knowing more.

 

 

As a parent my first priority is my littles. Always. Parenthood is tricky though. There is about a million and one different decisions to make. No pressure here... but there aren't any do-overs either.

Something Yos and I have talked about for many years is whether or not we would want the guys to go to public school or private school. We have a better than average public school system here, but the private school here is religious based and I like the thought of the boys getting a strong foundation of religious knowledge.

Anyhow, for Jr. Kindergarten this year we sent Christian to the Catholic school.We have been really happy with how things have been so far. I've been gently attempting to persuade Yosi to keep him at this school through his elementary years.

Until just last week.

Christian and I were at Walmart and he was just chatting away as usual. I asked him all about his day at school. He goes on to tell me that they colored a project with Jesus and Mary. ok, great. What else did you do. He continues on about this project and how Jesus was the color 'peach'. wait a minute.

Right when he mentioned that something clicked in my mind. I asked him a bit more about it and he said, "I colored Jesus the crayon called peach because that's what everybody did. The picture in our room looks like he's peach too. I think it matches great."

Ok so hear me out. I have zero problems with Christian thinking that Jesus was a fair skinned man. Nobody knows for sure, but the simple fact that he was a middle eastern fellow would lead me to believe that he was not peach. It is more probable that he was pecan. That's besides the point really and now I'm describing Jesus in terms of pie varieties. Moving on.

The point is that by sending our sons to a Catholic school they are going to get a (duh!) Catholic religious background and nothing else. And forever and ever any religious information they encounter they will look at through a Catholic lens. I am not at all saying this is bad.. just not exactly what I want for them. I want their lenses clear so that they can soak up all sorts of different ideas.

We have decided that the boys will not be going to private school. Maybe they won't get religious teaching at school, but that doesn't mean they won't get any. We'll go to church, we'll practice yoga, we'll visit the synagogue, and take a trip to the temple. I am going to make a concentrated effort to make sure that they are exposed to lots of different ideas and traditions. Not to say we won't tell them our personal beliefs, but in my opinion it is always better to know more than to know less. I think that is the best way I can take care of them.

Until next time,
Carmen