Danfun128 said:
When (and if) I eventually marry and have kids, should I deny them access to my parents? I’m afraid some of their insanity (Dominionism, persecution complex; creationism; bigotry toward Muslims, LGTBQ people, and to a far lesser extent, black people [While they don’t support anything overt like slavery, they think that God made whites to be better]), especially that of my mom (anti-vaccinations; New Apostolic Reformation; seeing stuff like Pokemon, Mario, Sonic etc as satanic; traumatic exorcisms) would rub off on them. The fact that Mom sometimes says “You reap what you sow” concerning my future children whenever I act too “rebellious” does not help matters in the slightest. By her logic, she’s cursing my children, even if she doesn’t see it that way.
I am not Christian, so just hanging that bias out there so you know how much to ignore me. IMO, absolute denial to grandparents is a pretty severe step, reserved for the realistic threat of physical and/or psychological harm. Most of the stuff you mention doesn’t meet that standard–except traumatic exorcisms, which sounds like it might qualify (I don’t need details, you judge for yourself). That said, near-complete denial to grandparents is both very easy and very common–it’s called moving way the hell away from them. Put enough miles between your kids and your parents, and they’ll only be around each other during very specific, very supervised, very limited times (the holidays–yaaay!), and the rest of the year you can relax. Lots of people have some fairly ghastly relatives that they’d honestly rather their kids never laid eyes on, but there’s a few things worth pointing out about that. Kids are smart. Give them a good moral and intellectual compass and they’ll be able to figure out what’s going on with your parents all by themselves. Kids also love forbidden fruit. You tell them to stay away from something, or keep them away from something, and they’re all over it. Let them figure out for themselves what they want to stay away from. By the sounds of it, it doesn’t sound like it will be very hard for them to figure out.
A related question. Though I may be sceptical of the Bible, I feel like it’s important that my future kids learn its contents, if only so they can understand the background of my family and make their own minds about its contents. I want my future kids to be critical thinkers, to have the right to have opinions that I might not agree with, but I know aren’t wrong. I want my kids to be able to be capable of making the right choices even without the fear of hell fire forcing them to obey. How do you suggest that I teach my kids the bible?
I went to public school in the US, and we read the Bible in school (Genesis and Job, etc, not the whole thing), but it was the Bible as literature. It was neither treated as “this is the Truth!” nor “this is just mythology!” It was, “this is an important cornerstone of literature in our language, so let’s read the thing” My English teacher also taught Sunday school, but he managed to find a very respectful middle ground. AFAICT Christians didn’t feel trivialized, non-Christians didn’t feel sidelined. I’m not saying you have to be THAT neutral, of course, since I’m assuming you’ll be raising your kids to be Christian (unclear on that) – but a certain amount of evenhandedness improves the message, no matter what your goal. Again, kids are smart. Give them analytical tools, and trust them to use them. They’ll appreciate it. Good luck.
