Stop plainly shoving religious principles down your child’s throat

Shivani Chimnani
Aug 27, 2017 · 7 min read

Religion, the word itself holds enough meaning without my having to introduce it with some well-acclaimed philosopher’s quote. If you’ve been raised in a typical Hindu household, one of the foremost things you’re taught is how to bow your head down and clasp your hands every time you see an idol. You’re taught how to rote certain verses, and to always remember them in times of hardship, making you believe in their validity, without anyone ever ascribing any meaning to them. For all you know they could’ve defrauded you and you’ve been chanting Sanskrit bird-calling songs all this while (Whaaa?).

Religion has been thrust upon humans at a very tender age. Even before our brains could develop to assimilate the complexities of life, religion was portrayed to be the panacea of all our adversities. We were thoroughly indoctrinated even before we could develop the faculty of reason. The sanskari (ideal) Indian kid knew all religious phrases at the back of his hand. Ever wondered wherefrom our near-perfect rotting skills have hailed? This is where. This is actually wherefrom pretty much everything we know has hailed.

Children are the shinning trophies of their parents. They’d never miss an opportunity to publicly announce their child’s insignificant accomplishments and that’s fairly justified. They’re entitled to it. Most times. The other day I met a new age mother at a public gathering *deliberate attempt at not releasing specifics* who asked her three-year old daughter to recite the Gayatri Mantra (a Hindu prayer) in front of everyone. And she did. She nailed it. Word for word. The crowd roared into applause. Endless praises came her way. The mother beamed with pride and an obvious smirk on her face.

This public display of piety managed to do two things. It earned the kid bonus laudatory points over reciting “Twinkle, twinkle little star”. Two, it is for some reason a direct indicator that the child hails from an acha khandan (“good family”) serving as the perfect character advertisement for the family. The family automatically climbs two steps up the social ladder. Gaining paramount societal validation at age three, check. Beware all, this kid is here to steal your rishtaas.

What’s my problem? First, I don’t understand why a three-year old being able to reproduce a few Sanskrit phrases without knowing their meaning so sensational? Why is this excessively encouraged? Anyone can do that. We’re Indians. We excel at memorising things we don’t understand. Second, why do we have to correlate piety and ethics? Why is a religious individual necessarily considered to be morally immaculate even after we’ve seen sufficient evidence to the contrary? Why do we weigh religious devotion as a determinate factor of an individual’s moral compass?

Why is this not cool?

This is highly worrisome. When a child receives acclaim for citing words from his own faith, it leads him to believe that his faith is what is premier. You’re showing your child that religious commitment is what constitutes social acceptance. You’re showing your child that religious allegiance is what sets the norm. You’re teaching your child third person character assessment on basis of religious gestures and activities. So if chances are that your child ends up in the societal majority of lopsided religion aggrandizing individuals who believes in the sole supremacy of his religion, you raised an extremist .

There will always exists a possibility of your child growing into an adult polarizing figure who decides to ostracize people of other faiths. Next thing you know it culminates into religious fanaticism and this fanaticism propels his political perceptions. Next thing you know is your child exploiting religious sentiment to feed his several ulterior motives. Next thing you see is the cycle repeating itself with your child imposing toothless values you taught him on his offspring and the onset of the doom reoccurring. Is this what you want?

I know at this point I’m seeming a little extreme. But from my over two decade experience in this world I’ve learnt that extremism can stem out of the most innocuous things. The roots shape future conduct of an individual to the largest possible extent.

Keep reading, this is going somewhere I promise.

Moving to the alternate scenario, if your child is one of the lucky few whose mind evolves and he starts thinking for himself, he’ll rethink every aspect of his life. Trust me, I know this first-hand. What is my family doing and why. Why are we regularly feeding the overfed cows? Why are we depositing five hundred rupees in the grand temple’s chest when there are ten malnourished individuals sitting right outside who could use the money instead? Why are we going to bathe in the most polluted river halfway across the country to supposedly ‘cleanse our sins’? Why are we spending hours praying for miracles, when we could rather do something tangible with our time? What is happening.

Here’s where the existential crisis kick in. Cynicism is where he’ll starts finding solace. He’ll turn eternally hopeless when he finds out that the mannat strategy (undertaking a specific religious activity driven by wishful thinking) doesn’t work (Why did you lie to me, Ma?). He’ll rubbish everything you tell him at first instance. Essentially what has happened is that your daily religion force feeding turned your child into a bleak pessimist.

