“Why are doing this?”
“Because when we were afraid Papa was going to die, we promised him that we’d do this.” (this is our pre-arranged cover story to give ourselves a little credibility with kids and other relatives).
“How long?”
“A year.”
“If Papa dies before the year is over, do we still have to do it?”
I would have been horrified, except that the very same question had occurred to my wife and I separately when we first discussed the matter. I figured it was a valid point.
“Yes.”
————
So that was the beginning of our experiment. All three of my kids are vastly different in temprament and personality, so I figured it would be sort of interesting to see how they handled our first flirtation with organized religion.
Oldest Boy (age 11) is a trooper. He’s progressed by leaps and bounds this last year or so in handling responsibility and becoming more stoic about the things he doesn’t like. He adjusted his attitude accordingly and didn’t complain. The Wife counted 64 questions in the 55 minutes of mass, which is typical for him. I find myself taking him for granted sometimes, but I find lately that he’s often displaying the kind of behavior I want from him. He accepts what’s thrown at him as best he can, and does his best. If my other kids learn the same behaviors OB shows us lately, I think they’ll be just fine.
Baby Girl (age 4) is practically already Catholic. She’s been going to preschool at my parents’ Evangelical Lutheran church, where she’s been loving all the Bible lessons. Her other Grandma got her into Catholic Bible School this summer, and got her a CD with the music from Bible School as well as long-winded explanations of Catholic ritual and belief. She went to sleep with that CD playing on repeat for weeks after she got it. So to say that she’s open to the idea is an understatment. She turned to me during mass and said “Church is fun.” To be fair, I might think church was more fun if I also got to color pictures all the way through, but it seems unbecoming a man of my years.
Then there’s Middle Boy (age 6). At age 4, while enrolled in the same Lutheran preschool and receiving the same lessons that would resonate so much with BG, MB informed us quite matter-of-factly that Jesus and God weren’t real, just stories that people made up like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. This is not isolated behavior. He is a total rational empiricist almost to an extreme. I alternate between being terribly proud of his clear-headedness, and being afraid that I’m raising some sort of amoral monster. Of course, he’s still a sweet kid at heart, and just about the time I get too worried, he does something so incredibly sweet and thoughtful that my heart melts and it all goes away. MB did not take the adjustment easily. He spent the first 15 minutes fidgeting and fussing. Then he spent another 15 minutes sullenly sitting, mugging for the mirrored glass of the nursery area a few rows behind us, and sighing loudly when he could find nothing else to do. He rushed out into the hall for a bathroom break, then came back and proceeded to complain about it taking too long for the rest of the service. Patience is a virtue that MB hasn’t developed yet. My hope is that this will help instill that in him a bit.
In an unrelated jarring note, I found myself telling another parent from school that I couldn’t call her back in a few minutes because we were “going to church.” This might not seem odd to you, or to the person I said it to, but it’s mind-bogglingly weird to me.
