Apparently, he just plain forgot that he was supposed to pick me up after a meeting he had had that night. He’d arrived home, and rather than a “hello,” he was greeted with a suspicious, “Where is our daughter…?” My mom says he turned eight shades of green, darted back to the van, and rushed to get me in a flurry of apologies.

Now, we sarcastically refer to this event as if it was the ultimate treachery, and in case my father ever has anything snarky to say to me, I’ll just point back to that fateful day as evidence to his “horrible” parenting. We laugh about it now, about his daughter-erasing brain fart, and my melodramatic response of seeking some sort of habitat for a night in the wilds of my small middle school.

At the time, though, I remember one thought in particular that kept circling my adolescent brain: “I’ll never do this when I have kids.”

How often have you all said similar things? Back then, it was a petulant response, extrapolating an honest, adult mistake to be a horrible symbol of my father’s lack of concern for me; but now, I find myself asking myself the same sort of questions, for very different reasons. Instead of slighting my parents for every piece of clothing they didn’t buy for me or event I wasn’t permitted to attend, I’m now starting to question what things I would do differently.

As a hypothetical parent, I would be in completely uncharted territory, as my own beliefs are radically different from my own parents’ faith-based approach. My parents were Christians, as were their parents, my friends and their parents were Christians…come to think of it, I don’t even personally know any atheist parents.

This does have a positive side effect, though: since there are no models to emulate within my immediate experience, the tough tussling with difficult concepts ultimately comes down to discussions with my husband, which is exactly where they ought to be. As I’ve discussed before, leaving the tough choices about parenting to someone outside of you and your family can have enormous repercussions. Religious institutions in particular often call for prescriptive parenting instead of descriptive; that a child will “become” such-and-such an individual if you follow such-and-such discipline program, as outlined by everyone’s favorite child psychologist — the preacher.

So what exactly would I do differently? What parts of my hypothetical parenting would deviate from my own experience being parented in a Christian household?

I have a shortlist, and I’m looking to add more:

1. No mandatory church attendance.

While this may sound like a “duh” statement to those raised outside of religious influence, the implications are much more subtle and much more fraught if grandma and grandpa are religious and readily accessible to the child.

My husband and I want to raise our hypothetical children to decide for themselves. After all, it isn’t their religion (or lack thereof) that I’d be raising — it’s a whole, complete child, equipped with a personality and wants and needs and opinions. Religion will not be kept hidden from them, nor will it be glossed over or minimized, but they will realistically need to know how it informs the beliefs of the greater majority of their family. Developing critical thinking skills will involve us 100% more as parents; fostering these skills would be significantly harder if they are exposed to indoctrination that teaches them that morality is tied to warming a chair once a week at a specific time.

2. No corporal punishment.

As I mentally began sorting through some of these ideas, I realized that my only arguments in favor of physical punishments were faith-based.

Given the track record of this particular discipline technique, the potential for abuse, and the vehement disagreement with the practice from professional communities, I simply don’t see any evidence to even consider the practice in the first place. Full stop.

3. Rewarding honest inquisitiveness.

One characteristic of the Christian religion — or many variants of it — is to discourage critical thinking by painting “doubt” as a negative (just like calling anger “bitterness,” and the useless trapdoor-of-a-phrase, “I’ll pray for you”). I can’t really remember how many sermons I’ve heard about “Doubting Thomas,” where the punchline of the story is almost universally omitted: he ultimately overcomes his doubt through… evidence and reason! For some reason, Thomas was skeptical of the idea that a friend of his was brutally tortured, died, and rose from the dead to walk among humans again, and asked for some simple evidence that would confirm his identity.

You there! With the valid, strong emotions! Why must you be so bitter all the time?

Curiously, in the account in John 20:24-29, Jesus does provide the evidence that Thomas requested, yet (in verse 29) goes on to suggest that request was somewhat petty:

“Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

However, there are several layers to this case; according to the story, Jesus was able to confirm Thomas’ doubts with actual, physical evidence, which is never available to the person behind the pulpit, claiming to possess the key to unlock Truth. So, in terms of the story, I agree with Jesus: it is better to believe things that are true even if you haven’t personally witnessed it. Things like gravity, pulsars, and evolution can be established to be “true” even if you yourself can never “see” it with your own two eyes.

