Reader Question- Non-religious Children in Religious Pre-school.

Fellow Nerdfighter here. I consider myself "non-religious" and am raising my almost 3-year-old daughter without religion. (My husband agrees on this.) I do have a religious background, which is not really a positive thing for me. However, I just landed a fantastic job opportunity and the best child care program for our situation is a church program (Presbyterian Church of America based). They incorporate religion into most of the day's activities. I'm not anti-God or anything, but I want to enable my daughter to make her own decisions, and I worry that this level of exposure at this age will be difficult to overcome. I also don't want to be negative about the program to her, because surely that wouldn't be helpful. How do I teach her to respect her teachers and classmates while also encouraging her to wait until she's old enough to understand religious concepts?  --Sara

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Thanks for writing, Sara.

You know, I have heard variations on this concern over and over again and I have to admit I have never really understood it. I get confused because, almost invariably, I hear it from people (like yourself) who were raised with religion and eventually went away from it. My impulse is usually to say; "Well, YOU managed to do it."

A great number of formerly religious people that I know have something of a skewed perspective on the process that lead to them leaving their faith... a narrative gets built where they broke away from some great indoctrination or brainwashing process, a narrow escape managed only through their own ingenuity and strength of will. Now it's their story, and they're welcome to tell it however they want, but it does make things a bit tricky when they are forced to relate to others who might approach religion differently, or in respecting the ability of others to do what they did.

My guess is that you won't have to worry about your daughter. She will hear the stories they tell her in pre-school, enjoy them or not, but noting that they aren't important to you, they probably won't be very important to her, unless at a much later age she chooses to become religious on her own. Hearing the stories and closing her eyes at prayer time aren't going to magically make her a religious person... at this age, those cues will be taken from you and your husband.

If you're really worried about it, though, the best way to deal with it is to talk to her about it. Ask her what stories they learned in class, and then ask her what she thinks about that story. She may like them (The Bible has some really fun stories, especially if your daughter shares your nerd genes) but just because someone likes a story doesn't mean they'll be a believer. The lessons at that age are pretty basic, Golden Rule type stuff. Fables with morals. Check out the morals, and if you jive with them, then no harm, no foul. If they are problematic, well then you probably don't want her in that program, anyway.

Faith is an abstract thing, and it will be years, at least, before your daughter is even capable of really embracing religion on her own terms. Until that day comes, she will embrace it on yours. And so the best way to model respect is to be respectful yourself. Honestly, I don't think you have anything to worry about.