My son, the future doctor.
by Mamaoftwo on May 26th, 2008
filed under Milestones, Neato, Too cute
I am overflowing with mommy pride right now cause my 3 yo son just told me he wants to be a doctor who helps people when they are sad when he grows up 
he’s so sweet.
minnie miny mo
by Mamaoftwo on May 22nd, 2008
filed under Too cute
my 3 yo son is sitting here singing…
“minnie minnie miny mo, catch a tigger by the toe, minnie miny miny mo”
my 7 yo daughter is trying to correct him, and he’s insistent he “wikes it de way it is!”
“mommy!!!you you you kwussin my tuckers!?”
by Mamaoftwo on May 17th, 2008
filed under Too cute
Bupba came to me just a few minutes ago, VERY upset with me!!!
Apparently I crushed his stickers!
he looked at me very seriously, held out his stickers to me, and said “mommy!!!you you you kwussin my tuckers!?”
when I said “no it wasn’t me sweety!”, he replied…” Oh, well ok den” and took them back.
LOL
Just a moment in my day that made me smile
The Great Religion Debate
by Mamaoftwo on May 3rd, 2008
filed under Opinions, Religion & Spiritualism
I’m involved in a civilized (thus far) discussion/debate about religion and choice of religion or lack of religion in one’s life, how it impacts the way you raise your kids, and how it impacts your homeschooling… so this is my stance on the discussion. I thought I’d blog it here for posterity.
quote from someone else…: ” Every person who believes something says they know it in their heart to be true… but they can’t all be true… ” end quote
My response: Why can’t they? Can you prove they can’t? I can’t prove that they can’t. But what if what really is the truth, is whatever our truth in our own mind is – Atheists just cease to exist after they die from this life, and Christians go to heaven or hell, and Buddhists get reincarnated, and so on and so forth…what if? Just saying, for the sake of saying.
No religion is neither the absolute only truth nor is it an absolute lie (if it is not your choice of religion)… that is why we call it faith. It is faith BECAUSE we CHOSE to take on a certain set of stories/fables/philosophy and rituals to practice daily as what makes each of us most comfortable with our existence and eventual non-existence upon death. We chose it on faith, without absolute evidence to back it up.
Faith and choice of religious dogma is what makes it easier for many to be able to feel OK with the inability to answer what really does happen once our bodies cease to function and death occurs. We’ll all find out individually if we picked “the wrong one” when we die. Of course, if we’re just “worm food” when we die, you won’t be the wiser, ’cause you’ll be dead and not be able to look back and say “Hmmmm guess those Atheists were right.” And in that case, whatever makes you feel the most comforted and justified in your actions in this lifetime is not a bad thing, so long as you’re not killing people in the name of your ‘god’, etc.
Living your life as an adult with the faith that you were indoctrinated with as a child from birth is also a choice – a choice to not study or understand other religions/beliefs and just accept the one you know as the only “right one” (not that there is anything wrong with that). And for clarification, I’m not pointing fingers here. I’m simply pointing out generally that we all have a choice and we all make it.
I feel after that choice is made we all need to make a choice to be open and accepting of ALL, and to not try and convince others that their choice is bad/wrong/evil/stupid etc. or to colour other people’s (including our children’s) opinions in that way, either.
That kind of “colouring” of other faiths etc, based on what we think is the “right one”, is why we have religious wars and mass murdering in this world’s history and continue to see every day. We raise our children to be “right” and see everyone else as wrong when we raise them with OUR beliefs and don’t give them an opportunity to see things in another, unbiased light.
As long as someone sees their belief as “right” over someone else’s, it will never stop… and for the record, looking beyond the colour of skin has not ceased in this world, it has only become less an issue, or gone more underground because it is looked upon a socially unacceptable to be prejudiced against someone based on the colour of their skin. The KKK still exists, gang wars based on skin colour and ethnic background still run on the streets of large cities across North America every night after dark.
Even prejudice based on NAME alone is in this world today. Look at how many people make jokes about Barack Obama being the president based on his name alone – “No man named Obama will be president in MY country”; how many people are fighting over whether the first black man as president is better then the first woman as president, etc… (which all goes back to religion.. a Christian woman is ‘better’ than a black man named Obama and rumoured to once be Muslim.)
I, for one, don’t know what happens when death occurs, and I am comfortable with that. I can make guesses based on what I’d LIKE to be true, or based on my own experiences in my lifetime thus far, but I don’t know for sure. I DO know what stories and “life laws” and sets of rituals make me uncomfortable, more uneasy, or bring me no inner peace, or DO make me comfortable and bring inner peace, so I go with that. That is all any of us can do really. No?
Quote “We believe wholeheartedly
that it is the truth and the only truth, so it isn’t an option for us
to say other beliefs are valid. ” end quote
Why ISN’T that an option? Only by your choice is that not an option. If one is not afraid of having their only truth (beliefs and faith) questioned (or fear such questioning would cause doubting their own beliefs internally), and they are confident (read:have enough faith) they can answer any questions the child asks about out of doubt or natural curiosity, why CAN’T teaching them that there are possible other truths out there beyond YOUR own truth be an option? It can be an option, and it is an available option – if one choses to avail themselves of it. Children are not born with a certain religion/faith/belief as THEIR truth, they are taught it (or not taught it as the case may be).