What I won’t be doing is teaching my children in the churchified version of the Doubting Thomas story, where the blame lies in his curiosity and his “need” for proof. Instead, I want my children to recognize what kind of evidence a given claim will need, and whether or not the evidence given meets those criteria.

4. Recognize autonomy by resisting the urge to “train” a child.

Ultimately, I will have to realize my limited power as a parent. Just like I can’t “make” students learn a concept in the classroom, I can’t “make” a child become something or another. I can encourage certain behaviors while discouraging others, but at the end of the day their identity does not belong to me.

With Christian parents, many people adopt the Driscollian view that their success as a parent lies in the transfer of their religious values to their children, and it’s a recipe for disappointment. By sheer numbers, I would guess that many readers of this blog come from religious backgrounds, and I would guess even further that some might have observed the negative ramifications of religious belief in their cognitive processes. With this kind of irrational desire placed as such a high priority, all other accomplishments — morality, responsibility, love, care, concern for the world around you — take a backseat to the idea that immortal soul of the child they love is in danger. It completely minimizes actual problems and accomplishments, and colors the relationship that parents can have with their teen and adult children. That’s not the kind of relationship that I envision for myself, nor do I understand why any parent would want that.

All your religion are belong to us.

It won’t be an easy journey, but no adventure in parenting ever is. I also don’t believe that my atheism or skepticism equips me to be a perfect parent, but I hope that the desire to think critically about the world around me and my contributions to it will spill over into a dynamic, organically evolving relationship with my hypothetical future children.

How about you? If you are already a parent, what did/do you do differently from faith based parenting approaches? If you’re simply speculating, like me, what are some things that you consider?

Yeah… because that’s exactly how it works.

Vorjack at Unreasonable Faith puts it well:

Um … about that last one.

My grandfather was raised Southern Baptist.

My father was raised Southern Baptist.

… Hi.

I know Christians love to deny reality, but when you consider how many atheists come from religious homes, it’s absurd to think that if you indoctrinate your kids hard enough, they’re just going to go along with it forever. The harder you push, the more likely they’ll stray.

And if your kids believe in something as serious as the nature of god just because you do, you’re doing them a disservice. Let them ask questions, find the evidence for themselves, and make up their own minds when they’re ready to do it. Your job is to guide them, not to force your own beliefs down their throats.

Dear Richard,

I’m the only out atheist in my family. We have the occasional argument or discussion but for the most part we all agree to try and be respectful. Tonight that all seems to have fallen apart, and I’m a little torn on how to proceed.

I just finished reading Dawkins’ newest book, The Magic of Reality and I decided that I wanted to share it with my younger brother since he is who the book is aimed at. He’s in high school and home-schooled with a fundamental Christian curriculum, so his “science” books teach a literal view of Genesis, and they generally teach anything but actual science. I know that my little brother is interested in possibly going to medical school one day and that he has a general interest in the scientific field, even if he isn’t exactly vocal about it. When he asks me questions I have the bad habit of explaining things in terms he can’t completely understand. So I was pretty ecstatic to share with him the knowledge in Dawkins’ book.

However, my mother found the book and took it away from him before he could even get started. She returned it to me without a word but instead with a note telling me “Not now. Maybe when he’s 18 but certainly not now.” I honestly can’t describe how I felt reading and rereading that note: angry, surprised, disappointed, in denial…

She knows that I left religion behind because science explained the world in much more complex but beautiful ways. I think that she is afraid that if my brother starts to read and understand things in the same way I did, that he’ll eventually leave religion behind too. She believes that he’s been called to ministry since he was a child but I know my little brother and he has no interest in being a missionary or pastor.

