Note to self: watch youtube videos before letting my son watch them.
You'd think a simple Star Wars spoof would be pretty innocent, right?
Okay, so I should've seen the possibility of inappropriate-content-for-5-year-olds coming.
But there's no way I could've predicted Yoda saying, "Oh, shit!"
And then my son repeating it about ten times, laughing the whole time. Because, yes, he does know that's "a word you shouldn't say around Grandma or at school, mmkay?"
I was pleased to find this was an easy Easter for me. Easier, that is, than the other Easters I've gone through since losing my faith. Like Christmas, there have always been the questions of how to celebrate, the discomfort of having Jesus be so prominent, the strange feeling that this should somehow be a religious holiday--never mind that I am non-religious.
I attended Episcopal church the Easter I was still a Christian, and it was immensely satisfying for me to celebrate Jesus without any interference from Mormonism. That same month, at the Unitarian Universalist church, they talked about Easter, Passover, Earth Day, and spring all in the same sermon. It was wonderful.
There are enough secular aspects of Easter, so it's easy enough to keep those. How could I tell my son that we're not having a Easter egg hunt? It would crush him. So I've always gone right along with the egg-dying, the hunt, the chocolate. (And I do love me some Cadbury mini-eggs.)
Jesus was hardly a thought in my mind today, except when Little FTA said, "I know what Easter is about. It's about Jesus dying." He'd heard that from his cousin, which is fine. I would have explained that to him anyway (though I am glad I didn't have to deal with the resurrection). I added, though, that Easter was originally a pagan holiday, before Jesus and before the Christians, celebrating the spring and life. And that's why we have chicks and eggs and bunnies--they represent life and fertility.
But he was all, Whatever, can I just have some more chocolate?
I dreamed a dream...
I was at my parents' house in Utah, and lots of extended family was there too. It was a Saturday evening. I walked into the living room to find at least a dozen family memories hanging about. I saw my son in the center of room, playing with three of his male cousins. I saw with annoyance that all of the boys had on white shirts and ties, as if in preparation for church, including my son. (Who had a Star Wars tie on, to his delight.) I could see he was enjoying the group uniform, the feeling of being one of the crowd. Obviously, one of the adult members of the family had decided to introduce this particularity of the Mormon church to my son, as if grooming him for more exposure to the One and True Living Gospel.
As I stood there steaming about it, my dad asked me, right in front of everyone, "When you are going to have Little FTA baptized?" My son is a couple years away from the Age of Accountability still, but in the dream, he was just old enough. Just old enough that people were wondering when the date of the baptism would be.
Just after my dad asked that question, my husband came and stood by my side. I answered, "Not until he's 18, if he wants to at all." That created quite a ripple through the crowd, and I left the room, only to be hounded by others about why we would wait so long. The dream ended.
Now I have to think, how would I answer?
-NEVER!
-We feel that childhood is not the appropriate time to join a church, any more than it is the time to join a political party.
-We're not going to baptize him. And, no, you can't baptize him either.
-Little FTA doesn't believe in god.
I've been on a little hiatus, what with family in town for the holidays, Little FTA out of school, and my persistent no good, rotten, bad mood since Christmas. Unfortunately, this was one of those bad moods that kills my muse rather than brings it out. Sigh. I just haven't felt like writing or felt like I had anything to write.
But last night, on the way back from dinner with my husband, son, and believing brother-in-law, Little FTA busted out with a great line. And I thought, That is so going on the blog.
We were telling stories, and mission stories came up. Both my husband and his brother went on Mormon missions, so they've got lots of stories. Little FTA piped up, "What's a mission? Is that like when you go out and find something?" He was thinking of secret agent missions, in the vein of Backyardigans Super Secret Spy or James Bond.
I started to explain, "No, it's not like going on a secret mission to find something. See, Mormons and some other Christians go out as missionaries to try to convince people to join their church, to be Mormons or Christians too."
"Oh, right," Little FTA added in all seriousness, "but they only tell them the good stuff."
We laughed at that, and I said, "That's right. They only tell them the good stuff."
