by Eileen Schmidt

Created on: June 18, 2009   Last Updated: June 21, 2009

Children learn what they are taught. We as parents want to teach our little ones about all things good and what we feel is best for them. However, religion is such a touchy subject in most homes as the majority of adults have come to their religious beliefs through their ancestors before them. Most of us believe what we are taught and we teach what we believe. It can be a difficult cycle to break.

Parents DO have the power to end hereditary religion, but in the same sense have to be open and willing to do so. I, for example, have a Catholic father and step-mother and a Christian mother. I have been introduced to many religions and have even attended Catholic school. In knowing about many different cultures and beliefs I began to question the churches and God at a very early age. Every body likes to assume that their God and/or belief system is the only right way and that may be so for them. I grew up just wanting to know everything I could about what others believed in and why. I asked the same question repeatedly throughout childhood and even sometimes into my adult years. "Why can't we all be right?". My mother scorned me for this and my family viewed me as an outcast, for they had all been set in their ways due to the teachings before them. So then what? Unitarian Universalist? Agnosticism? Pantheism? What?

For me, a little bit of all of the above. For the kids, an educational overview of multiple religions and belief systems and Gods. Even though I don't believe in most aspects of the Bible, I teach them. They have multiple children's first bible books. I teach them about God and the angels and everything in between. What about Darwin's Theory of Evolution and pro-creation? Buddhism? Humanism? Jehovah's witness? Wiccaan? Catholicism? Christianity? From A to Z, and if I don't know the answers we look it up. This gives them the right and the option to fully investigate each belief system and come to an educated and informed decision as they get older.

I may not agree with their choice, but it's theirs to make, not mine. I am trying to break the cycle that both sides of my family have had for generations. It is possible, it just takes creativity, patience, and an open mind, for children do not learn without being taught. What makes each Higher Power real? What proof comes from each theory of existence? What has been found to disprove each? To each of us there are facts and myths, theories and reality. For every one of us it is different from one person to the next.

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