Parenting after 35
BrideBuddies
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Are you religious?
BrideBuddies
member
Had an interesting conversation at our playgroup yesterday...
Were you raised in a religious home?
Do you consider yourself religious now?
Are you raising your child in a manner that reflects that? (Prayers at bedtime, mealtime, etc)
Do you attend weekly/regular religious services?
Does your spouse attend with you? (that was a big discussion point in our group)
If money was no object, would you consider sending your child/children to a religious school?
Just wondering.... I also poke around on the Baby Names board and it seems there are many, many women over there who are not religious at all and leery of using a name that sounds like they are religious. Not sure how I analyse that in my brain. 
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Re: Are you religious?
I grew up a Reform Jew and that is how I am raising my kids. My DH grew up a Conservative Jew. I would not say we are religious but we do bring in the traditions of the religion into our lives and our very involved in our community. We do not keep the shabbath and we do not keep Kosher but we do light the Shabbat candles most Friday nights and have challah with dinner, we celebrate the major Jewish Holidays. We go to Friday night services almost montly - right now to the monthly Tot Shabbat services but as the kids get older, we will move to the monthly Family Service next year. My older DD started religous school this year and the younger one starts in the fall. They will both have Bat Mitzvahs. We do get together with friends from our Temple for some holidays. The girls go to a summer day camp for 3 weeks that is owned by our Temple and they include some Jewish things into the camp in regard to things they learn and art projects and they do special activities for Shabbat on Fridays. We go to a 3 night family camp each summer at the Jewish Summer Overnight camp my DH grew up going to and my kids will go when they are old enough.
I do not consider myself religious but my Jewish faith and beliefs is a part of my daily life in a lot of ways - many of my friends are from Temple and camp and the other more social aspects of the Jewish Community. The book group I am in has all Jewish women.
I did not grow up in a Jewish area and my summers at overnight camp really helped formed a lot of my beliefs around religion. My kids are going to school in a more Jewish area (older DD's kindy class is 27 kids and 7-9 are Jewish). I love that they will be exposed to a variety of religions and backgrounds and have a diverse setting for their education. I do not care for religious based private schools. My sisters kids went to non-religious based private school until they moved over the summer and it was great. The diviersity was huge and they got a great education. We open enroll to an amazing school so I have no need for a private school and since we are involved in our Temple and include the traditions of our religion in our lives, I don't see the need for a private religious school education for regular school.
Were you raised in a religious home? It wouldn't consider it religious but we did go to church every Sunday
Do you consider yourself religious now? Nope
Are you raising your child in a manner that reflects that? (Prayers at bedtime, mealtime, etc) We don't do anything religious, not even at Christmas or Easter. We do gather with family on those days for dinners and Christmas presents.
Do you attend weekly/regular religious services? Nope
Does your spouse attend with you? (that was a big discussion point in our group) Nope.
If money was no object, would you consider sending your child/children to a religious school? Nope
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Answer me no to all the questions. Parents were raised Catholic and Mormon. I am spiritual, but not religious. I really enjoyed taking religious studies, it fascinates me, but I wouldn't send my kids to a religious school (my classes were uni electives).
ETA: Fix spelling. Carholic? darned autocorrect
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
Do you consider yourself religious now? Not at all. I am agnostic and my husband is atheist. We celebrate the traditional Catholic holidays like Christmas and Easter, but celebrate them as Seasonal festivities as opposed to religious ones.
Are you raising your child in a manner that reflects that? (Prayers at bedtime, mealtime, etc) No, no prayers, and we did not baptize them in any religion either. Although, we do raise our children to be thankful for what they have, value people, not things, appreciate the earth, do unto others,etc, and treat everyone with respect. This is something we feel unfortunately is lacking with most "religious" people.
Do you attend weekly/regular religious services? No
Does your spouse attend with you? (that was a big discussion point in our group) No
If money was no object, would you consider sending your child/children to a religious school? Maybe. I did get an excellent education, so it depends.
Were you raised in a religious home? No. My mother is Jewish and my dad is Protestant. We did not practice any religion at all. I hated that approach and knew I would not raise my children that way.
Do you consider yourself religious now? While I still do not consider myself religious per se, I have taken a fundamentally different path since having DS. I was baptised at the same service as DS.
Are you raising your child in a manner that reflects that? (Prayers at bedtime, mealtime, etc) We are raising DS in the Presbyterian church. He was baptised, will attend services and Sunday school and will follow through with the milestones. My goal is to have him learn the fundamental teachings of the Bible and have a solid foundation and understanding of Christianity so he can later decide for himself what path he chooses to follow. I feel like my parents denied me that by not exposing me to anything.
Do you attend weekly/regular religious services? Does your spouse attend with you? We attend church regularly, but I wouldn't say weekly. If we have plans on a Sunday morning, we don't go to church. We attend as a family as DH and I are both committed to raising DS in a Christian environment. We are becoming more and more involved with our church and DH was just nominated to a committee.
If money was no object, would you consider sending your child/children to a religious school? Possibly. But it wouldn't be because it is religious. There is a very prestigious private boys' school here that happens to be Catholic. If we send him there, it will be because the education is top-notch and most of the graduates go on to Ivy league schools, not because it is Catholic.
Wow.. great discussion, ladies!
As for me, I was raised Lutheran, which is really Catholic Lite. My husband is one step shy of being the pope... he's that devout. Which IMO makes him a little rigid sometimes. But he's very focused and we decided a long time ago that we'd raise any children as Catholic. I know he takes his faith much more seriously than I.
We do nightly prayers.. the Lord's Prayer, Hail Mary, and we "God Bless" various people. Charlie knows most of the words to say. Sometimes I think DH pushes him too much in that.
