children, parenting, usaIs bullying of children who do not profess a belief in a supreme being common in the United States? If your children have ever experienced it, how to you prepare them for it or protect them from it?
this needs an edit as it is usa specific. Lets face it, children bully for any reason. If a child shows any difference from the majority group they will get bullied. A Christian in a school with lots of non believers will get bullied.
Since the vast majority of schools (in the US) are purely secular, it’s hard to imagine how this would work…If your parents are hardcore evangelical atheists who make you wear “There is no God” T-Shirts to school every day, you’ll probably get picked on for it, but I knew kids whose parents made them wear a bunch of “Jesus is Lord” crap, and they got picked on for that, and that was in an area that was quite religious.
Otherwise, I don’t ever remember the topic even coming up. I was a pissy little atheist all the way through high school, and I don’t remember anyone picking on me for that specifically.
My son has found that saying “I’m not religious” works fine. Oddly enough, around here, not believing in God or not being religious is more acceptable than being an atheist.
From my current viewpoint as a highschooler: not common. But then again I live in a Jewish community, so it doesn’t really sound too US-esque. If some punk does bully my future kid though, I’d tell her/him to read Atheism.stackexchange.com, and then teach her/him Karate/Self Defense or something.
I got a lot of horrified looks and “but how can you have any morals without the Bible?!” kinds of questions. But then, I was being bullied for a multitude of reasons by a large number of people, so that was just one pointy stick among many.
I had never encountered any sort of religious pressure in elementary school through high school, having lived in Michigan, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Texas, Alabama, and South Carolina. I never felt like the fact that I never practiced religion was used against me in any way, but I feel that children who are growing up today in places that are extremely Christian are at a serious disadvantage.
I read a disgusting op-ed piece praising the Texas Board of Education for mandating that intellectual design be a part of the curriculum, and that science teachers were to downplay or even ignore the role of evolution in natural history. Added to that, US history was to be taught with the angle that fundamentalist Christian values were the cornerstone of our nation’s founding. It makes me so angry and frustrated that these kids will never have access to the information they should have to make a serious, informed decision.
Aforementioned article: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/mcleroy-the-state-board-of-educations-standards-should-1156581.html
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.