Of God, Gods and None

Driving home from Kindergarten last year, my kid said something that almost made me pull my car over.

“Mama – did you know that God made all the things?” I was shocked and responded carefully, I recognized that I was reacting out of fear and needed to check my shit at the door. “Who told you that, honey?”

Before I start I need to explain that, thankfully, I wasn’t traumatized by religion growing up. I grew up in a typical Roman Catholic house; we went to church every Sunday, celebrated Easter, midnight mass on Christmas Eve and prayed during Thanksgiving dinner and sometimes-regular dinner. It wasn’t so much about what I believed so much as it was rituals we acted out that my parents were really into. My mom grew up with Franco the dictator during Spain’s post civil war, a man very fond of Opus Dei. My father also grew up with very strong religious influences as a Latino. With that being said, surprisingly my parents gave us kids a lot of liberty to grow into our own. For example they never shamed us for not being overly enthusiastic about dragging our ass out of bed every Sunday morning.  In fact my fear wasn’t from my childhood but what I’ve seen as an adult.

My fear was that he would innocently believe whatever anyone would tell him then judge others for their different beliefs.

I have friends that are hardcore Atheists with husbands that are published authors about Atheism. I have friends who have built their livelihood around helping spiritually guide others and vehemently believe in a god-force. I don’t judge these people based on their beliefs, I judge them on their humanity and how much they can hold their liquor… I half kid…

We got home from school and I started to chat it up with my son “So your friend believes there is a god and he made all the things?”. He’s practicing sword fighting and stops and faces me “Yeah. He did mama, he did make all the things”. I had to sit down.

“Did you know some people don’t believe there is a god?”

He stopped again and thought, facing away this time, “why?”     

“Well for one, people think a lot of different things. More things than I can count. For instance I have lots of friends that don’t believe there is a god at all. I also have a friend that believes in many gods”

“Whoa! MANY?! LIKE A HUNDRED MILLION THOUSAND!?”. I laughed, “Yeah something like that. Can I tell you something else?” He nodded.

“You can’t just believe what someone tells you. Something like that, it comes from inside you and its okay to just not know. Baby, just because someone tells you something doesn’t mean its true…because no one actually knows. You have to figure it out on your own. If you ever want to hear what I believe just let me know but it’s because it works for me and makes me happy but its not fact. I can’t just go around telling people I’m right.” He was shadow sword fighting again and without looking at me “okay mama. Thanks” I paused… “so what was it that I just said?” lord knows this kid doesn’t listen half the time

“Lots of people think lots of things” Not bad “okay cool, so you just let me know if you want to talk more about it”

A couple months later shit got weird. My kid started singing songs about god and I realized that he had been watching “Veggie Tales”, stories from the bible as told by vegetables… its on Netflix. Hoooly shit. I kinda freaked out, I’m not gonna lie. I wasn’t exactly clapping along to his singing; in fact I would be a party pooper and try to start lecturing him again on different religions. I’d try to get him to watch something else but wow did this dude get on a serious Veggie Tales kick. Then I realized, what am I doing? He’s listening to stories and likes them and technically Veggie tales is kid appropriate… at least Netflix thinks so. I’m preaching to this kid about worldviews and I won’t even let him explore.

Let’s put it this way, I know when my kid starts dating someone he probably won’t listen to my advice about whether or not it’s a good match, in fact he’ll want to prove he’s right if its something I’m against. So why am I fighting him? He’s going figure out on his own what he likes. Who am I to force feed what is essentially FEAR to a kid? “Listen to this, don’t listen to this, BAD.” The only thing that could truly make me disappointed in him is if he loses his humanity and shits on other people because of their beliefs. That will truly disappoint me.

As of now he thinks of praying as meditating (crosses his legs and pinches his fingers as they rest on his knees) and knows that mommy doesn’t think god is a man. He’s gone to church a handful of times with grandma and grandpa, thinks churches are beautiful and enjoys the images of the archangel he shares a name with. As of now he is more interested in things that scare him like Goosebumps, Five Nights at Freddy’s and ghosts. As of now, I don’t fear his interests or observations.