and not a mini-you—they might understandably hate it.

My middle name is “grace” after the grace of god, and at least in my own experience, it’s just a reminder that my parents had already demanded me to fit into their mold and check all their boxes on my own birth certificate.

[scrumptiousfanbasement]

I wanted to do something pagany with Chester with this song but the image in my head wasn't coming to fruition so I did this instead

[orangememesicle]

if we’re not going to abolish private schools can we at least force them to secularize. they straight up didn’t teach us science. all the fantasy books aside from narnia were banned from our library for “witchcraft”. my fifth grade teacher straight up told her class that the spanish colonizers were good because they brought “the natives” to jesus. “freedom of religion” ends where children’s right to an education begins

[alliluyevas]

I thought a lot about my hypothetical future children's religious upbringing during my relationship with my ex because I did have to reframe my assumptions, like I do go to church and I value my religious community so I had always had the assumption that my children would be raised in that community as well, and dating someone from an entirely different religious tradition complicates that.

Obviously we broke up and will not be having children together and we never got to the point of discussing what our hypothetical children's religious upbringing would be like (although we did discuss religion, both ours and in general conceptually). I think most interfaith relationships I've seen in my life have been couples where neither partner is particularly religiously observant whereas both me and my ex were to some degree, which obviously makes things harder to navigate in some respects.

Personally I think I would have been most comfortable with a situation where our hypothetical children would have had exposure to both faiths and attended services of both types with either parent (or occasionally both, if we felt comfortable attending the other person's services) and we would celebrate both Muslim and Christian holidays as a family/with extended family, but again I don't really know what he would have been picturing there and perhaps a lack of framework for what that would or should look like contributed to the breakup. Just interesting to think about.

[under-the-eye]

Javi got invited to do another talk! I remembered what Juanita said about the Elders respecting effort and convinced Javi to spend a little on a nice suit to wear to Hall.

Several of the Leaders came up afterwards to compliment him on the talk. I’m so glad my mother and father taught me the importance of appearances.

One, David Matsuura and his wife, Mary, came back to the house with us to discuss the talk in depth. Javi and I are praying that he’ll be offered the Junior Leader position soon.

Unfortunately, that night Manny was being difficult again. He’s a very picky eater and dumped his dinner on the floor in protest.

In response, Manny put him in the ‘Prayer Closet’ to think on his behavior. I’d never seen something like this before, but Javi said that his parents did the same with him as a child, and showed me the verse of the book it’s taken from, the Book of Caruncle, Chapter 9, verse 37: There in his chamber he knelt in an alcove, where only the symbol of an eye hung upon the wall, and prayed away the nights and days, understanding that the Hand would lead him away when he had atoned for his sins and shadows’. 

Manny cried so much that I had to go to Eli’s room to distract myself. My heart wrenched in a way I’d never felt before, hearing my son cry out for me, but I knew I had to be strong and support my husband.

Manny stayed in the closet for about two hours. Then Javi took him back to the table to eat dinner again.

To our disappointment, Manny once again acted out and refused to eat. So Javi took him to bed, at around midnight, and read him to sleep with a story about respecting the authority of your father and mother.

With Your influence, Watcher, I’m sure Manny will grow past this phase of disobedience.

[beginnerblueglass]

I was baking in the kitchen, listening to 21 Guns by Green Day, when my eleven year old sister walked in and said, “I love this song.” We had very different childhoods.

[bli-o]

I dunno i just feel like social justice movements have completely left behind atheists and agnostics and just secular people generally ESPECIALLY apostates

[thatpaganmom]

Haggis learned about the Lunar New Year today! His red envelope had a bit of money and some candy. He’s pleased with the Year of the Wood Snake so far.

[jellogram]

My dad is deeply religious but thankfully he also believed in exposing his children to all sorts of things. This created a situation wherein I was not allowed to say "Oh my God" in front of my father, but that he also watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show with me.

[dont-leafmealone]

Just finished The VVitch and I feel like there should be some kind of spectrum of New England neo-folktale where The VVitch is at one end and Over The Garden Wall is on the other

[jackalsraised]

the fnaf movie novelization is ofc v different in multiple ways to the movie itself bc it's shows inner thoughts and things, and alternative versions of scenes (Aka some lines are like what the test audiences didnt like so they cut) but its also a lot funnier in certain aspects

[jessaerys]

omg i first read daughter of the forest when i was nine and a close family member was slowly dying lol that book is PART of me... have you read the 2nd and 3rd books? i don't remember them as well EXCEPT for in the third one when a girl gets turned into a fish. that bit made me feel ill and i still remember it vividly almost 20 years later

ooomg no i have not but i plan to on this re-read! :') i tried reading son of shadows (the sequel) but i was not used to the "this book is about the next generation" format that is common in vintage fantasy and also i got SOOO mad when they mentioned that like, cormack and i believe diarmid? unceremoniously died in between books 😭 my fourteen year old ass was LIVID

[reanimatedgh0ul]

my current hcs related to maddie's upbringing in a nutshell is literally just this lol

[cartoonscientist]

it’s so funny how tv shows will always be like “well in many ways this dude calls himself the devil but he’s not REALLY like, The Actual Devil” well listen up because my story doesn’t beat about the bush, we have the REAL ACTUAL CHRISTIAN DEVIL, and he is a NEUROTIC LOSER TRAPPED IN A BENADRYLSCAPE HELL OF HIS OWN MAKING. that’s right, Satan is a sad cuck and you heard it here first.

[neonphoenix]

I am the least fun person ever everywhere that I go.

[thatpaganmom]

Yesterday during a lesson on the inauguration Haggis got *pissed* because he had to answer “who is the new PoTUS”.

He read the paragraph I wrote about the process, read Trump’s name, and then yelled “I can’t do it! It’s too much!”

He didn’t want to write anything at all, but like…mood.