Way Out Parenting: Should you send your child to Sunday or Hebrew school?

The fact that you’re asking this question means you’re not quite as agnostic as you claim. You are probably a lapsed Catholic, protestant, or Jew who eschewed church- or synagogue-going shortly after your confirmation or bar/bat mitzvah but deep down still harbor latent religious impulses that you don’t admit to yourself.

With parenthood, these impulses have stirred inside you like a long dormant herpes virus. You find yourself wondering, “What if my parents hadn’t forced me to go to Sunday or Hebrew school? What if they’d never forced me to memorize the Ten Commandments or Apostle’s Creed or Shema? Would I be a serial killer or a sociopath now? Will my child turn into one?”

Probably not, but there is definitely some anecdotal evidence to suggest that early religious education can be an inoculation against later religious fanaticism. If you are looking for justification of your decision to register your child for a local Episcopal Sunday school or reform temple’s once-a-week Hebrew school, read these books written by Children of Gays who were denied years of mind-numbing sermons, prayers, pageants, and candle-lighting ceremonies and for whom religion became a forbidden fruit as tantalizing as sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll.

Christian Among the Sodomites: Going It Alone with God
The Pearly Gates Won’t Open for Lesbian Mom
A Son’s Spiritual Guide to Overcoming Homosexuality
Jumping on Oprah’s Couch with Tom Cruise: My Life in Scientology
My Daddies Didn’t Want Me to Pray
The Child of Gays Guide to Starting a Megachurch
Child of Gays on a Gaza Strip Kibbutz
Training for Martyrdom: From the Castro to Kandahar

© 2008 by Carrie Smith. All rights reserved.