What does ex-Mormon mean, Mom?

litte fta: What does ex-Mormon mean, Mom?
fta: An ex-Mormon is someone who used to be Mormon, but isn't anymore.
little fta: So we're ex-Mormons.
fta: Well, dad and I are ex-Mormons, but you're not an ex-Mormon, you're just a kid!
little fta: disappointed face
fta: Kids aren't old enough to be a religion, you were never Mormon.
little fta: But I went to church every week for a long time!
fta: Yeah, but you were never baptized.
little fta: What's that?
fta: It's a way of saying, "Okay, this person is part of our church now." Christians do it.
little fta: How come I wasn't baptized?
fta: You were too young. Mormons wait until the kids are eight. I think that's too young.
little fta: How come you were baptized?
fta: My parents think that's not too young. But I think it is too young. I think kids should just be kids, and they can choose a religion when they are grown-ups.
little fta: I'm not too young. I want to choose now. smiling facetiously
fta: You do?
little fta: Yeah, I want to be...wall.
fta: Really? I thought you wanted the Flying Spaghetti Monster as your god.
little fta: No, not anymore. I don't want any gods.
fta: But how can you choose? You don't even know what all the religions are yet.
little fta: Yes I do! There's Christian. And wall.
fta: There's also Muslims, all sorts of Christians, Buddhists...
little fta: Dude-ist! What's Dude-ist?
fta: Buddhist, not Dude-ist.
little fta: Oh, like Buddha. What is that?
fta: Well, I don't know that much. But it's about giving up things you want, because those things only make you unhappy. That's what they think, so they try to stop wanting things. I think.
little fta: shoots at me with his watch, pointed like a gun
fta: Honey, no shooting.
little fta: It was just a water gun! See, just water!

grasping death

The other day, the new excitement among the neighborhood kids was that yet another squirrel had died. Its body lay there on the ground as Little FTA and two other boys gathered around to discuss it. My husband overheard their conversation.

Boy1: Look! There's another squirrel that died.

Boy2: looking up Yep, now it's up in heaven!

Little FTA: following Boy2's gaze upward, puzzled about how a dead squirrel could be in the sky when it was so clearly on the ground No, now it's body is falling apart into lit bits and becoming a part of the dirt.

sin

My vocabulary has changed quite a lot since I stopped going to church. Here's a short list of words and phrases I don't use anymore. (I posted the list on FLAK many moons ago, and others added many more phrases.)

the Lord
the Brethren
scripture
righteous(ness)
sin
repentance
Nephite, Lamanite
prophesy, prophet, seer
humility
mission field
spirit prison
spirit heaven
pre-mortal existence
immorality
temple work
mutual night

Last night at dinner, as I contemplated the fact that I'd just had a glass of wine and was then drinking some after-dinner tea, I started singing out loud,

"How many sins have I committed today? How many sins have I committed today? Let us count them!" I got the tune from my son's preschool song, "How many friends are here today? Let us count them!"

My son, listening to my strange little song, asked what "sin" means. After a hearty smile over the fact that he doesn't know what a sin is, I started to explain.

"Well, some people, like Grandma and Grandpa, call things that they think are wrong, sin. Like they think drinking wine is bad, so they call that a sin. And drinking tea, too. They would call that a sin. But I don't think that stuff is bad. And I don't call it sin, anyway."

"What do you call it?" he asked.

"For example, if I hurt somebody, then I say, 'I hurt somebody'. I don't call it sin."

The little wheels in his head started to turn, trying to figure out exactly what sin meant.

"So," he said, "if I eat peanuts, that's a sin!"

I laughed and said, "No, not like that. You're allergic to peanuts. If you eat them, you'll get a allergic reaction, but that's not a sin."

"Oh."

Then I finished drinking my sinful, sinful tea.

"let's think about that some more"

My son is pretty skeptical about the Easter bunny's existence, but I don't want to outright tell him that there's no Easter bunny and Santa Claus, and have him just believe it on my authority. I'd rather he analyze it for himself. Not sure I'm doing a good job encouraging that. This is a re-creation of the conversation we had the night before Easter when I was putting him to bed.

