Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. I mean, not a long long time, but still, it’s been a bit. I’m sorry for that, work’s been a bit crazy and all I do is come home to relax, not write. Well, I’m back people and here to tell you all the drama caught up in the mist. I might be posting a bunch this week, as I have a lot to say.
I was raised a Catholic, says my grandmother, but I never step foot in a Catholic church since I was baptized as an infant. We never prayed at the dinner table or before bed. Sundays consisted of relaxing, watching TV and playing ball outside. My upbringing did not involve religion, just morals and values. Some of these morals and values I follow, because they are pretty basic, but others are downright horrible and I will never follow.
My husband had a totally different upbringing. Church on Sundays, pray at the dinner table, before bed, the communion, and don’t get me started about our wedding issues. Needless to say, we have our differences in opinions, but he is pro-choice and for marriage equality. He definitely did not learn that in church or from his home (his father is much like my grandparents).
I went to church for a few weeks. My grandmother was all about the religious front. She wanted everyone to THINK we were with the Lord in our home. I was about 11 or 12 years old and she wanted me to go to Sunday school. Sitting there, among these teens that could recite the bible as if they wrote it, was weird, but the worst part were the teachers. They were beyond radical. Maybe because I wasn’t raised like my husband was, I find this weird and he finds it normal. Either way, I feel like these kids were completely brainwashed by the crap these teachers were feeding them about sex before marriage and shit. The reason why we stopped going: my grandmother, mother, brother and myself were at the Sunday mass and the pastor started talking smack about a woman’s place in the house. I was already in a bad mood with the previous bull shit mass he had spoken at and this was the last straw. I got up and just lost it. I told a pastor off in the middle of a Sunday mass. My grandmother just pinched me and I just kept going. As I stormed off, the room fell silent and deadly. My family stormed off quick and in a hurry. My mother applauded me, but my grandmother was not so forgiving. I got hit with a belt, but I knew I was right, because my grandmother wore the pants in our household, as well. She was just embarrassed. My mother told her that she should have known better than to take a feminist to a church full of sexist pigs, and she was right.
So, why this blog about our spiritual upbringing?
Well, I needed to discuss religion with my husband, in reference to raising our child (if or when we have one). Well, let’s just say it got heated. I have always believed that your body and mind should be your own interpretation of the bible and the Lord, and not have to rely on some idiot to interpret a book written 3500 years ago. What is right? What is wrong? Do you believe in faith? Is God real? These are all questions I ask myself over and over again. I believe that religion should be about asking a million questions and I believe it should be taught at home. Go once a week to a mass for open discussion, but children should be taught their parents’ beliefs at home. This whole Sunday school isn’t a thing I want my children to be apart of. But, of course, he does. I don’t like the Catholic Church, but he was raised Catholic and he is not changing his religion for anyone, he says. My whole thing is that I was not raised religious and I don’t know much about it to be able to really understand the true meaning of faith, but I want my child to be able to think for himself and make his own decision (or she).
So, I came up with a solution. We start going to Catholic church once or twice a month until I feel that the child is in understanding of what’s going on, maybe 9 or 10 years old. At that time, he or she can choose to go to Sunday school if they feel so strongly about it.
I do believe in something, but I also believe in making your own destiny and not counting on someone/something to do it for you. Free will and all!
And, I lied, I did go to two Catholic Churches with my husband and I felt soooooo uncomfortable in those places. It was too formal, with the big bishop hats, male dresses, alter boys and the singing in tongues. The scariest parts about a Catholic church: shaking strangers’ hands and drinking the wine out of the same cup 40 other people drank out of….because it’s Jesus blood!!! Holy Cow!!!!!! How about use a straw or disposible shot glasses….I can’t do it….I don’t know where that woman’s mouth has been!! LoL….I was definitely NOT raised religious! I was most definitely raised AMERICAN! Germophobe!
What do you guys think? What’s you take on all this? If you have children, what did you and your spouse end up deciding?
-complicatedlove239
Confessions of a Complicated Love 