children, parenting, resources-references, booksCan anybody recommend any interesting books on parenting from the nonbeliever’s perspective?
I’m currently reading “Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion” by Dale McGowan and would be interested in other books that people have found useful.
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins in a great book, and it deals with specific issues about raising kids and education.
Two books I used that were very helpful while I was raising my two kids were;
Kids are Worth it by Barbara Coloroso &
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber.
I was unquestionably a dysfunctional father and these books saved my families relationship. So while not specific to an atheist perspective they were very good manuals for parenting. I do not remember anything that concerned religion in them.
I also want to add another book.
Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. by Siegfried Engelmann
I started to teach my son to read just before his 4th birthday. By the time he was in kindergarten he was reading any kids books by himself. In grade one we took turns reading chapters at night. The first book we read together, like that, was one of the Chronicles of Narnia. By grade 6 he took a reading test and was reading at a grade 12+ level.
It was a great book to use, we never got past lesson 78 because he lost interest, he knew it all by then. It was also fun, the only regret I had was not doing the writing parts, but he was to young to sit that long.
The easiest way to raise an atheist is to send the kid to Catholic school for 12 years. There is a serious danger in trying to raise a kid without some kind of religious instruction, and that is that they may take it seriously when they get older.
Make no mistake, the Christians know what they’re doing. They’ve been sucking in people by the millions for two-thousand years, and making ‘em pay 30% of their income for the privilege. If you take books written by prominent evangelical atheists, and raise your kids with the belief that religious people are delusional conservatives with bad motives, they’re not going to be prepared for the milk and cookies and happy fluffy god social club that is most churches. They’re going to pigeonhole your teachings off on the Westborough baptists, and become happy presbyterians.
Add to that, it’s hard to take your kid out to volunteer without being surrounded by religious people. I took my kids out to clear storm debris from a bunch of tornadoes a few years back, and damned if we didn’t end up surrounded by a zillion mennonites, who’d packed up half their community, and driven up to clean up my town because it was Sunday, and they didn’t have anything better to do than go fix storm damage for complete strangers (they came armed with chainsaws and about a metric ton of pie). Lot of Christians aren’t especially moral people, but that percentage that is is organized and motivated, and capable of guilt-tripping a bunch of the rest to help out. You do not want to be in the position of trying to explain to your kids that there is something wrong with these nice pie-wielding, house fixing people.
So either you surrender the high ground (which is a terrible idea) or you do a lot of talking about morals, but never actually get your hands dirty (which isn’t much better), or you accept that your kids are going to get a decent amount of exposure to religion.
And before you freak out, this isn’t a bad thing. They’re going to get plenty of exposure to Santa Claus too, doesn’t mean they’re going to be life-long santa-ists. And when someone comes along, when they’re all rebellious teenagers, and tries to sell them on this idea of a guy with a white beard who’s going to make it all better, they can say, “Nah, I stopped believing in Santa a long time ago. But thanks for the pie.”
When they get a little older, David James Duncan. “God Laughs and Plays” is a good start. Some of it is just good teaching on how to determine right from wrong. Some of it is actual history on how the religious right grew. Very enjoyable reading also.
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