My brother-in-law was a bit shocked, but good-natured about it. "What are you teaching him?" he asked.
"Not to be a Mormon, that's for sure," I mumbled.
It was my turn to put Little FTA to bed, Adam and Eve somehow came up. Little FTA, never having heard the Adam and Eve story, asked for an explanation. So I told him how in the stories about the origin of the earth, the first man and woman were called Adam and Eve. He asked incredulously, "So they think that there was the Big Bang, and then poof, Adam and Eve?" I explained how the Big Bang isn't part of those stories. The Big Bang is such a given for him, so he demanded more explanation.
I went on about how before science figured out the Big Bang and the first life on earth and evolution, people didn't know how all that happened. So in each culture, they made up stories to explain how it all started; they are called creation myths. I then went on to tell him that the Adam and Eve story is the creation myth of one people, the Hebrews, and it's written in a book called the Hebrew Bible. There are lots of different creation myths from all over the world, and this is one of them.
He was cool with that; I loved the freedom he had to just accept that. So I told him how god created the earth in seven days, etc. I feminized the story, having god create Adam and Eve together, and together they named the animals, etc. When I was done, he looked at me and said, "Boring! Tell me a different creation story." I couldn't remember any. To try to spice the Hebrew one up for him, I continued on with the story of the forbidden fruit, the serpent, and the kicking out from the garden. I tried to explain how it was a metaphor for growing up and discovering sexuality, and having to work hard as adults. But I realized I didn't know the Bible version well, and was telling him the Mormon Pearl of Great Price/temple version. Oh well. I gotta get more Bible literate myself, I guess.
And more cross-culturally literate, as well. Since that little chat with Little FTA, I looked up alternative creation myths. Here are some for your perusal.
As anyone who’s read my blog for long knows, I am trying to raise my son without religion, while also being religiously literate and tolerant. The teaching-moments come up at odd times, or meet with resistance, or are forced upon us by religious relatives. They are full of significant baggage for me, but refreshingly free of it for him (so far). I’m basically going by the seat of my pants here, and it’s been going fine for the most part.
I had a couple teaching moments recently:
Listening to the radio in the car, my son heard the singer mention both heaven and hell.
“What’s heaven?” he asked.
I decided to go with a simple answer first, and see if he would be satisfied with it. “It’s the best place you could possibly imagine.”
“Oh,” he replied. That was easy enough.
“It’s the worst place you could imagine,” I said.
“So…in hell, I would have no toys at all.”
“That’s what your hell would be like, huh?”
“Well, can you imagine having nothing? Nothing!?”
Earlier, at a bookstore, I was reading Little FTA a variety of children’s books. I saw one that explained the traditional Joseph, Mary, and Jesus Christmas story. I avoided it at first, but then picked it up. I thought if I read it to my son, I could expose him to the Baby Jesus story on my own terms, and we could talk about it, before he hears it from grandparents on Christmas Eve. But to my surprise, he refused to hear it. Just wasn’t interested. I tried to explain that it’s important to know what his grandparents think about Christmas, but he would have none of it. So instead, we read The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming and Knuffle Bunny Too and Wacky Wednesday and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.
I'm rather ambivalent about Christmas this year. I'm almost ready to call myself a Scrooge or a Grinch. I am participating in the festivities, I am buying presents for people, I'm sending greeting cards (that do NOT say Merry Christmas), don't get me wrong. But I feel like all the Christmas around me is too overwhelming and I need to push back to give myself some breathing room.
Perhaps it's the fact that my in-laws over-decorate so much that it looks like Christmas exploded in the house. I'm drowning in Christmas wreaths and advent calendars and ornaments and nutcrackers and cutesy Santa Clauses and various items that for some reason picked up Christmas significance along the centuries but no one is sure why. (Some were stolen from Yule, of course.) And the nativity sets and the Christmas story books about Jesus that my son begs me to read every day.
Perhaps it's the fact that my son's school class is talking about nothing but Christmas. No Hanukkah, no Kwanzaa, no Yule or Solstice, no Festivus for the Rest of Us. Just Christmas, candy canes, snowmen, reindeer, Santa. At least it's the secular version of Christmas at school.
