“My children are currently being raised Roman Catholic”

Richard Collins asked parents in an online forum whether or not it is right to force their religious beliefs on children. The first response came from a lady with the handle, “rabbitgirl”:

My children are currently being raised Roman Catholic. IF they wish to change faith or, indeed, turn away from any faith at all, in the future then that will be their choice and they can follow their own hearts at that time.

My children ARE taught about all the different (major) religions of the world….. indeed I find the whole subject very interesting and know a goodly amount about different faiths myself anyway. Being a Catholic DOES NOT prevent one from embracing another faith any some time in the future and I would support my children if that was their decision. BUT I am not doing them any harm in raising them in my own faith at this time. They attend a Catholic school and get an excellent education, they attend mass on Sundays (and other holy days) which takes up an hour of their day (I fail to see what harm this does to them), my daughter has opted to be an altar server, my daughter has made her First Holy Communion and in a couple of years time will be due to make her confirmation. At that time it will be HER choice as to whether or not she makes an adult commitment to my faith, she may wish to defer that decision (many young Catholics do) or she may decide to turn away at that time. I know I did at her age……….. but I returned to the Church when I was older having investigated some other options.

Such a response, I am afraid, is probably not at all uncommon. This woman wants to maintain an appearance of open-mindedness and fairness, but at the same time she is not willing to let go of the control she asserts over her children when it comes to making them go through the entire Catholic indoctrination process. Her children do not get a choice until they are older, by which point they have already been firmly immersed within Catholic doctrine and beliefs. Notice how she says that “at that time [after confirmation] it will be HER choice as to whether or not she makes an adult commitment to my faith” (emphasis added). Well, gee, you have already forced the child to make a commitment to your faith. What kind of choice is that, really?

In other words, “you can decide whether or not to commit to my faith but only after you have formally committed and initiated yourself into my Church (in this case, the confirmation ceremony).”

Essentially, the implication here is that children are not mature enough to make their own decisions when it comes to religion, so as a child that decision must be made for them. But if the decision is made for them throughout their childhood, how can one expect that same child to be fully equiped to make his or own decision once he or she is a full grown adult?

Imagine that this women wasn’t talking about Catholicism but, rather, said:

“I am going to raise my child as a racist until she grows up, at which point she is free to make her own choices concerning which types of people she wants to hate.”

Or how about:

“I am going to raise my child as a right-wing Republican until she grows up, at which point she is free to choose her own political orientation.”

How are these any different than saying, “I am going to raise my child as a Catholic until she grows up, at which point she is free to choose her own religion”?

Now, I know what you might be thinking. One might be tempted to simply dismiss my examples as ludicrous. No mother would ever, for example, raise a child to be racist. I might have thought so too, at least until I read a book on the role of women in organized hate movements (specifically racist organizations). The book is called Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement. The author, Kathleen Blee, interviewed nearly 40 women who are involved in various capacities in different white supremacist groups. There are many shocking revelations in this book in terms of the way these people think about themselves and others. However, for the purpose of this blog I would simply like to highlight a single passage that is related to the problem of childhood indoctrination.

The following is a direct quote from one of the racist mothers that Blee interviewed for her book:

[I took] them to the dedication of the white race. … We dressed the kids up in fatigues and little hats because I didn’t have time to make little robes, and we took them and we had them dedicated [to white supremacism. … It's my responsibility to train these two [but] they can make their own choice when they come of age.

I hope my children will be involved or at least understand why their father and I are involved but I will not force anything on my children.

I really can’t say whether or not my children will join [our Nazi group]. They will be raised National Socialist with racial pride, family values, and morals. (pg. 48)

It is obvious to me that we have here the same logic for two different forms of indoctrination. How much different is imagining children in little white Klan robes, really, from imagining children in little white church robes? Sure, the ideologies have vastly different moral implications but the effect here is the same and, at least to me, equally distasteful. What is distasteful is that the child is forced into a particular ideology beginning at a time in the child’s life when he or she is not mature enough to thoroughly understand and analyze the issues with these ideologies.

One can say that raising little racists is far worse in terms of the moral consequences than raising little Catholics. I agree. Being an extreme racist is socially more problematic than being a Catholic. However, the implications are the same and equally disturbing. Children all over the world are being raised to think a certain way (at least with regards to certain issues) rather than being raised how to think. In a world where religion is a polarizing force in which absurd and unprovable claims are the central issue, this is a problem. It is a problem for getting along in a global society fractured by competing and equally baseless religious claims.

As Bill Maher concludes in his film Religulous, we need more doubt and less indoctrination in this world.

[This post originally appeared in two separate posts on AnAtheist.Net here and here]

Posted on Saturday, February 7th, 2009 at 9:00 am in Childhood Indoctrination, Religion.
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