Unfortunately, I let my emotions take control and my mother and I had a fight about her taking the book away, but we eventually reached a compromise I’m not happy about: She’ll read the book and then decide if he can handle it. I get the sinking feeling that she’ll decide he can’t no matter what and that breaks my heart for a multitude of reasons.

As an undergraduate science major, I want nothing more than to show my brother that the world is a grand and wonderful place, that the knowledge of how it all works is out there even though it might be hard to comprehend at times. I want to encourage him, not to abandon his beliefs, but to look at the world with a skeptical eye and to learn as much as he can. I want to do all I can to keep encouraging him because I can see the beginnings of that mindset taking root.

I have my own apartment while I’m away at college so I can’t always be around to talk to him. I love my family but how do I even begin to try and help my brother to think rationally when he lives with parents who seem to believe they can dictate what he reads, learns, and believes? And how do I help my parents understand that the words in a book shouldn’t be a frightening thing, that they shouldn’t take away the opportunity for him to learn and make decisions for himself?

Thanks,
Victor

Dear Victor,

When people are shown the apple of knowledge and then it is forbidden to them, they become much more interested in eating it.

Now that your brother has seen the book and it has been forbidden to him, he’s much more likely to be curious about it. In his mind, the issue is no longer whether or not it’s a useful or appropriate book. Now it is part of a conflict between his freedom and his mother’s control of his freedom. Teenagers are naturally in this conflict with their parents all the time. It’s called individuation, part of their healthy development. Now science and critical thinking will be one of the areas where that struggle is acted out.

Dawkins’ book is a very good tool, but your relationship with your brother will be much more important to help him become a free thinking person. It will be at times a delicate balance between expressing what you would prefer him to do and honoring his freedom:

Show him your letter. Show him that you favor his having freedom to think for himself, that you value his intelligence, and you have confidence in his ability to handle new ideas. At the same time, make it clear to him that you love him for himself, rather than for what opinions he holds. You want him to become his own full self whatever that may be, rather than becoming only what will please you, or his parents, or anyone else.

When he asks you a question, Don’t “sell” your scientific viewpoint over the religious viewpoint. Just try to answer his question from your understanding. If you think you’ll get over his head, tell him you’ll brush up on it and get back to him soon with a more understandable answer. That will send him the message that his question deserves a worthy response. That message is as important as the answer itself, because it encourages his curiosity. By the way, taking the time to compose a simpler answer will greatly enhance your own understanding of whatever the subject is. As Einstein said, ”You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.”

Develop an online relationship with him via email. Facebook is not private. While you’re away at college, communicate with him on a regular basis. Tell him of your own challenges and conflicts, your own ups and downs. This will give him permission and a sense of safety to be candid with you in return. Older brothers and sisters occupy a unique position; they’re neither parent nor friend, but someone who can have the best qualities of both.

I wouldn’t call the outcome from the fight you had with your mother a “compromise,” because there wasn’t a mutual give-and-take. Hopefully it was not just a way for her to postpone a flat refusal. Give her a reasonable amount of time, and then without a tone of nagging, ask her if she has looked at the book, and ask what she thinks about it. Perhaps you can start a dialogue between the two of you about it, even if she is still afraid to let your brother read it. Sometimes small steps can reach goals when bold leaps are too scary.

When talking to your mother, you must keep your emotions under control. The virtues of rationalism are not well demonstrated if you lose your temper, and the other person will probably not be swayed by even the most cool-headed rational persuasion if they’ve already lost their temper. Giving you that note about the book suggests that she is uncomfortable with speaking to you directly about such matters because the feelings are too tense. You can begin to relax those feelings between you if you understand her emotional motive.

I think your assessment is correct, she’s afraid. Keeping that in mind can help you to respond with compassion and patience rather than with anger. She sees her sons growing up in a world that is no longer interested in her cherished beliefs. One son has already rejected them, and the other might be showing similar signs. Her fantasy about him going into ministry is comforting to her, but it will probably be self-defeating in the end because she’s paying attention to her desires rather than to his.