fta: So, do you think the Easter bunny will come to hide eggs in the house?
son: But he's just pretend!
fta: What?! Why do you think that?
son: Because. He's just pretend.
fta: But don't you need a reason to think he's just pretend?
son: I don't know.
fta: Well, we can look at the evidence and decide if there's more evidence that the Easter bunny is real or is just pretend.
son: confused
fta: Do you know what evidence is?
son: No.
fta: It's things that tell us something is true or not true. For example, if I say, "You love the movie Cars," what evidence do we have to support that?
son: I don't know.
fta: How about this: We can see that you have a Cars blanket. And Cars shoes and Cars pillow and Cars sheet and a toy Lighting McQueen and a toy Dinoco The King. Right?
son: Yeah!
fta: So we can say, hmm, I think we have a lot of evidence that you like the movie Cars. All those things are evidence.
son: unsure
fta: Or, we can say it differently. If I say, "You hate the movie Cars," do we have any evidence that tells me I'm wrong?
son: Ummm...
fta: How about the blanket, the pillow, the toys, the shoes...All that is evidence that you don't hate Cars, you love it.
son: Yeah, I love Cars!
fta: So, how about the Easter bunny? What kind of evidence do we have that the Easter bunny is real or just pretend?
son: I dunno.
fta: Well, there's the Easter eggs in our house in the morning.
son: But you buy those!
fta: How do you know?
son: I saw you.
fta: No you didn't; I bought them on the way home from work.
son: Oh.
fta: But you can see that all the kinds of candy the Easter bunny brings are the same kinds of candy that we could buy at the store, right?
son: Yeah, like cranberry mini-eggs and chocolate peanut butter things.
fta: Cadbury mini-eggs.
son: Oh, right. Caaadbury.
fta: Okay, so what good night song do you want me to sing you?
son: Let's think about the Easter bunny some more.
fta: Oh, okay. What other evidence do we have?
son: Um.
fta: How would the Easter bunny get in the house? Does he come in the chimney like Santa?
son: Santa's just pretend!
fta: Really? And we don't have a chimney. Maybe the bunny comes in through the door.
son: He doesn't have a key.
fta: Maybe he knocks and we let him in?
son: Or he breaks down the door!
fta: How rude! But there's no evidence that the door gets broken. We would see it if it broke.
son: Oh. Let's think about the Easter bunny some more.
fta: Okay. Wait a second, have you ever seen a bunny as big as a person? That could talk?
son: No way!
fta: And how would he carry all that candy and those eggs for all the Christians all over the world? That'd be a big bag.
son: Yeah, as big as the Pacific Ocean!
fta: That's so big! Okay, good night. I'll see you in the morning and we'll see what the Easter bunny brought us.
son: But he's just pretend! There's no evidence.
fta: But what about the Easter eggs? Who will hide them?
son: You will!
fta: We'll see. Good night, bud. I love you.
son: I love you too! Good night!

birds and bees

My home growing up was not a safe space to talk. I couldn't talk about boyfriends or church issues or complain about anything, really, because my mom inevitably handled it poorly. Her way of handling things was to snap out about how I should do things the church's way. If I had a crush on a boy at 14, her response would be an angry and impatient "You're too young!" So did I stop having crushes on boys because I was too young? No, of course not. I just stopped telling her about it. If I had a church question, she'd just say, "Pray about it." Or "I've prayed about it, and I feel fine. What's your problem?" If I had a bad day at school, and I just needed to say so out loud in order to get it off my chest, she'd say, "Quit being so ornery! You'll drive the Spirit away."

It's a good thing I was never rebellious; that could've been very, very ugly.

We've been very open with our son about the sticky issues. We've had 4-year-old-level talks about HIV, God, death, gay marriage, the Easter bunny and Santa, and sex (he saw some farm animals and asked), etc. We've been so open, that sometimes he gets a little too open at school. His teachers have told us, "Your son was talking about the war in Iraq to the other 4-year-olds; I told him that if he wants to talk about that stuff, he should talk to one of the teachers. Sound okay?"

I much, much prefer that he feel comfortable to talk about anything with us than have him be afraid to talk to us and get his information elsewhere. I know he'll get information elsewhere, too, but I want to foster a safe space for him at home. I encourage it by trying to answer his questions, and not act repulsed or impatient like my mom did. Even when he says silly, naughty words like fart and poo-poo face, I remind him that it's okay to say those things when we're being silly at home; but try not to say them at school, okay? Home is the place for that kind of thing.

I know that when he gets older, he'll probably want to be a little less open with his mom and dad. But I sincerely hope that when the time comes, he'll be able to ask, "Mom, where can I get some condoms?" And I won't yell, "You're too young to have sex!"

(But at the rate he's asking questions now, he'll probably know about condoms and ask where to get them by the time he's 6. And then I will say, "You're too young to have sex." But at least I won't yell.)

Parenting Beyond Belief

AgnosticMom clued me in to a new book coming out, Parenting Beyond Belief: on Raising Ethical, Caring Kids without Religion.

The description from Amazon says, "It’s hard enough to live a secular life in a religious world. And bringing up children without religious influence can be even more daunting. Despite the difficulties, a large and growing number of parents are choosing to raise their kids without religion. In Parenting Beyond Belief, Dale McGowan celebrates the freedom that comes with raising kids without formal indoctrination and advises parents on the most effective way to raise freethinking children. With advice from educators, doctors, psychologists, and philosophers as well as wisdom from everyday parents, the book offers tips and insights on a variety of topics, from "mixed marriages" to coping with death and loss, and from morality and ethics to dealing with holidays. Sensitive and timely, Parenting Beyond Belief features reflections from such freethinkers as Mark Twain, Richard Dawkins, Bertrand Russell, and wellness guru Dr. Don Ardell that will empower every parent to raise both caring and independent children without constraints."

I've pre-ordered it, and am looking forward to reading the essays by Richard Dawkins, Penn Jillette, Julia Sweeney, Dr. Donald B. Ardell, Dale McGowan, and our very own ex-mo, Agnostic Mom (Noell).

Since leaving Mormonism, I have found myself gravitating toward secular humanism, atheism, and a perhaps non-religious life, and I've been wondering what that means for raising kids. I've been so focused on my own recovery, that I haven't been able to give it a lot of thought yet. But since the kids are getting older, I need to be thinking now.

Now there's a companion forum, Parenting Beyond Belief Forums, where secular parents can discuss issues. Forums include Personal Reflections, Living with Religion (Mixed Marriage; Engaging Religion; Church/State), Holidays and Celebrations; On Being Good and Doing Good; The Wonder of Science, and even a couple others. It's just starting up.

As if you need to spend even more time online...