Here’s a good question: If your underage child wants to attend a high school school that you are strongly opposed to, should you force the child to do what you say? Many people would contend that the parent has authority over the underage child, of course. But what if the school your child wants to attend was a Christian school, and you are a devout Atheist? Then what? That would seem to change the circumstances a bit now, wouldn’t it?
That was exactly what happened when a father and son were divided over whether or not the boy should be allowed to attend a Catholic high school, despite the staunch opposition of his Atheist father. The 14-year-old Louisville, Kentucky boy, Michael Ryan, really wanted to attend St. Xavier High School- a Catholic school- but his father would not hear of it. His divorced parents strongly disagreed about their son attending the school. His mother, Susan Bisig, wants him to go there. The disagreement lead to a lawsuit filed by the father, David Ryan, which argued that the State’s constitution says no one can be “compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be conscientiously opposed.” Despite the father’s argument, the judge ruled for the boy, stating that it was “in the boy’s best interest to attend the St. Xavier School.”
The father is of course, appealing the decision. This situation raises a good point. In the Gorilla’s eyes, it can be looked at two ways: In one way, it begs the question, “What about the parent’s position of authority over the child? How can a judge override the authority of a parent over his or her own child?” But he did, and it wasn’t the first case either. There have been many lawsuits between underage children and their parents in which the judge ruled in favor of the child.
In another way, when it concerns religion, the circumstances are certainly affected to be sure. Should the parents be allowed to exert their authority over their children when it comes to religion? When the Gorilla was a young chimp, he questioned his religious beliefs as well. It is a tough position to be in when your parents are quite religious and you are not, or vice-versa. Should a child be forced to agree with his/her parents’ religious convictions or lack thereof? Religion is a very personal choice for an individual, child or adult, and many believe it should be up to the child- not the parent- to choose their own faith. What do you think?
April 17th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Whether we pay attention to it or not, we all have an inner voice that guides us at all times (even when buying or selling stocks). Some people call it “intuition”. We usually don’t hear it because of the clamour of daily life which includes the opinions of others, both expressed and imagined.
Children too have this intuition. In fact, they hear it loud and clear until we “teach” them to listen to us - their parents and teachers - rather than to their inner voice. We think our job is to guide them through life. But their intuition will guide them much better and faster than we could.
The best parents will allow their children to make all their own decisions. This includes what to eat, what clothes to wear, what schools to go to, what friends to keep, etc.
A child should not be forced to agree with anything - especially with his parents convictions. For one thing, using force will usually create more of the same behavior we are trying to change. For another, parents are almost always wrong.
We parents should be watching our children for clues to how we should live our own lives.
The youngest children are the best teachers. Notice how tolerant they are, and how quickly they stop crying, and how easily they laugh, how they do not judge us, how motivated they are to learn everything, and how passionate they explore their world.
We are the ones who need to learn what we have forgotten. The children still remember.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I have to agree with you (the Gorilla) & ken about letting your kids decide about their faith. And this is coming from a devout Christian with 5 adopted children, one bio and numerous foster children over the past ten years. I don’t believe you can make your kids believe or do anything for that matter. My wife & I learned from some very knowlegdeable parenting books that giving them choices and let them decide for themselves was recommened & it worked very well in our home. . (now for choices I mean when it’s age appropaite of course. I wouldn’t let my three or six year old decide what they were having for dinner every night, because they’d choose candy or stuff that’s not healthy for them-da!)
As far as the faith goes, I believe you can only model it too them. For instance the boys father is an atheist and how does he behave to his boy? With lots of anger and maybe retaliation and definately controlling. So would that lead the boy to want too be atheist like his day. Or maybe he’d rather be like his mother who may be more forgiving & less controlling. Does’nt seem like a hard choice to me!
I pray with my kids almost nightly & I read the bible to them. But ultimately it is their decision whether they want to believe what I do or not. My hope is that they will have seen how my faith has guided me & my decision making over the years, but most importantly how it has led me to love them deeply, that they too will “want” to have faith in Christ!
For Ken’s comments about how the parents are almost always wrong. Yes I’d say that is true, of the ones that are uniformed! But for those that make the effort, and yes it takes much effort & time, I would say the opposite is true!
And finally about the young children that Ken speaks of.
Yes I agree that they pocess all those qualities and the best one left out I believe is, they forgive easily! But I would have to disagree with them being the best teachers. Not because we can’t learn from them but because we are given the responsibility to teach them. My youngest at one and a half, although very sweet at times is also very selfish at times and will take anything she wants from her 3 yr. old brother because she thinks it’s her right to do so. So we have the wonderfull, and yet very trying at times, job of teaching them otherwise.
Sorry about spelling & grammer. Those were my worst subjects!