Atheist Parenting vs. Fundamentalist Christian Parenting
Why is it that so many Christians assume incorrectly that Christianity has the monopoly on family values? We live in a pluralistic society, and as such, people’s values will clash. Fundamental Christianity in particular has to learn that they cannot censor someone else’s values or culture because those values offend the rigid fundamentalist Christian value system and sensibilities.
I have observed two views with regard to parenting in America. The first view is the predominantly fundamentalist Christian view which over the last 30 years has trickled into the mainstream. That view is that a parent’s job is to protect a child from the evil and sinful world. In this view, all undesirable thoughts, images, sounds, and ideas must be censored or hidden from view because they may corrupt children and “warp their fragile little minds.”
This is now the dominant view of parenting in America and it preaches censorship. This view creates a worldview dominated by fear. It leads to mass censorship and paranoia. The common refrain of those who subscribe to this view is, “What if a child saw that?” My response is usually something like this: “He or she would probably be bored.” Or my more satirical response, “Their eyes would pop out of their sockets of course.”
The problem with any kind of censorship is always the same, who then becomes the arbiter of what is safe? Who determines if something is family-value friendly or what is culturally immoral? Right now it is fundamentalists Christians who are attempting to set those standards for all of us.
On the other hand, there is another view on parenting. It is the view held by many atheists and people of reason in which the job of parents is to guide their children through the world and teach them the critical thinking skills needed to decide for themselves what is appropriate and why. In this view, even undesirable cultural trends are viewed as learning experiences used to help shape a child’s view of right and wrong. Those things are conversation starters, and even children as young as three or four years of age are encouraged to think about the world they live in and to engage their minds.
These parents aren’t failing to make moral judgments on cultural values as fundamentalist Christians like to assert, they are teaching their children how to make moral judgments and cultural values privately. They aren’t presuming to have the monopoly on good taste or high-minded culture either.
Instead of telling children that they are not allowed to see a movie, these freethinking parents are instructing their children to make that determination for themselves. Many Christians can’t imagine a child telling their friends that they don’t wanted to see a particular movie because they think it might not be appropriate for them. This would be a different kind of pride than a parent might have if the child told their friends that they weren’t allowed to see a particular movie. In this case, the child would probably end up seeing the forbidden movie anyway because it was forbidden.
It really does say something about a child’s character when they are allowed to see an inappropriate movie but choose not to see that movie because of their own value judgments. This is the type of parenting that people of reason employ. It involves independent thinking and reasoning on the part of the child, not dogmatic commandments about what is permitted and what is sinful and forbidden.
Filed under: atheism, discussion, education, morality, Parenting, People of Reason, Religion