the Bitch in the house

Last night I was up until the weeee hours writing 2 small [sic] paragraphs so as to express my snarkiness about TeenPrince’s religious indoctrination and why I (as a bad mother) have not taken his ass to church on time – or even regularly. And today I’ve come down with the LittleEinstein’s flu! I blame the church (pick one… any one, and all can be offended…) for this!

Here it is in all its (edited to ptotect the innocents) holy hallelujah glory::

Q: As parents/guardian, what is your attitude toward your son’s taking formal theology classes, as well as attending religious activities required by ShishySchool?

A: We support religious activities and formal theology classes. In fact, while enrolled at St. Catholic School TeenPrince participated in Diocesan instruction and also received religious education at the Jewish Community Center to connect with his biological father’s family heritage. Additionally, our son attended Southern Baptist services without any regularity with his great-grandmother until her death. Despite the lacking specificity of one religious ideology in our home, my husband and I have balanced our different belief histories by grounding moral and ethical values in sacred philosophies of the entire family. We encourage our children come into their own sense of theology based in education, spirituality and community experience. We believe that the Jesuit principles at ShishySchool also emphasizes our same values. Therefore, we respect and appreciate the religious training there because it is rooted in community service and education. ShishySchool’s mission of developing young adults as “agents of positive change” speaks to the heart of our own principles in parenting.

Q: Write a paragraph indicating the ways through which you as parents (or guardian) develop spiritual values in your family and community.

A: My husband and I have encouraged TeenPrince to develop a wider understanding of religious philosophy that makes up the different components of his family and we have never shied away from his learning about the different moral and spiritual values of the world. An ironic element of TeenPrince’s unique parentage is that each one was born into a family of disparate fundamental religious indoctrination. SpermDonor was raised as an Orthodox Jew until being Bar Mitzvah’d when he chose to eschew the precepts of strict Jewish law; papaDobb’s was raised in the Diocesan Catholic tradition and has since come into his own Humanist experience of spirituality; and BitchinMama was raised in a faithful Southern Baptist community wherein my maternal grandfather was a travelling Minister and missionary throughout State and Country while my paternal grandfather was a founding Deacon of the First Southern Baptist. Our children are not wanting for religious stimuli, yet the one fixed aspect to our seemingly incongruent beliefs is that we all strive to be conscious consumers of our spirituality by taking personal responsibility for ourselves and our communities. TeenPrince has been raised in the spirit of activism and public service. His whole life has been about doing good works for others because we believe in leaving the world better than we found it. To demonstrate the tenets of our beliefs we engage in volunteerism and social justice, always taking TeenPrince along to participate. These values have become a core element of TeenPrince’s identity and so ingrained that he serves others often before thinking of his own needs. We believe that the academic structure with emphasis of Jesuit philosophy found at ShishySchool serves as a natural extension of our own deeply-held beliefs and moral dispositions.

How’s that for some fancy footwork that avoids all the snotty cussin I usually expend on the topic?!