You both have fear for your brother’s fate. She handles her fear by trying to overprotect and control him. Make sure you don’t try to overprotect and control him in your own way. As an adolescent, it is part of his nature to resist others’ attempts to mold him to their wishes, both hers and yours. In the end, the one who will be the most influential to him will probably be the one who gave him the most encouragement to find his own way.

He’s a very lucky young man to have a big brother such as you. I hope that everyone in your family can find ways to live in harmony and to keep expressing their love for each other despite differences in their beliefs. This is a time in history when enormous numbers of families are going through the changes and conflicts that you are experiencing. You’re certainly not alone.

Richard

You may send your questions for Richard to . Please keep your letters concise. They may be edited. There is a very large number of letters. I am sorry if I am unable to respond in a timely manner.

Phil Ferguson used to be one of those fathers who took his kids to church despite being a closeted atheist. At least there’s a happy ending to his story:

I thought that it would be nice for [my kids] to know about religion and never thought that it would take over their minds. Everyone told them that the crazy was true and I kept silent. I was an atheist raising fundamentalist kids. Just a few short years after I stopped pretending they have both come out as atheists.

There are cases (and Phil highlights one of them) where the kids have already drank the Kool-Aid and it’s too late to do anything about it.

So how do you avoid that fate? How do you make sure your kids grow up free of religion — without “indoctrinating them into atheism” the same way preachers do with Christianity?

Phil offers 11 suggestions:

8 ) Encourage the kids to ask questions — lots of questions. This can take some practice but you can do it. Use the Socratic Method to help them explore their thoughts. They must learn that their views will need to stand up to questions — if not then they may want to change them to reflect new information. As my kids were growing up we would often talk about TV commercials. I helped them question how the commercials were trying to get them to want something. The commercials would use music and emotion to control their thoughts and actions — just like church.

All 11 ideas are good ones. In essence, expose your kids to the tricks and tools that religious people use to convince you they’re right. Once your kids have seen those tricks used in other ways, they’ll start applying their knowledge to what they hear in church (or through their friends).

Would you add anything to Phil’s list?

Now we have its counterpart: Dads Beyond Belief:

A private secular group for fathers from conception to childbirth and beyond. A resource and forum for secular dads to share their challenges, advice, and experiences.

In other words, advice about fatherhood from veteran fathers to new ones, without the Church-y, Mark Driscoll-ish, “BE A MANLY MAN!” crap.

Just like the other one, this is a closed group, so you must be accepted before you can join the conversation. If you’re a new dad, this would be a great place to ask your questions and get honest advice without the taint of religion.

Sounds plausible…

One of the major issues for parents is that they don’t want to encourage their children to believe in a fictitious male, with grandiose powers, who is always watching to see if you’ve been “naughty or nice,” and then decides whether you’ve made the cut… because let’s be honest, we’ve heard enough of those stories already.

There may be other reasons for not making Santa a part of your holiday, but I suspect that the desire for your children to be skeptics who think critically, aspire to facts, and don’t fall prey to delusional thinking, is a huge motivator! All that combined with the fact that some people find Santa a bit creepy and don’t want to support mass consumerism (but that’s another post).

It isn’t all bad news, though. Santa Claus is a great way to get your child to start using his/her critical thinking skills, a way to practice thinking their way to reality. As Dale McGowan points out in his book Parenting Beyond Belief:

By allowing our children to participate in the Santa myth and find their own way out of it through skeptical inquiry, we give them a priceless opportunity to see a mass cultural illusion first from the inside, then from the outside. A very casual line of post-Santa questioning can lead kids to recognize how completely we all can snow ourselves if the enticements are attractive enough. Such a lesson, viewed from the top of the hill after exiting a belief system under their own power, can gird kids against the best efforts of the evangelists — and far better than secondhand knowledge could ever hope to do.

I plan to do the Santa thing with my children. In general, make believe is crucial to children’s development of creativity, empathy, learning, and problem-solving. I like to think of Santa as a make-believe game that may go on for a number of years. There may be nothing magical about Santa himself, but there is something “magical” in a child’s eyes on Christmas Eve and the anticipatory delight is truly contagious. I want my children to experience that as well as many other secular family traditions that we hope to create for them. For us, the holidays are about family, friends, fun, food, giving, being appreciative of what you have… and just a little of the frivolities of the commercialized Christmas, including decorated trees, stockings, tinsel, and (of course) Santa.

