children, familyWe were watching our two nieces (5 and 3) for the evening a few weeks ago. We sat down to dinner, and as we were plating the pizza, the older girl pipes up “Oh! We forgot to pray!”
What to do?
Now, on the one hand, when I’m at my in-laws’ homes, and they have a prayer before the meal, I just shut my mouth and let them do as they choose, since it’s their house(s). And at our house, we don’t praise or thank imaginary friends before we eat; we wish another a hearty appetite and we thank the cook.
On the other hand, she’s five, and this is how her parents are raising her.
If they were adults, I would not have allowed them to lead us in prayer. (If they want to pray silently and not bother anyone else, that’s fine.) But do kids get a pass?
I will answer, but for background on where my answer arises, please see my Blog post on "Godless Grace"
Given that experience, my advice if you are serious about setting rules in your own home, would be to take the offender aside, or call/visit for a meeting. Let them know how much you love having them attend and share in family gatherings, but that you find the imposition of their rules on your home to be inconsiderate.
Suggesting, "If I were Muslim and I came to your thanksgiving and insisted that before we eat everyone should tolerate me leading a prayer at the table INSTEAD of whatever tradition you wanted to have, how would you feel?" Or
"If you were invited to a Jewish family's Passover Seder meal, would you insist on saying Christian grace before the meal in their home? That's an exact equivalent of what you have done in my house."
"I have nothing against you taking a moment of silent meditation or praying on your own, but please do not establish your traditions in my home."
Stress that you have gone out of your way to not make this a big public issue, but if it happens again you will call them on the carpet and put an end to it in front of the family.
With kids, you could quickly say, as it happens, "Oh, we don't pray before meals in our house, we thank the cook and dive in." Since you're being honest and expressing your beliefs/traditions, who could POSSIBLY take offense? (The kid's parents?) Talk to their parents and let them know that you do not "say grace" in your house and it is inconsiderate for the kids to do so. They should be teaching their kids to be respectful, following other people's rules when in other people's homes. (If you can't abide/tolerate/respect the rules, don't go into the homes.)
This seems to me to be more of a question of manners than religion. What does it matter to you what they do? How could you stop them in any way that isn’t horribly rude?
In the grand tradition of atheists from time immemorial, you’ll sit and roll your eyes while some kid thanks god for the mashed potatoes that you mashed, which you bought with money from your job which you have through your own skills and work ethic. Yea, thanks god. Thanks a bunch.
I live in New Zealand and if anyone asked to pray in my house I would be amazed. To answer your question, if it was a friend I had invited into my house I would direct them to a spare room and tell them to go right ahead if they felt the need. If it were anyone else I would have to ask them to wait till they got home. If God was all he was cracked up to be would he not see the situation and be happy that the believer tried?
Wow it must be so different to live somewhere that a question like that would even come up.
Not in my house. They’d have to take it outside. Same with smoking. Magic & cigarettes both cause cancer.
OK, not really. And I would give kids a pass.
I wouldn’t appreciate a religious relative forcing my kids to pray, so I probably wouldn’t prevent their kids from trying to pray.
But I think it would be fine to tell them “we don’t do that here”.
Only when they’re praying to me.
I’d tell the kids. “You go right ahead, we don’t pray in this house, but we’ll wait for you.” And then let them do their thing and get on with the meal.
Afterwards, I’d give a phone call or otherwise talk to the parents and let them know that their kids are welcome in my house, but to please let them know that since this is a non-believing house to please not pray here. The ensuing conversation (which is a conversation I have had) is always entertaining and informative regarding the parents.
Unfortunately my kids have had to deal with the repercussions of believer parents not wanting their kids exposed to the evil atheists. Luckily it’s not common. I’ve used the issue for teaching my kids about tolerance of others and how rude it is to force your practices on others.
As they get older we’ll get more into the real issues of the damage that religion does and what kind of poison it is. Right now just dealing with the fallout of being an unabashed atheist is enough for my family.
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.