We attend 7:45am Mass every Sunday and DH is a eucharistic minister. C's playgroup is at the church and we do lots of fun, non-churchy things with them.
We are considering a nearby Catholic preschool now. DH was hell-bent on home schooling but I'm not a fan of it--mostly because it will fall to me to do it and I'm not convinced it's a good idea. FYI-Home Schooling is very popular here in Colorado since the public schools aren't that great.
Were you raised in a religious home? No, not really. My grandparents took me to church every week, and my Mom came sometimes but my Dad never did.
Do you consider yourself religious now? I am a Christian, but I am a bit of an outcast among the conservative Christian community, as I am politically liberal.
Are you raising your child in a manner that reflects that? (Prayers at bedtime, mealtime, etc) We pray at lunch with my ILs on Sundays but not at home. She does have some books that have religious messages that we read together, and she attends a Christian day care.
Do you attend weekly/regular religious services? We attend a church, but we don't go every week. ETA: I was raised Catholic; he was raised Presbyterian. As a family, we attend an Anglican church.
Does your spouse attend with you? (that was a big discussion point in our group) Yes, when we go to church, it's all 3 of us.
If money was no object, would you consider sending your child/children to a religious school? I am a public school teacher, so my daughter will go to public school, but I might consider sending her to the same private Christian school my husband went to if money were no object. I'm not sure.
Were you raised in a religious home?
Yes, but 2 different religions: my mother's Buddhist and my father's Catholic. My mother had to consent to raise her kids Catholic to marry my father, so I was baptized and sent to Catholic school (where I took mandatory religious education classes), taken to mass every Sunday, etc. I hated every minute of it. The Catholicism in which I was raised was super conservative, and that's not how I am at all.
My mother always resented this kind of upbringing because she felt it was kind of forced, and she wanted to expose me to Buddhism as well, so she took me to temple services when she went. And her parents also took me to temple services, chanting, etc. and I loved it. I even loved the temple Buddhism classes for children. When I was old enough I just left the Catholic church and considered myself a Buddhist, which is the way it's been ever since.
Do you consider yourself religious now?
Not really, because Buddhism is more a philosophy/way of life than a religion. But in my native country most Buddhists also worship the deities of the Hindu pantheon, so I follow a lot of that as well. I would consider myself more a spiritual person and polytheist than religious.
Are you raising your child in a manner that reflects that? (Prayers at bedtime, mealtime, etc)
He's too young now, but he was given a blessing ceremony at age 1, and we take him to temple services when we can.
Do you attend weekly/regular religious services?
Our temple's a bit too far for us to go every week (the way we used to a few years ago), but when our son's bigger we will be taking him more. And I want to put him in the children's religious education classes for sure.
Does your spouse attend with you? (that was a big discussion point in our group)
He's a much more pious Buddhist than I am, lol! But we go to temple together. Just wish it was closer so that we could attend more.
If money was no object, would you consider sending your child/children to a religious school?
Only if it was not overly-conservative and did not try to convert the students, make them attend mandatory religious services, etc., then yes, I would consider Catholic school. I went to one, and back then they were very inclusive (different religion classes for students of different faiths, etc.) and the education was superb. But that's no longer the case in Sri Lanka, because schools have become far less tolerant and tend to keep to their own religion. It's really a shame. But if we ever found a school here in our area like the one I attended, then I would definitely consider it.
Were you raised in a religious home? Yes.
Do you consider yourself religious now? Yes, but I wasn't for many years.
Are you raising your child in a manner that reflects that? (Prayers at bedtime, mealtime, etc) Yes.
Do you attend weekly/regular religious services? Erm...no, bad about that. We are switching to a closer church. The PT commute was getting to be too much.
Does your spouse attend with you? (that was a big discussion point in our group) Yes, he is in school for Biblical Studies. He attends a private Christian college remotely and graduates in the fall (undergrad).
If money was no object, would you consider sending your child/children to a religious school? Yes, and it often doesn't have to be an object as most offer scholarships. H works FT (in addition to FT advanced classes for college - now you get the busy/hectic part of things) at a private Christian school. It goes from K-12 and they're opening a third campus soon. We are considering sending him there - if not we'll homeschool.
I am not religious. I grew up in a family where some members were going to church occasionally (ortodox church), and others never went there. We have celebrated the big holidays (Christmas and Ester), but I've looked at them as tradition. My mom claims she is religious, but I have never seen her pray in my entire life and she goes to church only for the big holidays. 3-4 times a year, max.
Edit: DH was raised Catholic as a child, but he is not religious as an adult. I guess he didn't have a chance to choose as a child
We don't do anything religious in our home, except celebrate Christmas with family, as we spend the holiday with DH's family. When DS is old enough to understand, he can decide for himself if he will be religious or not.
Were you raised in a religious home?
Semi. My mother was (and is) fairly religious (Episcopalian), my father was not. As a young child I attended services weekly with my mother, was in sunday school, etc. Once I was a teenager it was left up to me and I slowly pulled away.
Do you consider yourself religious now?
Nope. I consider myself agnostic verging on atheist.
Are you raising your child in a manner that reflects that? (Prayers at bedtime, mealtime, etc)
Indeed, we plan to send our daughter to Camp Quest, not spend much time on religion, teach all religions as being part of the culture but as no more real than say, most people would look at Greek mythology these days.
Do you attend weekly/regular religious services? Does your spouse attend with you? (that was a big discussion point in our group)
Neither of us attend any religious services.
If money was no object, would you consider sending your child/children to a religious school?
Depends on what you mean by 'religious school'. If money were no object, I would like her to eventually go to the boarding school that I went to for high school. It was nominally an Anglican school, but religion was not a daily factor in school life.