I will let my daughter be skeptical and ask questions, and will allow her to come to her own conclusions and to eventually discover the “truth.” I won’t push the story, telling her continuous lies and fabricating information just to prolong her belief. That would be too analogous to the indoctrination of children that I so despise within religion. Should she for some strange reason continue to believe in Santa well past an age that we think is “healthy,” we will then tell her the truth.

For many atheists — especially atheist parents — this time of year can cause great angst because it isn’t always easy to escape the pressures of family, friends, and society without sacrificing your own beliefs and values.

Parents are free to make their own choices, but I would encourage you to allow your children just a little room for myths and fantasy. Because, combined with a little skepticism and a whole lot of critical thinking, they should turn out just fine.

Earlier this month, I saw the infamous Hillary Adams beating video, where a 16-year-old girl was beaten viciously with a leather belt by her father, a family court judge in Aransas County, TX. After watching it, the entire, horrifying, awful seven minutes of it, I was just sickened. Sickened that someone would feel it appropriate or justified to beat a child like that in any situation, sickened by his profession, sickened by his subsequent comments… but mostly I was sickened by how familiar the situation was to me.

I knew people who were beaten with all manner of weapons for minor to major infractions: belts, switches, paddles, wooden spoons, and spatulas. To them, parenting in this way is both a God-given right and a responsibility of the parent. And the household I was raised in was not what I would consider fundamentalist or extremist in any sense. My siblings and I were pretty normal kids with loving parents who came to my soccer games and school plays and always gave me a bit of money to go to those rock concerts they hoped were a fad. My parents are genuine, nice people… but the things that came from their church’s pulpit often horrified me.

Recently, I went back and attended a church service with them. On the day I was there, the church was performing a “child dedication ceremony” –- different from a baptism in the sense that the parents are being placed with the responsibility of raising the child according to Biblical principles. Choosing to participate in the ceremony indicates that the church members have a responsibility to ensure that the parents follow through. From my understanding, it’s a quite common practice in churches that reject infant baptism.

It wouldn’t have been a big deal… except for the fact that the “Biblical principles” that the preacher cited should have sent spidey-senses tingling down the spines of Amnesty International members around the world. The stuff was heinous.

Red flags were flying all over my mind when he opened the ceremony with an anecdote about a parent whose child had made a huge turnaround after the father converted to Christianity and adopted discipline “the way God intended it.” The pastor said that the man had been “deceived” by, of all people, the child’s pediatrician, who had advised the man not to employ corporal punishment. The pastor went on to ask the congregation if they would rather “parent the way the world wants them to” or if they wanted to “enjoy the blessings of parenting according to God’s will.”

He went on to make his case for corporal punishment by citing the following verses (conveniently organized in one place here):

• Prov 13:24: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”
• Prov 19:18: “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.”
• Prov 22:15: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.”
• Prov 23:13: “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.”
• Prov 23:14: “Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.”
• Prov 29:15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.”

This pastor is not alone, either. Here’s Focus on the Family’s Chip Ingram:

“When you spank, use a wooden spoon or some other appropriately sized paddle and flick your wrist. That’s all the force you need. It ought to hurt — an especially difficult goal for mothers to accept — and it’s okay if it produces a few tears and sniffles. If it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t really discipline, and ultimately it isn’t very loving because it will not be effective in modifying the child’s behavior.”

It’s a commonly held belief that spanking will help mold a child’s character.

It doesn’t achieve that goal, but there is one thing that this tactic is remarkably good at: obedience and fear.

Instead of being able to explore right from wrong and discern it for themselves, scores of Christian children are being subtly taught that obedience to authority means avoiding punishment — not that it’s morally correct to avoid the behavior in question. Like so many others, I was obedient in order to avoid physical punishments (and, later, removal of privileges), which led me to focus more on finding the right path through the punishment maze rather than sorting out what I actually believed for myself.

