Lets just say that I love it! It is however, becoming more and more apparent to me that I need to temper my opinions with a greater sense of fairness. You see, my son is just starting to get to a point in his life where he is seeing things in the world as being connected. We have these awesome conversations after I get home from work about what he's doing in school. Being 12 years old and in 7th grade, he's really just getting introduced to the cool stuff in science, and to broader ideas in history. These subjects just happen to be high up on my list of things I think are really cool, and he's taking to them with an enthusiasm that makes my chest swell!
Here's where it gets tricky, and I sometimes over think myself. Am I smothering his interests by unintentionally projecting my own ideas and opinions onto him? Most of the time I don't think so, but it's something I have to be constantly aware of. If I where a practicing Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Protestant or Baptist (I think you can see where I'm going) I wouldn't have to worry about it at all. I would be parenting out of which ever holy scripture went along with my chosen deity. That just seems like some lazy parenting to me. Going that route would also relieve me of any personal responsibility to what kind of person he becomes, right? I was just passing along the information! Maybe my kid must not have been good enough to deserve the grace of [insert deity here]!
The flip side of that coin is I also have to be very aware of how I share my opinions with him. I will always try to be honest with him, but I try to make sure that he knows when I'm sharing my opinion and encourage him to look into it and make up his own mind. It's a trip to watch documentaries or talk about current events with him and hear him tell me what he thinks. Sometimes he blows me away with the insight he has! Sometimes he's so naive and idealistic I just wanna ruffle his hair and tell him I love him! The bottom line is I have to ALWAYS be aware of what I'm putting out there for him to absorb. It is a pain in the ass to espouse free thinking while trying to maintain any type of a monocratic nuclear family!
My son is openly atheist. But I allowed him to come to this on his own. Trust me when I tell you that for a few years, that was not easy to do. He was raised in a secular environment. This wasn't done intentionally as much as it was just done. It wasn't until 5th grade that he was indoctrinated into Christianity. A friend from his school attended the local non-denominational Calvary style church and frequently invited my son to attend. I utterly and completely despise these vile, despicable piece of shit parents who use their own children to lure in other children so they can proselytize young, trusting, defenseless minds (this is the reason why I feel like I need to be hyper-diligent about sharing my opinions with my kids). For weeks after his mother broke the news that our son had decided he was now a Christian, I had to resist the urge to find these parents and kick some ass.
Cooler heads prevailed, and I spent the better part of the next two years biting my tongue to respect his new view on life. I never stopped being honest with him when he asked me if, and eventually why I didn't believe in his god, yet all the while being careful not to make him feel belittled or dumb. That's tough to do when it comes to a subject like this, we're not talking favorite football teams here! It took a while, but he eventually got tired of hearing that his dad was going to hell if he didn't accept Jesus as his own personal savior. He would ask me "Dad, why do you want to go to hell"? and I would ask him if he thought I was a bad person, and if he thought I should go to hell. It opened up some really good dialogue. Seems his biggest fear was burning in hell (no shit) and not fully understanding what it was I believed. He's a bright kid, and constantly makes me proud.
It's not all walks in park and root beer floats when you don't have a big scary place like hell to threaten you kids with. It's never easy to have to face a problem and agonize over the solution. I have to use critical thinking-GASP-and reason(tsk, tsk, tsk) to figure out how to be a good parent. Fuck, you know what else works? Parenting by example! Ya want honest kids? Be honest! Ya want your kids to be kind to other kids? Don't treat other people like shit! It seems pretty obvious, right? With those tools, a whole lot of love and the help and advice from my wonderful wife, why the hell would I do something as useless as praying my kids turn out to be good people.
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