It reminds me of the story of the young new bride who cooked her roasts by cutting off the two ends of the roast and throwing them away, because she saw her mother cook the roasts that way. Her husband was very upset with her wasting of so much good meat, and asked her why she did that… she had no answer and said that is the way her mother did it. So, she went to her mother to find out why. When asked, the mother didn’t know why she did it that way either, it was just how her mother did it. They both went to the grandmother and asked her, and the grandmother laughed at the both of them and said… because I didn’t have a roast pan big enough for the roasts we bought, so I saved the two ends for steak sandwiches for your dad’s lunch!
There is always an option.
I am teaching my children a set of morals and values that almost EVERY religion/faith claim to teach, but do so without the dogma, the fear mongering of holy retribution if they don’t others well, etc. I teach them about the stories and rituals of other faiths and religions, and let them make their own choices. No one is wrong and no one is right.
If I raise my children with a non-dogmatic Buddhist-based, non-violent philosophy, and they decide to believe in the life and stories of Jesus, or Allah, or any other, or choses to not believe in any of them – I’m fine with that.
Our winter holidays in December are an eclectic collection of rituals that we have adopted from many other faiths and cultures. We have incorporated them into our celebration of the Solstice, which runs from the winter solstice to New Year’s Day for us. We call our celebration the 12 days of winter. It is fun, and shows acceptance of others beliefs and celebrations, and gives my kids a well rounded idea of why others celebrate the way they do.
QUOTE
“I accept if other people belive (sic) otherwise, but I will not tell my
children something I know in my heart to be a lie. To me it would be
like trying to convince them that my hair is blond when it is brown.
It is an outright lie and makes no sense. And eventually, when they
get older, they will be exposed to those beliefs through other people
and society.”
END QUOTE.
I feel compelled to point out a SUBSTANTIAL flaw in your justification… we ALL can SEE your hair is blond and not brown, but we cannot see who you are telling us is the overseer of all in this world, according to your point of view. You BELIEVE in your heart that other beliefs are a lie – you believe that only on FAITH. Knowledge of facts and ‘belief’ are separate and distinct things.
I always have to question whether if I teach my child to just accept what I tell them to be the truth, am I not setting them up for problems in their life when they accept what everyone they SHOULD trust to be the truth? Isn’t that potentially dangerous to my child’s health and welfare?
I respect your right to believe that it makes no sense and is an outright lie. I hope you’ll respect my right to feel that your viewpoint regarding this is somewhat narrow, although I have little faith in THAT. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with your viewpoint being narrow… after all, it is you that needs to be comfortable with your view, not me. If you are, who am I to tell you or anyone how they should view the sunset? I’d just prefer you keep it to yourself.
Yes, when our children get older, they will inevitably be exposed to other beliefs through society, but will they be exposed to them in a non-judgemental way, in a safe place like they could be at home? Will they not have those exposures from the people who believe those to be the truth, or by others who are prejudiced against those other faiths/religions/beliefs… and therefore, get a tainted view of that faith/belief/non-belief? And… is that not the exact reason we are all here today discussing this – because our parents left us to be exposed to it later in life through society to figure out for ourselves, to decide for ourselves, to search for answers, or to just accept the ones that were put on our plate?
Are they not already being exposed to them now through news, internet and so on? Is that exposure a good one? Are you OK with that being the kind of exposure they get ?
Well, maybe you are – IF it just further deepens their belief in what you’ve taught them to be the only truth and every other one is bad/wrong/evil, etc. (again, not pointing fingers, just making general observations about that kind of thinking.)
How many people who are not Muslim understand what being Muslim is about? How many people, do you think, believe that all Muslims are (or could potentially become) evil terrorists? How many people do you think are now convinced that all people involved with the Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints MUST be all living in large communes with one man fathering MANY children with MANY women – and how many people, do you think, believe it to be wrong based solely on what they’ve been taught is right or wrong all their lives without questioning it? And… have you stopped to ask yourself, if they are not harming anyone and the family unit they’ve created is happy and healthy, and that is how they interpret THEIR holy book, WHY is it a bad thing? Just because some other faith SAYS it is!? Seems like textbook prejudice and discrimination to me.
Where do children get the information and the background of all religious, or non-religions in a non-biased way to be able to make an informed and educated choice for themselves? Certainly not the news, not in the church they attend, or the books they read for their families chosen faith!
As homeschoolers, they’ll only get that info if it is given to them as an option to study at home with their family, or when they finally decide they have enough unanswered or poorly answered questions within their own taught faith to ask them themselves and start looking for the answers and for a set of values, stories, and morals that give them the most comfort in their lives.
No one can be absolutely proven right or wrong, we’re all just making different choices and dealing with the consequences for each other’s choices in life and in society as a whole.
So, where do I fit in as far as faith goes? What do I believe?
I like to think I fall somewhere in between following non dogmatic Zen Buddhist philosophy, celebrating the earth with my Celtic heritage (being of Scottish descent and all), and leaving the door open for the possibility that this life is the SHOW, and not the dress rehearsal.