May 15, 2007

Parenting Beyond Belief

As you know if you've read this blog even just a couple of times, I am a secular humanist and raise mykids

to be humanists. In other words, our view at home is that we can be

ethical, deeply moral, caring, decent, respectful, honest, deep

thinkers, reflective, loving-kind, compassionate, virtuous, kind, good,

and much much more, without religion. In fact, we actively eschew

religious dogma and belief.

We meditate, we find awe in nature (of which we are part), and

recognize the deep interconnection that unites us all in nature/life. We

value human creativity and ingenuity, and do not believe that humans

are the only creatures that matter. We value peace, compassion,

loving-kindness, and making the world a better place.

Our family abides by the belief that we ourselves add meaning and

purpose to life, it does not come from anywhere else, except from the

fact that we are all part of nature and thus ought to always consider

that interconnection and the broader responsibility that it might

entail. Believe it or not, we also value deep critical thinking,

non-dogmatic attachment, and freedom of thought. We aim for an

ecological and planetary ethic, an ethics of interbeing (to use one of

Thich Nhat Hanh's favorite words).

But raising kids in this way is not often easy -- especially if one

tries to avoid all the religious dogmatism, pieties, and push that is

out there. That is not to say that we want to keep our kids from

understanding and learning about religion. Being literate and

critical-minded about religion is crucial in our society. It means

however that it is not easy to be a secular humanist, atheist, or even

agnostic, in a society in which the great majority believes that

non-believers are immoral, dirty, troublemakers, unfit for government,

unpatriotic, corrosive to good values, dangerous to others, out to

undermine the faith of others, etc. Imagine what it is like for

children who are raised to think on their own, to value critical

thinking, to be non-theists, to not accept dogmatic belief, and

otherwise to look deeply and rationally at religious claims of all

sorts. As a result, as parents we often think about how best to instill

in our kids a strong sense of security in who they are, in their own

abilities to think deeply, to reason, to apply critical thought, to be

compassionate, humane. Like any other parents, we worry about how to

raise our kids to be safe, strong, well-adjusted, happy, with a strong

ethical foundation to allow them to be upright global citizens -- and we

try to do all of that without recourse to religion or supernaturalism

in the face of much relentless religiosity that denounces non-theism as

intrinsically immoral.

Traditionally, parenting resources for the task of raising humanist

children have not been plentiful. Which is why I am glad to have found a

wonderful new resource: Dale McGowan's Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion.

Perfect title. The book is a collection of essays from various

non-theists including Richard Dawkins, Julia Sweeney, Penn Jillete, Ed

Bruckner, Tom Flynn, even Mark Twain, and other folks including a couple

of reverends/ministers, and even the lovely mom from Agnostic Mom (check out her blog and column for Humanist News Network). The book site contains some rather nice resources, a forum, and other information. You can buy it from Amazon here (I don't benefit at all from this so buy from whomever you prefer).

Check out the study guide, and the forums if you are interested in

conversing with like-minded parents trying to do their best to, like us,

practice parenting beyond religious belief. If you are one of those

parents, raise your hand, let us know, and go post in the forum. What's

more, perhaps you can buy a copy of the book for the local library, or

the school library, send a letter to the editor of a parenting magazine

asking for a review of the book, post online about the book and your

parenting, talk it up with friends... there are plenty of ways to

contribute to making this perspective be seen through a better lens than

the traditionally distorted lenses used for non-theists.