Last year, I didn't mind the secular version. It was so refreshing that a secular version of Christmas was available at all. I think part of that was because there was such diversity in our town, and in school, my son learned about all the holidays. His best friend, a child of secular Jews, invited him over to light Hanukkah candles one night and read him a secular version of the traditional story. So last year, I felt like we chose to celebrate Christmas, because that was our heritage. We celebrated at home, so we were able to keep Jesus out of it and do things our own way. I even ended up choosing to attend church services (a liberal Protestant church) on Christmas Eve.
This year, it feels more in my face, like Christmas is just pulling me along, whatever I think of it. Personally, I'd rather celebrate Yule and Solstice. But my son? The five year old? He LOVES Christmas, the presents, the festivities, the visiting-Santa-even-though-he's-just-pretend. I've been singing him Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a bedtime song all year, at his request. How can I say, "Hold up, dude, we're celebrating the longest night of the year and the return of the sun, mmkay? So no Santa this year"? The momentum of Christmas is a strong current, and I feel helpless in its wake. And that, I think, is why I'm resenting it this year.
"Do you know who saved Baby Sister's life? Me. 'Cause I was the one who prayed when Mom was bleeding when Baby Sister was in her tummy. I said a prayer, and she was fine. I saved her life."
This is from a email I sent recently to a Mormon friend who asked how I was handling things with Little FTA, and how he transitioned out of the church.
As for Little FTA...He was almost 3 when we stopped attending church. So he'd been to nursery, but never primary. In nursery, he didn't get much religious-training, since the nursery in our ward was more about making sure the wilder kids weren't beating up the others. But other than that, we prayed with him before meals, showed him pictures of Jesus, I told him "remember Jesus" during the sacrament, we celebrated Christmas as the birth of Jesus, etc.
As we left, it never, ever occurred to me that we would stop being religious or stop being Christians. So as we stopped attending the LDS ward, we started shopping around to other churches, and we took Little FTA with us. We went to Catholic, Islamic, Episcopalian, Quaker, Unitarian Universalist, and Congregationalist churches. The UU was easily the most comfortable for me, so that's where we went most often the summer after leaving (the last time we went to the ward was April, '05). Little FTA being still quite young, he was more interested in how fun the playtime was at church. Most churches either don't have children's classes during the main meeting at all, or had a separate nursery during the main meeting. So he preferred the places he could play with toys, of course, which meant the UU and the Quaker. He loved it also when the UU meeting had a special Children's Sermon at the beginning; it made him feel special to go up front and have the pastor speak directly to the children. But for some reason, he hated the UU nursery teachers, and started to protest about going. By the end of the summer, it also became apparent to me that my husband was more fond of staying home on Sundays than going to meetings, so I started to go alone. Not every week, just every once in a while when I felt like it. Once grad school started, though, I found I was too busy most of the time, and preferred to spend my time on fun outings with my husband and son. A walk in the woods on a Sunday became just as satisfying to me as a church meeting. Since then, whenever I ask Little FTA if he wants to come to UU with me, he says no, and I don't push it. I did take him to a Christmas Eve service last year, at the congregationalist church where our exmo friends have attended. He enjoyed seeing his friends in the nativity play, and the dog and goat that were part of the production. But the rest was lost on him, and I'm okay with that.
At first, I was really concerned about finding a replacement church and a religious community in which to raise my son. I couldn't conceive of a moral upbringing without religion. I mentioned this to a Mormon friend of mine who is married to a man who was raised atheist (and still is). It made sense to her, but then she brought it up once when we were all together, her husband included. As she said it, it struck me that here this man was, a great person, a wonderful husband, a perfectly moral, ethical man, who had been raised without religion. And I knew it was possible, and that religion was not necessary to being good.
