WOW, I'm really making up for lost time, aren't I? I really wasn't intending this to be a religious blog, but since that is the topic running rampant through our home right now, it needs to be addressed.
So here's the issue. Daddy playing card and I have had a few issues come up in conversations with the little weirdieland inhabitants that we weren't very fond of. Things like, "mommy when I grow up I want to be an architect but Meme's church says women shouldn't work because its not proper"...hmmm OK so we addressed that one and told her very affirmly that she is allowed to be anything she wanted to be and that God wouldn't give her brains and talents if He didn't want her to go out into the world and use them. If she chooses to stay home with her children that should be a chose she and her future husband make together and not something she feels like is her only choice, and besides, she would always have daddy and I for free babysitting. (What a conversation to have with an 8 year old, right?)
Then later on a couple months later little mad hatter this time tells us that, again at Meme's church she was told that she needed to stay away from people of different religions and not talk to them because they could "taint her and make her sin". ALRIGHT. HOLD THE PHONE. WTF? So being the lazy parent that I am I never really looked into the church. Its the same church my parents used to drag me to when I was little. Drag being the key word here. Turns out the church isn't Southern Baptist like I was led to believe my WHOLE ENTIRE FREAKING LIFE, but Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, which is a whole separate world. Scratch that, its a whole separate plane of existence. Don't believe me? Google. That's all I'm going to say.
So in keeping our family sane and avoiding confusing conversations that seriously stress out my little mad hatter that genuinely loves everyone, Daddy and I just decided we would really prefer it if the girls just not go to church with my parents any more. We didn't say they couldn't spend the night. We didn't say that we wouldn't associate with them or ever come to visit, we just said we would prefer it if the girls didn't go to church anymore with them. We then even said we would be at their house bright and early on Sunday mornings to pick up the girls before church as to not inconvenience them and they can still have their Saturday night sleepovers. Sounds fair, right? OMG, you would have thought we set into motion events to start the apocalypse!
There was several attempts from my mother at "well if you aren;t bring them to Sunday School, SOMEBODY has to!" (WHY does somebody have to? WHERE in the Bible does it say they HAVE to go to Sunday School? It DOESNT! It says raise your children in the ways of the Lord, but never, anywhere does it say you actually have to physically attend a church to do so). Further issue with this was I asked her HOW she knew if my kids were going to church or not and she replied because she asked them. WAIT A MINUTE! Its important enough that you actually think they will go to hell if they don't show up every single week, but not important enough to actually talk to ME about it, and further more, you went BEHIND MY BACK and talked to my 7 and 8 year old daughters about it and then asked them not to mention it to me. hmmmm.....
Then it was followed with "Well I guess you have already made up your mind" um, YES, why WE, being Daddy playing Card and I, PARENTS of the weirdieland inhabitants have already discussed, in detail, and came to a decision. Prior to talking to you. You know because we are adults, and a family, and capable of making rational decisions for OUR children. So then she gets mad and throws the phone at my dad.
Dad comes on the phone. He states the the church doesnt really follow the things they have listed on their own church website. Yes, read that again. The church doesn't follow the things they have listed on their own front page of their own website. They just put that their to "attract members" and he has never seen anything like what I'm talking about. Ohh. oookkk. Because an organized fundamentalist church would NEVER do anything shady...Moving on...
He then tells me that the church's main thinking is to Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin. So I ask him, so you are OK with your grandchildren learning Hate? No, we don't hate, we hate the sin! Its totally different? See the point here dear readers, is that you can't use the word HATE in defending yourself against the fact that you teach hate. After all, hate is hate is hate. Just because you don't agree with somoene else's view point doens't mean you have to hate them. You can not like something but still not hate, so why is the word HATE used at all? Not something we chose to teach our children. If it works for you, great. It doesn't work for us. Thats the whole point is that we are a family and this is what we chose for our family. Then again goes back to the, "well I guess you have already made up your mind then..."
It all boils down to issues that we have been dealing with on both sides of the family since Daddy and I met each other. We are not adults. We are not people, but extensions of our parents. We should not make decisions for our family but go to our parents and allow them to make the decisions. But our parents didn't act that way towards their parents. Why do we not get the same respect that our parents got from their parents? My grandmother may have her faults, oh so many of them, but she respected that my mother and father were their own family. If they wanted to come over for a holiday, they were invited, but not expected. If they didn't come, they didn't come and had their own plans and that was OK. My grandmother understood that my mom got married, had kids, and had her own life. So why doesn't my mom understand this?
Lack of respect from my parents, lack of respect from his parents. We are people too. Hopefully Daddy playing card and I can learn from our past and not make the same mistakes with our kids that our parents made.
In the meantime its been two weeks, 5 voicemails and 10 phone calls and my parents haven't called us back. Little Mad Hatter has a choir performance tomorrow night. We'll see if they show up.
UPDATE: The parents did NOT show up to Little Mad Hatters First Grade Musical. No call, no show. She was heart broken. We talked to her about it and just said we haven't heard from them and ten took her out for ice cream. She hasn't brought it up in a week. No one has asked to see them. Little Cheshire Cat at 4 years old told me yesterday that Poppy's (grandpa) church won't let him see her. She hopes someday he'll come over. I just gave her a hug and said me too and changed the subject. What do you say to a four year old when her grandfather chooses a church over his grandchild?
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