The Father, The Son, And The Holy Sh*t
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 22, 2009
When different members of one family worship more than one god, life can become an unholy mess. If all parties can appreciate each other, however, and share the same values—even if they attribute their higher motivations to be good to different sources—then religion doesn’t have a goddamned thing to do with the love that a family shares.
–Dr. Lastname
My wife is Jewish, and I’m not (I’m a severely lapsed Catholic). Our oldest kid is about to enter school, and my wife has put it on the table that she wants him to go to a Jewish private school, which is surprising to me, not just because I’m not Jewish, but because my wife isn’t that religious at all—we go to celebrate a couple of holidays a year at her parents’ house but we never go to temple or anything. Now she wants our son to learn Hebrew, and I don’t get it, not just because she’s never cared before, but because if she’s worried about getting him a good education, Catholic schools are cheaper and he doesn’t need to learn a new alphabet. I don’t know how to get into this discussion without opening a huge holy can of worms, which is so strange considering how small a role religion has played in our married life up to now. My goal is to figure this out without stepping on any landmines or having my son end up studying and entering a religion I myself don’t practice (nor does my wife!).
If you stick with your own kind, be they your same religion, race, or member of the same area Trekker group, you can take lots of things for granted. It’s easier, there’s less pain, and you share common holidays, religious education, and strange-smelling foods.
Then again, maybe you knew what you were doing when you married outside the clan; it’s going to be a lot more interesting. Of course, if you dislike negotiation and conflict, you should have stayed away from Jews [disclaimer: Dr. Lastname is a proud member of the tribe].
If you can accept the fact that there are some painful, unavoidable differences between you and your wife, however, then you can start working on defining your areas of commonality and difference and find respectful ways to compromise without incurring any wrath, be it God’s or your wife’s.
First things first, don’t share your negative feelings. You have a right to feel surprised, disappointed, and worried, but those are negative emotions that will polarize your discussion, so keep them to yourself. Yes, your wife knows you’re unhappy, but you know how we feel about feelings, so zip it.
Instead, take a professional approach to your negotiations; draw up a list of whatever is most important to you about your children’s education and encourage her to do likewise. Consider academic subjects, sports, languages, ethics, quality of teaching, class size, and grounding in family tradition (not the deity, at least not in this round).
Compare what you want with what the available private schools provide. If you agree, for instance, that one school is much better than the other, then maybe you can use Sunday school to teach your kids about the other parent’s tradition.
What every Jew knows (and this is equally true of Catholics, but they don’t always realize it) is that religion is never simply about religion; it’s also about ethnicity and the tribal bonds that create common identity.
Jewish atheists are still Jews, and excommunicated liberal Catholics never stop being Catholic (which is why you might be feeling a little guilty about your son not going to parochial school, but hey, mazel tov, guilt is another big thing Jews and Catholics have in common).
What you’re really talking about here isn’t my God or your God, but finding a way of connecting your children to two traditions and communities and styles of thinking. Yes, putting together two identities that have often been at war with one another is painful, but given a good marriage and a willingness to compromise, melding these identities can provide your children with rich resources that are not, really, as contradictory as they sometimes seem.
And really, this ability to meld isn’t so surprising considering that Christ’s style of thinking was typically Jewish, even if his followers’ ideas became less so over the years as they were swallowed up and changed, maybe even enriched, by many other cultures. From that perspective, finding real compromise for your kids is just continuing His work, with or without a new alphabet.
STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement to protect your negotiations from religious war. “I’m glad you’ve forced me to think about the importance of education and our ethnic and religious traditions and what we want for our kids. It’s disturbing to realize that we don’t have identical agendas, but I shouldn’t have been surprised, and I think our differences can be a source of strength. Let’s think through what’s most important to each of us, how well these schools meet our needs, and how we can make up the difference if one school falls short in any way that’s important to either one of us.”
My mother died recently, and I’m unsure about my role in her funeral or memorials or really any part of her passing because she and my father were part of a very religious church that I left years ago so (on not-so-great terms). They didn’t shun me after that, but we were distant, and given that the church was the center of their lives, I feel strange being a part of her funeral (I’m supposed to give the eulogy), not just because I feel awkward, but because I’ve always felt a little guilty for disappointing them by leaving the church (and marrying a Buddhist even). I loved my parents, but now they’re both gone and as hard as my father’s death was, I wasn’t married then, so this just makes me feel that much worse. My goal is to figure out how to approach my role in my mother’s memorials without feeling too guilty or ruining the occasion with my heathen presence.
There’s a special kind of guilt that has nothing to do with sin that many people feel when they stray from the conventions and community of their tribe, whether it’s fundamental Christianity or Red Sox Nation (sure, we’re rooting for the Angels, but these are special “against the Yankees” circumstances—please forgive us, Theo).
This guilt reflex was probably built into our DNA for the same reason that other animals have grouping-together instincts, from geese to baboons to ants. In many situations, tight community affiliation helps us survive…when it’s not pushing us to hurt ourselves or war on one another.
Sadly, kids who don’t fit the mold of their own community and feel the need to go elsewhere usually carry a vague sense of having betrayed their past. The goods news is that it’s a feeling, and that’s all it is.
It’s up to you to give your differences a deeper meaning; forget your guilt and consider what was good about their religious community and beliefs and the way they and you handled your differences.
Though church may have left you cold, it worked for your parents and may have helped them give and receive strength in their community and be better at raising a family. Even if it didn’t suit your style, it suited theirs, so be happy it did.
If you have kids, you know that rebellion is not the only or even the main reason that they see things differently than you do. The most common reason is that they are different and your style of thinking and living may not suit them.
Yes, differences are usually painful and make certain kinds of sharing impossible, but that pain is not a sign of failure—it’s a part of life. What you do with it is what counts.
So don’t take responsibility for the distance between you and your parents, but consider how you and they managed it. You didn’t blame one another; you shared what you could, like love, and you tolerated the pain without blame. That’s a fine, blessed achievement.
If your idea of a great achievement is a close, happy family that sings the same song, then you’ll consider your family a failure, and you’ll be wrong. Sure, happy families deserve respect, but the family that deserves much greater respect, because the Olympic classification for their routine is much closer to 10, is the family with kids who are painfully different from their parents and yet nevertheless find ways to care for one another.
Don’t let the differences you had with your parents interfere with saying goodbye to your mother in the way she’d want. Don’t do right by her God— do right by yourself and the effort you all made together.
STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement to protect your eulogizing from bio-reflex guilt. “My parents were good Christians who drew strength from their faith. The greatest evidence of this was their ability to tolerate, nurture, and love children like me who happened to have a very different way of seeing the world, without suggesting that we were inferior if we did not do things their way.”