Little FTA hasn't missed church, though there have been a couple moments where I could see he was making the transition. Once, a few weeks after we stopped attending, when we were walking around a Divinity School lawn, I told him what people there do (learn about Jesus, etc). He said, "I don't know who Jesus is." It struck me profoundly, certainly more profoundly than he meant it, and I answered simply, "I don't either, Little FTA. I don't know either." I was having major doubts about the divinity of Jesus at the time.
I want Little FTA to be aware of religion and religious traditions, though, and he's freely asked questions about his Jewish/Christian/Muslim friends, and understands that some people do this or that because of their different religions. I tell him Greek myths, Bible stories, etc., all with the same attitude: they are old stories that try to teach us something. Holidays are the same; Christians do this, Jews do that, there's also Yule and Kwanzaa, etc., and isn't it fun?
He's still a little confused about some details, but he's young yet. For example, he thinks "grandma and grandpa don't drink coffee because they believe in God." I correct him on such things, but don't push it. I have no problem with his religious education coming later rather than sooner. We will not allow him to be baptized into any religion until he's an adult and can make his own decision if he likes. We will make him aware why we've chosen not to be Mormon, but that he also needs to be respectful to his relatives who are. For example, we tell him he need not participate in relatives' meal prayers, but he does need to be quiet during them.
He's really, really into science, and questions about where he came from and what happens when he dies come up--and he's perfectly at ease with the scientific answers, at least so far. He thinks it's great, for example, that the hydrogen molecules in his body were present 14 billion years ago at the Big Bang ("I'm 14 billion and 5 years old!") and that when things die, their bodies "return to the earth and fall apart into lit bits" and those molecules will be around in the universe until the end of the universe. When I read him children's stories that imply a heaven or afterlife, and he asks, "What does that mean?" I explain how we always remember people who die, in our heads and in our hearts, so in those moments, it's like they are with us again, and how some people call that heaven, and some people think that there is a heaven, too, where people really are when they die. Currently, he doesn't believe in God, and I'm okay with that for now, but when he's older, I'd like to him really explore the options. I could see myself taking him to UU services, for example, because I really like their youth program. For one year, when they are teenagers, they learn about a bunch of other religions and take the youth to those churches so they really know their options. I like that a lot. UU is also really good about helping people find their own spiritual path rather than defining the right one for them, and people in the congregation range from atheists to theists, Jewish, Christian, pagan.
Whoa, I've gone on for a while, haven't I? I guess I needed the chance to clarify these things in my own head, so thanks for asking the question! We've been making it up as we go along, really, as I think most parents handle a lot of things.
My brother-in-law, S, and I were driving with his four kids and my one kid in his car. We went over a little hill in the road, and his 3-year old, C, piped up with, "Whoa, my penis feels funny!" S and I snickered a little. I had heard stories about C's current curiosity with body parts, like most little kids.
Then from the back, I heard my son whisper, "C, that's a bad word" and giggle.
I've never taught him that anatomically correct words are "bad words," and I don't want him keeping that idea, either, wherever he picked it up. I, for one, didn't have any words for certain female anatomy when I was a kid, and that silence contributed to my ignorance. I didn't know about vaginas until I was in high school health class, and even then, I didn't pay attention because I was so embarrassed. About my own body.
So I explained, "No, honey, that's not a bad word. It's just a word for a body part. Like ear, or nose, or foot." From the driver's seat, S laughed and whispered something about how a penis is different, but I tried to ignore him. I continued explaining to my son, "It's just that saying penis might make some people uncomfortable, like at school. Some places it's inappropriate to say it, but it's not bad."
Encouraged, my son joined in the refrain, "My penis feels funny! My penis feels funny!" until I said that's enough and S tried to distract them with "Name that farm animal feces smell!" as we drove through the farmland and orchards.
Later, when we met up with S's wife, A, my son happened to hear her say on the phone, "I'm gonna kick his ass!" My son immediately turned to C and whispered, "Hey, C, your mom just said 'kick his ass.' Isn't that funny? That means kick his butt."
"Honey, you can't say that word at school, okay?" I told him.
"It's a bad word?" he asked.
"Well...it's a word only for grown-ups, all right?"
"Okay," he answered, giggling.
