The Religion Talk

I know it's coming, and I have proof that it's getting closer. You know, The Talk. The one every new non-religious parent prepares to have with their family. The Religion Talk. (Or, lack thereof.)

My family is Jewish, but not really practicing. Basically, this means that on certain days of the year we eat gefilte fish, brisket, or make french toast out of challah. But, I think there's only one of us remaining that chooses to go to synagogue... and we're pretty convinced that he has latent rabbinical tendencies.

My husband's family is...actually, I don't know what they are. Christian of come sort, possibly Catholic-based, but I don't think anyone really goes to church per se. Not on a regular basis anyway, if at all. However, I do hear the influence of a "God" come up fairly frequently and as kids are involved, I know they believe in a theistic influence.

My husband and I are Agnostic at best. But philosophically, including theistic belief, I consider myself a Humanist.

What all this means is that we don't include the concept of a deity in our daily lives and don't plan on doing so for our daughter either. We're not opposed to her learning about what others believe and interacting with these beliefs respectfully, but we don't plan on imparting them onto her. Neither ours, nor anyone else's for that matter. She can figure things out on her own through education plus experience.

We haven't explained this in any detail to my husband's family. They are fairly liberal with me because they know my family is Jewish, so while I keep saying that I don't practice, I think they've concluded that that means that I don't believe in Jesus, but that I do believe in a God and don't go to synagogue. It's a fair assumption I suppose. And for the last 8 years, that's worked out just fine.

But now as a child is coming into the picture, I'm slowly starting to see the influence of religion come about slowly into the picture...

The first time was when my husband's uncle reminded me how important it was to have children pray before bed. (I just nodded and figured we could have that conversation later.)

Then there were a few incidences of our baby being called "a real miracle", but I'm ok with reframing that in my head to mean "an awesome thing."

Then, at the shower, we were given these otherwise adorable square canvas blocks to hang on the wall that had words for each of the A-B-C letters. And, of course, "B" was for Blessed. B is also for BUMMER.

The conversation is coming. I can feel it.