(Untitled)

[felisblanco]

The girl has decided she wants to be confirmed (confirmated? What do you call it?) and so today we went to the first mass, meant to welcome the children to the confirmation education they have to go through this winter. We were all bored to tears, none more than the boy who finally lay down on the bench to mumble "Can I go home now! Booooored. How

Comments

[thatotherperv]

it feels weird and creepy to only comment on your kid posts to tell you that I love your parenting, but...I'm probably gonna keep doing it anyway. because they always make me happy - I always think, what wonderful little people she's producing.

[felisblanco]

Aww, thank you! *hugs*

I make mistakes, like everyone, and who knows what impact those will have, but I like to believe that we're mostly doing it right. She is growing into such a good person, meaning kind and funny and thoughtful and loyal. And damn, so talented, I can't help brag about that. Her drawings are amazing! But what I'm proudest of is how fair and righteous she is. She's always been quick to stand up to those she believes are being unfair and for those being treated unfairly, which I have to admit hasn't always made her life easy. But she honestly can't understand why people are mean or say the stupid things they do. "Can't they see how wrong it is?"

The boy is still too busy being a goofball to contemplate the bigger issues, we'll see how he turns out. :)

[thatotherperv]

<3 and yeah, everyone makes mistakes, but I think raising compassionate, thoughtful people that are aware of their options and feel confident *making* those choices, that smooths out a lot of the other stuff. and that's what I've seen from the peanut gallery here, following you as your babies grow into their own people.

[crazylilly]

I understand your thoughts about this issue. It's still a few years away for us. But since we are not religous at all I think she will prefer something not religous. But who knows what will happen until then. Maybe she will find a really good friend who introduces her to religion?

[felisblanco]

Oh we are not religious at all but 1) her grandmother is and has been very vigilant keeping Jesus in their hearts (sighs) and 2) the first five years of school they learn ONLY about Christianity in religious study and don't get to there even being other religions until grade six, by when they of course believe christianity to be the only religion. My girl even told me last year "I don't get how people can believe in other gods when they must know our god is the right one." *headdesk*

I've complained about it but this is nationwide teaching following the curriculum and nothing to be done about it. It's called religion studies but is really just the study of Christianity with some examples of others thrown in, way down the line. Blame it on state and church still not being separated despite 70% of the population wanting it to be. *sighs*

[crazylilly]

Here the parents can choose: catholic religion, evangelic religion or ethics (I don't know the right translation). My girls are in the last course. And the older girl just started at secondary school and is in a class with only ethics-kids in it. They talk about a lot of things there, but until now not about religion. I'm sure this will be a topic in the class later. But right now I'm really happy that we had the chance to choose.
If they want to choose a religion later in their life it's their decision. But I never felt like it was my decision to make.

[felisblanco]

That sounds great, I wish they'd do that here. I'd love to have a choice but as it is all I could do would be to make a fuss and pull her out of the class, making her stand out. Not something she'd want.

The group I'd want her to go to instead of the church is the Ethical Humanist Association, the more I read about their program for the kids the more I wish she'd go there. Taken from their site: "The course is taught by a philosophy teacher and the topics covered are ethics, critical thinking, human relations, taking responsibility, emotions, death and grieving, skepticism, life style, violence and bullying, relations between the sexes, human rights, respecting oneself and one’s environment, what gives life meaning, what is happiness, and teenagers in a consumer society. There are 2 rules in this course: 1) It is all right to be different, whether it applies to one’s ideas, looks or behavior and 2) It is important to be honest."

All this instead of the preaching from a 2000 year old book? Yes please!

[liliaeth]

Is there a possibility of another church? or is the one all the kids from her school use? (or the only one in town)

[felisblanco]

It's the one most kids in her school are going to. There are two other churches, one for the next precinct which is only ten minutes away and another which is not connected to the state and we'd had to sign up to become part of their congregation, I think. I don't really know much about either of them. I know that the priest we had today just started at that church last spring but it's not like she's young and inexperienced, in fact she's quite old, so I don't get why she seems so oblivious to how unattractve to children that mass was, the very people she was supposed to be welcoming. *sighs*

We'll look into it. Maybe let her start there and see how it goes, but if it keeps on being so dull and non child friendly, I don't see her being too enthusiastic to continue.

[liliaeth]

The problem with older and 'experienced' priests is that they often get lost in a routine, instead of trying to think of interesting new ways to approach something.

[felisblanco]

Very true. She seemed quite stiff, I have to say.

[doneitall]

I think it's confirmed, but I haven't done it either. I think it's mostly, because my mom didn't care, but my sister is going to do it soon.

[matchboximpala]

I waa confirmed at 13 in the Episcopal church and the best thing about it was that afterward my mother gave me the choice of continuing to attend services on Sunday or not. Guess which I picked?

Nothing like sleeping in on a Sunday morning.