I sat at the kitchen table drinking some herbal tea. My son asked where I got the tea, and I told him my mom gave it to me.
"She drinks tea?" he asked incredulously.
"Yeah, herbal tea."
"Even though she believes in god?" he asked.
"Yes," I smiled, "even though she believes in god," I answered. "But, you know, most people who believe in god still drink tea. It's Mormons that don't drink tea."
"Oh," he answered. "So Grandma FTA is not Mormon? She drinks tea."
"Well, yes, she is Mormon. And she drinks certain kinds of tea. Like herbal tea."
"Why?" he wondered.
"She thinks herbal tea is okay, but not other kinds of tea. It's kind of weird."
"But my other grandma doesn't drink tea?"
"No, I don't think she does."
"Is she Mormon too?" he asked.
"Yes, she's Mormon too," I told him.
"They're both Mormon?" he marveled.
"Yes," I confirmed.
"You know what I was thinking?" he said.
"What?"
"If got caught in a tunnel like Curious George did," he said, "and they covered the holes with metal, I would use my lasers to blast a hole and get out. Wouldn't that be cool? If a laser came right out of my forehead?"
"Dude, that would be sooo cool."
...but I was.
-anatomy of the sexual/reproductive system
-Boys have penises, girls have vaginas (or, as he likes to say it, "boys have penii and girls have vaginii). My parents' version was "boys have penises, girls don't." Niiiice.
-STDs, HIV/AIDS, condoms, lubricant, spermicide, etc.
-Sometimes girls like boys, boys like girls, and sometimes girls like girls, and boys like boys, AND THAT'S OKAY
-The best way to understand truth about the nature of the world and the universe is through science.
-Literature (religions texts included), history, music, art, etc., are great ways of understanding humankind's search for the meaning of their existence and how to get along in life.
-Question authority, including mine.
-There is no way of life that is the best or the truest.
We don't pray before meals, as we were raised to do. But here in my in-laws house, they are sure to. Especially since we're here. They didn't do it very consistently when we were faithful Mormons, but now that we're Apostates, boy, do they ever. It's quite common to hear my mother-in-law say "Let's say the prayer now. Everyone fold your arms." or "We're saying the blessing on the food now. Everyone get ready." or "Shh, quiet, we're saying the prayer now."
I suppose they see it as setting a good example, though the effect on us isn't anything of the sort. It doesn't make me angry at all to be around their ritual, but it does make me angry when they try to push it on our son and his cousins (whose mother is Christian and father non-religious but Mormon by baptism).
Their mother, my sister-in-law (who knows about my blog and sometimes reads it--hi!), has never folded her arms to pray in her life; she's never seen it done that way in the variety of churches she's attended in her life. But since she lives so near our mother-in-law, and doesn't want to pick fights about everything, she's always just tolerated the "everybody fold your arms" thing with her kids. One day at a big family meal, her three-year-old interrupted his "reverent" arm-folding and head-bowing to tell me in a whisper to fold my arms, too. I said, "Nah." "Fold your arms!" he repeated. Again, I refused, with a smile. I related this story to his mom; she decided to start putting her foot down about it, too.
Now, I've decided my way to approach these prayers is to sit quietly, eyes open, arms unfolded. I do not say amen. I won't interfere with her ritual, but I won't participate either. It's the same way I've handled being at Islamic Friday prayers or Episcopal Eucharist; I watch, but I don't participate. I ask my son to be quiet, too, but I also won't have his grandparents telling him to fold his arms and participate. If they ever asked him directly, rather than the general "everybody fold your arms," I'd like to say, "That's your ritual, not ours. Don't ask my son to participate." When he's older and understands more what's going on, he can make a decision about it.
I think this weirded my in-laws out, especially at first, to not hear us say amen, to not see us unfold our arms and look up at the end of their prayer. I wondered if they'll even ask us why we don't participate. I would like to say something like, "I find it offensive to thank an unseen being for your food, when what went into getting this food on this table--the farmers, pickers, packers, truckers, grocers, you yourself as shopper and cook, as well as the earth, then sun, and the water--remain unacknowledged."