The crux of the issue lies in the rabid desire for children’s obedience — rather than a desire to help them grow and develop — in mainstream Christianity, and it is two-fold: One, it complicates children’s abilities to know who is deserving of respect. Two, it prevents children from developing sincere relationships with their parents. It is an unfortunate fact that babies have no choice in who brings them into this world and cares for them, and there is no “opt out” feature when it comes to childhood indoctrination. It’s not a real choice if one party is wielding a weapon.

So why care, as an atheist? As a feminist?

Since there are a million and one reasons flying around my head at the moment, I’ll give you two to chew on:

1. Extolling the virtues of “Biblical discipline” while vilifying medical professionals creates a culture in which abuse is preferred and promoted as morally superior. Just as the issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church is not limited to a few misled individuals, the promotion of corporal punishment of children is not limited to your Focus on the Family readers, or the few thousand people that have purchased Michael and Debi Pearl’s book.

   Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church had this to say about discipline in a 2002 sermon transcript:

   “Proverbs 23:13-14, “Do not withhold discipline from a child. If you punish him with a rod, he will not die.” Okay, a spanking should not wound, mortally injure, kill a child. I’m not talking about that. It’s a sting. It’s not an abuse. They will not die. They should not die. Now, will they sound like they are dying?

   (Laughter)”

   He goes on to say that “correct” Biblical discipline is carefully enforced and used for correction, not punishment. That’s all well and good, but how far back does your arm have to wind up before you call it abuse? What angle? What tool? Is a wooden spoon ok to use? How about some rubber tubing? How sore does a butt have to be before we can say that a spanking was too much?

   The issue is the imperative to perform physical punishment at all when legitimate, trusted organizations and studies suggest that there is little to no benefit at all from corporal punishment. Dr. Alan Kazdin of the American Psychological Association says:

   “There is a good deal of research that has already been conducted that shows that anything beyond very mild physical punishment does not work in the long term and has negative consequences. While not all child development experts agree, my advice to parents is to avoid physical punishment altogether; there are simply more effective ways to teach and discipline your child.”

   We need to get serious about aiming our Laser Beams of Reason at religious institutions that harm children; while Hillary Adam’s father claims that she waited seven years to upload the beating video in order to exact revenge, all I could think was that she had to wait seven years until she felt safe enough to take action. Too often, the emphasis on obedience and conformity silences the victims until they escape the environment. We need to understand that Hillary’s experience is not unique; it’s being sold by many Christian families as morally right and proper.

   When it comes to the rights of children, I think it’s important to level all of our vinegar and contempt at organizations that harm them. While the anti-theist in me is pleased at the black mark on the Catholic Church due to the pedophilia scandal, my background and experience tells me that the work is not nearly over… and it’s not just Catholics and their dogma.

2. Parenting with an emphasis on patriarchal hierarchy and the need for obedience divorces parents from the realities of developing children. In addition to being horrifying, it’s just kind of sad. Patriarchal family structures place undue pressure on the man to “perform” as the head of the household; women and children’s options are severely restricted, both immediately and long-term; children are forced to fear rather than respect the parents. Listen to how Libby Anne of Love, Joy, Feminism puts it:
   

   My parents trusted that God would fulfill his promise of a perfect godly family if they only followed his guidelines as taught by [Christian apologetics sources and parenting guides] No Greater Joy and Vision Forum. Somehow, though, they can’t seem to trust him with their children when their formulas go wrong. Instead, they have to fight tooth and nail to bring their erring children back to “the truth.” I think this may be born out of confusion as much as anything else. Their system didn’t work. Everything they built their lives around failed. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

   In some sense, though, the actions of my parents and others like them make sense. After all, my parents aren’t used to trusting their children to God. Rather, they’re used to trusting that God has promised that if they raise their children just so their children will turn out to be just right. This idea puts my parents at the center, not God. They are responsible for how their children turn out, not God. And now that we’re grown, that habit may be difficult to kick.

