Oy To The World

Posted by fxckfeelings on December 17, 2009

We keep saying that Christmas is hard on everyone, but that’s because religion is hard on everyone, no matter who or what you believe in, and religion is around all year long. Just because religion is hard, however, doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s good, actually, because it expresses essential differences and gets people upset, confused, and heading towards my office.
–Dr. Lastname

I recently had to relocate my family for work, so we were forced to move from a fairly large east coast city to a small town nowhere near water (unless you count the great lakes). My wife and I are Jewish, and we’re raising our kids in the religion, but that was much easier where we used to live than where we are now, where our 12-year-old son, who was always a bit of an outsider, is now facing a lot of teasing at school for all the ways he’s different, which includes his religion. It’s been especially bad for him lately, given that the town is very Christian, with prayers before high school football games and lots of school-centered Christmas activities, and he’s even further on the outside of what the other kids are doing. As you may or may not know, Channukah isn’t Christmas—it’s a minor holiday—and we don’t try to pretend otherwise by giving smaller gifts and not playing it up so much. My son is younger than his age, though, and he likes to tell everyone he’s not interested in Christmas and then they pick on him and he accuses them of anti-Semitism and it’s a mess. My goal is that he should be proud of being a Jew while getting along better with people at school.

It’s painful to watch your kid get picked on and called a dork, particularly when he is a dork and does dorky things that you know are going to make his troubles worse.

If you tell him to shut up and keep his opinions to himself, you may be destroying the paltry remains of his self-esteem. If you try to get his tormentors to stop, you may stir up additional trouble.

You could argue that it’s your job, and society’s, to give him a positive school experience that supports differences in religion and personal style. I would argue that’s bullshit. It’s not in your power and idealistic expectations will often make things worse.

Your goal is to work with what you’ve got and help him do the same. You can’t protect him from the pain of being different, whether that pain’s from being a Jew or a dork (or a bit from column A and a bit from column B), but you can urge him to accept himself, take pride in being different, and learn to manage the hurt.

Celebrate the importance of being who you are vs. being happy and accepted. You’re not saying “it’s better to be feared than loved,” but, in a larger quote salad, you are saying it’s better to be yourself than to be loved, and what’s love got to do, got to do with it?

Celebrate the value of being an unpopular misfit, a kid whom no one understands or respects, who grows up to have a unique point of view and something special to offer the world. Visit a convention of psychiatrists or physicists and point out the many, many former dweebs who are quite happy with their adult personalities and have found partners who feel the same way. View an interview with James (DNA) Watson (and his wife).

Cite Jewish history, because it’s all about trying to be a good person despite always losing, and never having winning ways. View the film “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” And eat some latkes.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a mission statement to guide your “living with prejudice” curriculum for your son. “In our family, we value what makes us different, even when it draws trouble. We have no choice about many of the things that make us who we are, including being Jewish, and about there being no way to avoid all the painful attacks of those who are bothered by who we are. But being a good person is more important than being accepted and allows us to build a wall of protection between our pride in who we are and pain caused by the scorn of others.”

I was raised as a Unitarian and consider myself a cultural Protestant who believes in Christian ethics but not in God, ritual, or mumbo jumbo. The girlfriend I want to marry—and we get along very well in most ways—is a Catholic who loves the parish community and going to mass (like midnight mass, just around the corner). I don’t know how she can tolerate that shit, or trust a priest, given the recent sex scandals and the way the Pope tries to manipulate our elected officials, but she does. She doesn’t try to convert me, and I’m not going to force her to quit the church, but she says I’m making an issue of our religious differences that could threaten our relationship. My goal is to get her to see that I’m not going to threaten her religious beliefs.

You can’t make someone who knows you and sees you as religiously intolerant change her opinion. If you wore a Klan bed-sheet to your first date and could show her the next day that you’re actually a sweet, sensitive guy working undercover for the FBI, you might change her mind.

She knows you, however, and is telling you that she thinks you’re intolerant, so give up, accept the fact that she sees you the way she sees you, and think of what you can do.

She sees you as intolerant and hasn’t dumped you yet, which is a positive thing. Don’t make it worse by telling her she’s got you all wrong.

Ask yourself whether you can tolerate her seeing you in a negative way. If you can’t take the criticism, she’s not your girl, or won’t be for long.

Then ask her whether there’s any way she can accept what she sees as your intolerance. If she can’t and requires you to change your inner beliefs, she’s not your girl or, if she is, it will be hell (in the true Catholic sense).

She may tell you that she can accept your intolerance if you could just shut the fuck up about your views of Catholics and the Pope. If she can and you can, then you have a possible deal.

I know, it will kill you to bottle up your true feelings, but un-bottling those feelings is killing your relationship. This is what they mean, after all, by marriage being work.

STATEMENT:
If negotiations are still on, describe your intention to manage what she sees as your intolerance. “I love you and respect your commitment to your religion and its way of life. In the ways that matter most, we share similar values. Given our differences in religious affiliations, we cannot expect to worship together. But I want you to be comfortable with your involvement in your religion.”