Wait, isn’t there anything in between?

From what I’ve observed, the middle ground in terms of religious philosophy has usually been ignorance and nonchalance coupled with mindless obedience or disobedience. Your child becomes a part of the herd, aimlessly doing what each one in his faith does because that’s what he’s supposed to do, no questions asked. Since we all want to raise kids who are well-thinking, self-opinionated individuals, let’s assume for this hypothesis there isn’t any middle ground.

Here me out, I’m getting to the point.

Religion has become such an obligation today. We go to the temple because we’re supposed to. We join our hands because we’re supposed to. We feed the cows because we’re supposed to. We’re supposed to do all these things because they’re apparently the right things to do. We’re supposed to do this to ward off evil. We’re supposed to do this if we want to lead the good life.

Moreover today, religious pretext is more often than not used for intra community socialisation. Societal status and religious competence is often determined by the amount of contribution you make to a religious trust, by the grandiosity of the celebration you undertake for the sake of a religious activity, the enormity of the idol in your temple, the audibility of the speakers chanting prayers, the miles you can travel to please the Lord and this list is endless. There is a constant power struggle to be more religious and to expend more resources pursuant to that in order to obtain celestial benefits. For instance, in India, many a times a person will undertake hearty feeding of cows with wishful thoughts of his business flourishing. It’s all very economic you see.

And who gave sanction for this? Who proclaimed that we’re supposed to do all sorts of irrational things to become a better person or to lead a better life? Who paved the causation between rituals and life events? Here’s when the rationale kicks in.

Pitching my solution

If you haven’t heard this before, there are more than one ways of teaching your kids about religion. I know this is the way you’ve been raised and would like your child to inherit the same values and you don’t want to break tradition. But, break it.

I know that blind faith deepens cultural ties. I know that blind faith can also accrue many benefits. I know the general defenses.

But there’s also a high likelihood of your child either being a non-thinking, religion imposing phony or God forbid he starts thinking for himself and falls into the lasting hole of pragmatism and despair, he’ll end up becoming averse to it. He’ll hate every aspect about it. He’ll fight you on the validity of each thing you’ve taught him so far.

So, try and tell him the truth. The real deal. Don’t just pass it on like some mandatory burden we all have to bear for the sake of divine succession. Teach him the good values religion has to offer, tell him about the absurdities religion sometimes offers. Teach him both sides.

Instead of plainly inserting the fear of breaking rules, let him assess the rules. Don’t put out blanket statements like “God will punish you if you eat meat on Tuesday”. Or make Orwellian references like “He’s watching every move”. Stop doing that. Teach him morals without associating them with religion.

Don’t try and make religious mythology seem factual, don’t compel him to believe in the veracity of supernatural events. Tell it to him like a story, not a binding commandment and let him decide for himself.

Teach him how to connect with religion. Teach him gratitude. Teach him the goodness of mankind as a whole. Don’t smother him with blind religious texts, smother him with insight.

Teach him the religious scriptures with the detailed contextual meaning behind them. Teach them to him as works of literature and not compulsory routine assignments.

Tell him about community rituals and the solidarity they foster. Tell him about the sense of positivism rituals emanate. Don’t make them seem to be compulsorily causal links to attain the good life.

Teach him how to love religion as a concept, don’t confine it to a faction. Teach him how to introspect. Finally, let him decide what to follow and how. Let him choose to believe or not to believe. Find ethical and moral principles that bridge the believers and non-believers together. Let him decide the finality of his faith.

Also, try and cut down on the centuries passed down no-longer relevant bullshit. You know what the bullshit is.

I know this is some next level dissident-like behaviour. People will call you deranged. There’ll be backlash from society and elders, mostly society. You may be thrown out of your favourite kitty clan. The Regina George of the clan will make jibes at you. You might get negative points at the annual social ‘let’s judge eccentric people because we’re insecure as hell’ competition. But I promise you, you’ll end up raising a great kid. Isn’t that incentive enough?

)

Apprentice Lawyer, Expert Satirist, Nonconformist, Pragmatist, Part Altruist. Okay, now I’m out of prefixes to support my favourite suffix.

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