All too often, I hear stories that span every inch of the spectrum of estrangement, from emotional estrangement (“I can’t connect with them because they don’t see me as a real person”) to literal, physical estrangement (“I no longer speak to/visit them”). Too often, I hear about the hurt that people have suffered, present or past, that prevents them from having any sort of intimacy in their relationships with their parents.

This dogma, in addition to being potentially physically harmful to children, can create needless and senseless emotional strife. Children are being harmed, but parents, too, are being cheated out of potentially healthy relationships directly because of their religious belief.

Parents are being led to believe, through lies, dogma, and misinformation, that children are objects that can be led and molded and “trained”, and this belief has devastating ramifications — while not as incendiary as child abuse, it should also give us pause when we consider the belief’s long-term effects.

After all, it would be nice to be able to write this whole thing off as a Christian problem within Christian culture; annoying, but largely harmless enough to allow them to continue. Unfortunately, the effects of abuse and poor parenting ripple through society in all-too-frequently quiet ways. I don’t want my neighbor believing that she needs to shut up and be subservient to her husband. I don’t want the children in my future classroom believing that the beatings they might be receiving at home are justified. I don’t want to work or associate with the kind of men that needs to have a chokehold on his home — none of those scenarios add more scientists, teachers, or playwrights to society. If anything, we are robbed of the collective benefit that the women who could have become scientists and teachers and playwrights; we are robbed of who-knows-how-many children who could have gone on to do better, greater things had their options not been restricted by religious belief.

It’s not just those people who hurt and get hurt; it’s your coworkers and neighbors and friends and check-out clerks and lawmakers. For that reason, and for the betterment of The World At Large, the atheist movement should respond — loudly, and not in kind.

Lately, Michael Pearl and Debi Pearl‘s book To Train Up A Child is getting a lot of press because parents who beat their children to death were proponents of the Pearls’ methods of corporal punishment:

In the latest case, Larry and Carri Williams of Sedro-Woolley, Wash., were home-schooling their six children when they adopted a girl and a boy, ages 11 and 7, from Ethiopia in 2008. The two were seen by their new parents as rebellious, according to friends.

Late one night in May this year, the adopted girl, Hana, was found face down, naked and emaciated in the backyard; her death was caused by hypothermia and malnutrition, officials determined. According to the sheriff’s report, the parents had deprived her of food for days at a time and had made her sleep in a cold barn or a closet and shower outside with a hose. And they often whipped her, leaving marks on her legs. The mother had praised the Pearls’ book and given a copy to a friend, the sheriff’s report said. Hana had been beaten the day of her death, the report said, with the 15-inch plastic tube recommended by Mr. Pearl.

“It’s a good spanking instrument,” Mr. Pearl said in the interview. “It’s too light to cause damage to the muscle or the bone.”

The Pearls are firmly against physical abuse — they don’t think their version of spanking constitutes that — but they are feverishly in support of mental and emotional abuse. They want children to fear their parents. They want children to know that stepping out of line will not be tolerated. They want children to believe their parents always know best no matter what.

It’s no way to raise children. While you want to set an example, you also want to teach them that it can be ok to color outside the lines. You want them to challenge authority — in reasonable ways and with good arguments. You want them to experiment and try new things. Along the way, of course they’ll screw up. But hopefully they learn from that.

Physically hitting someone isn’t going to steer them away from what they did. It’s going to make them want to do it more — and it’ll sow the seeds of resentment against you.

Reader Amanda is sickened by this whole ordeal:

The reason it hits home so hard for me was that my best friend for years and years endured physical and verbal abuse throughout her high school years at the hands of her father figure in their conservative, Baptist, Quiverfull home (she was homeschooled, but we met on the rec league soccer team in the town and became fast friends, despite my attending public school). He beat her until he drew blood multiple times, along with who-knows-how-many “accidents” that were a direct result of his violence.