If I'd ever have the guts to say it.
Yesterday, though, it seemed like my mother-in-law is catching on. Instead of her usual universal call to prayer, she simply said, "I'm going to say a prayer now." I smiled. What a difference changing "we" to "I" and "the" to "a" made for me.
the final part of an email I wrote to my sister, continued from my reply, my reply part 2, and my reply part 3
What you see as my forgetting what I once thought about Mormonism and Christianity, as my dwelling on the negative aspects in favor of the positives, I see differently. I see a necessary, and at times painful, deconstruction of my old world view. I spent nearly 25 years seeing and being taught the positives, of thinking Mormonism was The Way, The Truth. What is it then, to spend a couple or even a few years, in dismantling and critically examining what I thought I once knew? I don’t see it as something bad I need to get over, but as a necessary stage in my personal development. I see it as dismantling the ruins of my destroyed house, chucking out what is broken, and sifting through to find that which is still workable, to build something new. Much as we shouldn’t see a teenager’s difficult times as immature angst and rebellion, but as an essential—though difficult—part of her growth toward personal identity and independence. That said, I don’t want to dwell in anger or sadness, nor do I want to cast them off immediately for happier emotions. I seek instead to understand them, feel them, work through them, and learn from them. I used to see anger as sin; I now see it as human.
Also from your email, and from one sent several months ago that I never replied to, I see that I have been self-centered about talking about my beliefs and changes, while ignoring yours. I hope you know that my egocentrism in this regard has stemmed from my multi-year, consuming examination of myself and my beliefs, rather than a disregard for yours. I recognize that I have simplified your complexity of belief into what I remember as my old beliefs. This is not accurate, to be sure, as we both have different experiences. I apologize for this. I also know how Mormonism characterizes people like me: prideful, lost in the dark and dreary wilderness, relying on the arm of flesh, worldly, they who are learned, apostate, hell-bound, etc. Can you imagine how hard it is to fight such ill-feelings, attitudes I myself developed, against myself? From this, I think, comes a too-eager desire to justify my new self and beliefs. I appreciated our conversation where you praised certain aspects of humanism. I hope I can find it easier to likewise praise the positives of your beliefs and attitudes, and to give you more room to express your thoughts about your beliefs, too.
I hope also that we can continue our conversations over the years (in better goodwill than I conducted our phone conversation). A good way, I think, to approach our continued religious differences is to look for commonalities on which to draw. I like, though, our ability and willingness to also talk about differences, too. Even if only by email.
fta
from an email I wrote to my sister, continued from my reply and my reply, part 2
I said on the phone that Little FTA’s simple message from the movie was a “pretty good representation of what the movie was trying to say.” You took issue with this, and I can see why this offended you. I’m sorry I said it in such as way that hurt you rather than in such a way where we could have discussed our differences and learned more about each other.
I think my statement was due to two things. One, a short memory with regards to the movie. I haven’t seen the movie in many years. The only thing I remembered was the basic plot of one man’s struggle between the “good side” and the “bad, worldly side,” and his receiving forgiveness through Jesus at the end—while many died in the destruction. I had completely forgotten about many of the plot elements, such as the non-believers conspiracy to kill the believers. I had also forgotten that its main idea was based on a Book of Mormon story; had I remembered that, I could have recalled that conspiracy. Nevertheless, Little FTA’s young mind missed those elements.
Two, my humanist, rather than Christian, point of view. When I saw the movie as a Christian, I was touched, and buoyed by the power of forgiveness through Christ. That message of forgiveness is, indeed, quite powerful, whether or not Jesus was actually divine, as you said. This is why I found myself with a continued affinity for Christianity, long after I ceased to believe in his divinity. As time went on, though, I started to consider what I see as the fundamentals of Christianity—the desire or need for forgiveness of sins, the state of humans as fallen and in need of saving, one person as the archetype for living—an undesirable way to approach life. Expanding on the first fundamental, for example, I still see the benefits of forgiveness, surely, but I see the source of forgiveness more appropriately placed in the people who were hurt by the wrongdoing, whether it be self or others. Additionally, I do not see wrongdoing as sin, but as hurting self or others. I think it is fundamentally very close to the same thing, but with different terminology—forgiveness for sin, getting second chances, improving oneself, always trying to do better. I just don’t think we need an ultimate, outside source, a God, to forgive us for being human, for making mistakes, for living life as (very fallible) human beings.
