One thing we know about parenting in general is that having healthy parents is the biggest predictor of healthy kids. We talk alot here about having a healthy spirituality as parents so that we can raise spiritually healthy kids. Still, sometimes we as parents go through our own challenges. Today we are talking about how we navigate a faith crisis or faith transition as a parent in a way that is healthy for the whole family.
The first thing I want to aknowledge is that a faith transition is destablizing, no matter what you do, but especially if your faimly dynamics are such that you are the main source of your family’s spirituality. Part of raising spiritually healthy kids is helping them to have their own internal compass and their own relationship with divinity. This can be protective to a certain extent because they aren’t entirely anchored to you. Still, it is natural for children to look to the adults in their lives for answers, and when you don’t have answers or when your answers change, that will be a new experience for your kids.
In this episode I will be speaking from my own experience, not as a professional, but as a parent who has been on her own faith journey as a parent. I was lucky in that me and my husband had our faith crisis alongside one another. We left the religion of our upbringing for different reasons, but around the same time. It was a blessing that when I finally decided that this faith crisis wasn’t going away and I needed to come cleean to my husband that I was seriously considering stepping away, he too confessed that he wasn’t so sure about our belief system either. That is not everyone’s experience, and depending on your religious tradition, having a different understanding of God than your spouse can be great cause for pain and greif. Many marriages end over such differences.
Still, we were still left with the task of navigating our children out of our old church and into… well, we weren’t so sure. One thing that I think really set us up for success is that my husband and I had always wanted our children to have their own beliefs, and to respect those with different beliefs from our own, though we kind of assummed that our beliefs were “correct” and that our children would be able to see that and agree with us on their own. Yes, I realize that isn’t entirely congruent, but it’s how I thought of things before. Because I wanted our children to chose our religion “on their own”, when then asked existential or theological questions, we would say, “Some people believe….. Others believe…. We believe….” This exposed them to different ideas, but still imposed our own beliefs.
In our faith transition, my husband and I started to have our own beliefs, rather than necessarily conforming to the teachings of the elders of our church, which also meant that my husband and I didn’t always agree on everything. This added a new spin to the above script. Now it was, “Some believe…. Others believe…. Dad believes….. Mom believes…..” Before, while we had offered other possible beliefs, we still indicated what we thought the correct belief was by saying what we as a family believe. Now, there was no right answer given to our kids. I worried that this would be confusing or even feel unsafe. Shouldn’t we as parents have all the answers? If we didn’t, would our kids feel unmoored?
Our script needed one more edit. Our kids needed an anchor, and I couldn’t be that anchor anymore. Maybe I never should have been to begin with. After listing possible beliefs, I added, “What do you believe?” The anchor my children needed was their own internal compass. They needed the ability to look within themselves, look to their own conscience, heart, connection to God, whatever you call it, and find their truth there. I can hear the critics saying that there is only one truth and the idea of people having their own subjective truth is the path to demonic deception. I hear you, and I chose to have faith in my children and in a God that gave each of us the ability to find our own spiritual path in life.