She died last December of a pulmonary embolism (probably complications due to the cast her leg was in from a car accident the month prior). I grieve for her every stupid day — my best friend is dead, after all. But what makes me angry — beyond the fact that she was only 24, beyond the fact that her other 7 siblings have to live in that household, beyond the fact that it happened on my last day of student teaching, beyond the fact that her son would turn 1 three weeks later…all that aside, it enrages me that she died without a single apology or admission of guilt from her “father”. To this day, he hides behind his doctrine to deny guilt.

And that’s one crime of religion that I’ll probably never forgive.

Has spanking ever worked for any of you (as parents)?

If you received them when you were a child, did it steer you in the right direction? Or am I just a naïve person who doesn’t get it because I don’t have children yet?

My fourteen-year-old son admitted he is going through his existential crisis (my words, not his). What is an effective way to guide and support him through this time in his life while enabling him to find his own meaning?

David

Dear David,

First, with a tone of caring curiosity, ask him to clarify to you as best he can what he is going through. Your term “existential crisis” is vague and could have many meanings. Perhaps he is pondering questions such as “Who am I, what am I, what is life, what do I believe, why am I here, what is my meaning or purpose?” Whatever is the crossroad he has reached, the effort of helping you to understand it will help him to understand it.

Then tell him exactly what you’re saying here; that you want to guide and support him, yet leave him free to find his own meaning. That is very well said.

On this particular matter, treat him as a partner rather than as a pupil or as your child. Play the role of an interested elder equal, someone with experience and knowledge, but not an authority figure who has all the right answers and who will approve or disapprove of his ideas. Be Socratic, asking him questions that will stimulate clear, critical thinking rather than providing him with answers. Then step back, and let him ponder it all.

This of course does not mean that you completely abandon parenting him. Most fourteen-year-olds are not nearly complete in their cognitive and emotional development, and they still need plenty of strong boundaries set for them. So there will still be other areas in his life where you’ll have to be much more parental and directive. (“No, you can’t have beer at the party,” “Yes, you must pay for the broken window,” “Treat your girlfriend’s father with respect,” “Stop putting your sister down,” etc.)

But by approaching his “existential” concerns in this non-parental way, you will be affirming and supporting his budding self-image as a freethinking adult. Giving him the dignity of being an independent agent will both promote its reality and emphasize its importance.

The challenge for you will be to find the balance between guiding him and giving him free rein. The challenge for him will be to see that freedom is always accompanied by responsibility. You cannot help but have your preferences for what he might think and decide, and perhaps you should honestly acknowledge them to him when the context is appropriate. But at the same time, you must also acknowledge his right to find his own preferences.

Be genuine and frank. When you don’t know what to say, say that. You don’t need to fake being wise and well informed in all things. If he says something that surprises and impresses you, say so. He might teach you as much as you might teach him. Keep a relationship with him where he knows that you are the parent, but he can also approach you as the interested elder equal with his deeper questions. Show him that you care about him and respect him during this time of self-questioning, and the two of you will probably be able to sort out when to relate to each other as child-and-parent, and when to relate as adult-to-adult.

At fourteen, some decisions that seem casual can last a lifetime, and some decisions that seem terribly important and final can end up lasting only a few months. It’s very hard to predict which will be which. Worrying about it all will only exhaust you, so try to relax and enjoy watching the fascinating journey he’s embarking upon.

He’s a lucky young man to have so thoughtful and conscientious a father. As he grows his way through all the drama and trauma that is adolescence, he might sometimes forget this, but I think he’ll always eventually return to that appreciation.

Richard

You may send your questions for Richard to . Please keep your letters concise. They may be edited. There is a very large number of letters. I am sorry if I am unable to respond in a timely manner.

Why join? Not that I have direct experience in the matter myself, but I hear many pregnancy and childbirth forums online are ripe with religious talk and pseudoscience. Here’s a science-based, secular alternative.

Noelle tells me the group is focused on supporting new moms (who are pregnant or gave birth relatively recently), though all mothers are welcome to join.

It is a closed group, so you must be accepted before you can join the conversation. Sounds like an awesome support system for a demographic that could really use one.