Through Little FTA’s interpretation, I saw the movie as simplifying and vilifying the atheists, the secularists—me and Mr. FTA—as the “worldly, sinful, bad guys,” rather than people who appreciate the capacity and limitations of humankind, and seek to live life to the fullest (since this is the only life we are certain we have), while trying to make the world a better place and refraining from harming others. That is, I saw anti-secularism. From the more complete summary of the movie, I certainly agree that the people who wanted to kill others were in the wrong, the “bad guys,” in child’s terms. But then to have the resurrected Jesus’ kill them through fire and earthquake (for the Jesus of the Book of Mormon does claim these killings as his doing)? Why is his killing others justified? Why is God excused killing those who wanted to kill and those who simply didn’t believe, when he subsequently delivers his sermon of forgiveness and love in Third Nephi? This is like teaching your child to not hit her sibling by hitting her and yelling, “Don’t hit!” then talking about love and goodwill the next moment. While you got particular messages, such as the power of forgiveness, from the movie, I saw, as a humanist, different messages. Or rather, I reinterpreted based on my memory and your summary of the movie. I am curious if I watched the movie in full now, whether I would still make similar comments. I imagine I would, and I imagine I would have many more besides.
from an email I wrote to my sister; continued from my reply
After all the accommodating on both sides that went on, I didn’t expect “the movie incident” at all. So when Little FTA watched The Testaments, I was shocked and angry. Yes, I think you are correct in seeing our philosophy as wanting to expose Little FTA to many beliefs, traditions, and ways of life. Little FTA’s been to Mormon, Unitarian, Congregationalist, Catholic, Quaker, and Islamic services. I’ve talked to him about Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, paganism, secularism. I’m fine with Little FTA being around food prayers, discussing with Your son about coffee, having a nativity set at Christmas, hearing (and singing) the Islamic call to prayer, etc. I see those as age-appropriate exposures. I can see that you thought watching The Testaments would be just another exposure in that list.
I see it differently. For one, I was with Little FTA for all the other exposures. The exception is a few prayers, but I had already had a chance to talk to him about why people pray before meals, and how I expect him to behave quietly and with respect (I recognize that he failed to do so sometimes, and I’ve talked to him about that). When I’m with him, I know what he hears and sees, and I can talk to him about things I disagree or agree with.
Two, I see The Testaments as a Mormon missionary tool—Mormon propaganda. I expect we’ll have to agree to disagree on that characterization, but that is how I see it. This is different than, say, The PBS series The Mormons (way above his head at this point, but I didn’t mind that he saw a few minutes of it at Sister-in-law2’s house), which is more objective and shows both insider and outsider perspectives.
Three, both Sister-in-law and Mom saw it as different. They immediately showed that they were worried about what I would think about Little FTA watching the movie—both of them apologized about it when I brought it up. This from people I hadn’t had much (in Sister-in-law’s case any) religious talks with. With other exposures, though, they seemed not to be concerned.
Additionally, that movie, even minus its religious content, isn’t something I would let Little FTA see anyway; it’s just not meant for 4/5 year olds. As its target audience is not 4/5 year olds, Little FTA didn’t really retain that much from the movie. I’m not worried about him. (When I asked him about it the other day, after receiving your email, he just characterized it as “boring.”) Whatever its intended message, Little FTA got two things out of it—the bad guys died, and the bad guys said there was no God. Most of my anger came from this, what he got out of it: a simple message that vilified his own parents. Imagine if I showed Your son a movie from which he understood the bad guys were the Mormons, even if this movie had a broader message about, say, humanism!I finally reached an even-enough state of emotions to reply to my sister's email. It turned out I had a whole lot to say, so I'll take more than one day to post it here. I will not post my sister's email that prompted my reply, out of respect for her privacy. I apologize in advance for any ambiguity or confusion this may cause as you read my reply. If you need clarifications, please say so in the comments, and I will try to explain.
