Non-religious reasons to take your kid to church

Mom and dad took me to their church, a very bland non-denominational Christian Church that was not fundie at all. The only thing I liked about it--the flowers on the altar every Sunday. The women's group took turns and had new flowers every Sunday, and sometimes two or three beautiful arrangements around the sanctuary. The Sunday School was boring, but I had a good friend who went to the same church so I didn't mind going. When I hit my pre-teens, mom said it was my choice to go or not and I stopped. Sunday has been my late sleep-in day ever since.

Here are three reasons that I don't go to church that have nothing to do with belief or non-belief.:

1- most "church people" , to me , are creepy. They walk around like zombies with that stupid plastic smile plastered on their faces. Everything to church folk is AWESOME!!![ a word that should be banned], from the miracles of the Lord to the shit they took ten minutes ago.Being around these people is like driving a standard- way too much effort.

2- churches feel like they have the right to stick their noses into every aspect of their parishoners lives , from marriage to kyd raising to financial affairs. They have a word for this horseshit- it's called 'fellowship" .

3- churches always , and I mean always, want your money. If salvation is free for the asking, why are their hands always on my wallet??

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Ondinette
This is just one of many ways in which Mom forced me to be different than the other kids. Maybe some of it was ignorance but I know some of it was intentional. In some cases she actually told me she was deliberately doing something different. I resent the shit out of her for this. It's great to be an individual when you are an adult, but it does not work nearly as well for kids. If she was the one who had to face the consequences of her decisions she would have changed her mind really fast. In case you are wondering, Dad just assumed she knew best and went along with her.

Consider this: if you hadn't had the experience of being different as a child, you might have been less equipped to buck peer pressure as an adult. Being the outcast does not make for a pleasant childhood, but it is exceptionally good training for standing your ground as a non-conformist adult - for instance, as a childfree person.

Ondinette, I do think your mom should have allowed you to "spread your wings" and make your own choice about going to church, but maybe what she did ended up being a good idea seeing as how you described your growing-up location/church.

It might not have done you good to be in an environment where people negatively judge others simply because they don't go to church.

If you weren't mindless and judgmental like some of the church people and went to church, you could have ended up being even more of an outcast. Or, you could have ended up being BRAINWASHED to be mindless and judgmental and it could have taken you a lot of years and heartache to de-brainwash yourself. To me, it seems like you'd be out of luck no matter what happened.

I am really sorry about the bad experiences you had.

The way I see the "bring your kid to church" scenario: If you live in a shitty environment where human beings treat other human beings like pure garbage for stupid ass reasons (such as your growing-up environment), either don't have kids at all, don't have kids in that environment, or move to a friendlier and less ignorant environment and have them. Basically, don't bring kids into lame environments or do it and then GTFO ASAP.

I'm agnostic atheist and if I wanted to be a parent, I wouldn't have children in a place like that. If my child wanted to try a religious service, I'd be fine letting him/her try it, but I wouldn't make them go. There are very few religious places that don't have an agenda that they are trying to brainwash into people and I would not want to purposefully subject my child to that and have them and myself deal with the aftermath.

Of course, it's human nature for people to treat others like garbage for being different, so every parent has limited control over how their kids are treated by others. I could NOT for example, imagine having a transgendered child. VERY few places exist where such a child is able to live how they feel without being treated like a toilet.

....And now you know one of the reasons I'm childfree: I don't want to deal with all of this shit or force anyone else to. LOL. I'm so thankful I live in a time period and environment where I have that choice.

If you can get one good thing out of the bad experiences you had: They helped shape you to be child-free, which means you won't be subjecting another human being to what you went through.