Understanding Sister-
I thank you for your honesty in your email. I will admit the email threw me a bit and even hurt for a while. It’s taken me several days to muster up the strength and mindset to reply. But I’d rather have that honesty than to have us tiptoe around each other. Your email sounded like you felt attacked, and I’m sorry my tone to you on the phone was less than cordial. I did not mean to attack you or your beliefs, certainly. I apologize for my tone on the phone, as well as for the phone conversation itself. That sort of conversation is best had in person. It was a mistake to call you when I was angry, rather than wait three days to talk about it, like I did with Sister-in-law. And since I passed up the in-person opportunity to talk, I apologize for that, too.
I think part of my tone and how I handled the phone conversation (and, likely, this can be broadened to include other conversations) came from a couple things. One, I think of you as “my understanding sister,” the one I am most open to about matters of religion (and other things), but also the one who accepts me as different, pushes me, questions me, etc. This familiarity, this understanding, let me be more lax on how I approached you (e.g. as compared to Sister-in-law and Mom on this same matter). I can see that was a mistake. Now I see that our continued understanding and conversations rests partly on respect and good, old-fashioned niceness. I will be more careful—though I hope to continue to be just as honest—in the future.
Two, I didn’t believe it had been you that was supervising Little FTA when he watched the movie. I figured it had been Sister-in-law, and only wanted confirmation from you on the phone. Because of that, I felt I could be more open to you, while putting on my most diplomatic approach for her. Again, a mistake.
Three, as you are “my understanding sister,” I was shocked when you asked, “Is that [his seeing the movie] a problem?” I didn’t expect that, and I was confused and despairing that perhaps all that understanding between us wasn’t what I thought it was, not as deep as I thought. I, like you, had made assumptions based on our past conversations, and, like you, was upset to find my assumptions were off the mark. I continued the phone conversation in this height of emotion, rather than calm down and think about it first, as I should have done.
Four, I saw the “movie incident” as opening years and years of incidents, confrontations, negotiations, and misunderstandings that I foresee as we—the whole family—raise our children differently. I had worried before we came to
To talk to you all about it would mean we needed to talk about it. As if you were ignorant enough, uncaring enough, unaware enough, that we’d have to point things out to you. Which you’re not. I felt like having to sit down and tell everyone, “Listen, don’t bring up religion around my son; don’t tell him how Heavenly Father is God and Jesus is alive; don’t tell him that Joseph Smith is second only to Jesus” would be the equivalent of you telling me, “Listen, you can only baby sit our kids if you promise not to tell them there is no God and that Joseph Smith was a charismatic charlatan.” That would just be insulting and misguided, because I would never say that to your kids. I don’t even say that to my own kid. I wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt; I wanted to be hopeful that saying those things would be unnecessary. That we’d all be aware and nice enough to respect each other’s religious choices and how we want to raise our own kids. I figured all was going well. Everyone seemed quite respectful and basically avoided religion other than those parts that are in every day life, i.e. dinner prayer, Dad’s off to meetings again, etc. Not a problem.
I continued to worry (probably too much) about what I was doing and trying hard not to step on anyone’s toes. This is why, for example, I reported that conversation I had with Little FTA and your son about coffee. I figured, “If Understanding Sister had a conversation with Little FTA about religious restrictions, I would prefer to hear about its contents, so I’ll tell Understanding Sister what I told her son.” Also, I agonized about the times I found myself (I certainly didn’t plan it) wearing sleeveless shirts around the family (Am I making them uncomfortable? Do they feel like I’m rubbing it in their faces that I don’t wear garments anymore? Should I change my wardrobe around the family, or not? It’s just a shirt! But if it’s just a shirt, why not accommodate them?) I carefully watched my words about evolution, pretending about dragons, why we don’t go to church, etc., whenever it came up with Sister-in-law’s kids. I held my tongue in several conversations with adults.
to be continued...
