Oh God (now what?)

"Thanksgiving dinner"

Not trying to make it an issue either, but there are no laws against having godspeak in the school. It can't be forced by the school, but they are not required to prohibit it. As far as the Girl Scouts holding meetings at the school and communication through the school goes, it happens everywhere. The Boy Scouts were banned from holding their meetings at our schools because of their discrimination policies against gay leaders but not because of any religious overtones. I think the Girl Scouts still meet at the school.

Yeah, I think that it's the compulsion that's at the center of it, and Boy Scouts has gotten in trouble because they're more hard-line about it than Girl Scouts. (The substitution thing in Girl Scouts started in 1993; Boy Scouts have nothing similar.) There seem to be a few pending cases about that issue (one brought by a lesbian couple and an atheist couple).

As in, if you want to be a Boy Scout, you need to state that you believe in God, and that kind of compulsion in public schools is at least iffy.

But Girl Scouts are looser about it.

Meanwhile, Chai Tea and Lash have pretty neatly summarized my conflict here. Not worth it, go with the flow? Or something that requires a stand?

As I said before, my current thinking is to a) keep her in it, b) either have her substitute "good" for "god" or just have her say "god" and supply our own definition thereof if it comes up. I'm still thinking about the Bella/ flushd/ Lash aspect though, of whether this is just not the kind of thing I want her to get involved in. She'll have plenty of other opportunities to socialize with kids her age that don't have all of this extra stuff attached.

WOULD I!!!

I'm referring to the Grimm tale, rather than the Disney version. It is horrific. The step-sisters mutilate their feet to fit into the slipper--I don't have to tell you the connotation to current gendering and self-images of women in popular culture.

Soz--

I hate to think of sozlet being inundated with so much grown up stuff--but maybe you could talk to her about the issue--about the god part and what the words mean--and that you didn't want her to be told by adults to repeat words she may not believe without thinking about it.

And then let her decide.

Infra--

Here's a lovely excerpt from the Grimm Brothers' Cinderella. (I guess we can see why Disney edited it)

Next morning, he went with it to the father, and said to him, no one shall be my wife but she whose foot this golden slipper fits. Then were the two sisters glad, for they had pretty feet. The eldest went with the shoe into her room and wanted to try it on, and her mother stood by. But she could not get her big toe into it, and the shoe was too small for her. Then her mother gave her a knife and said, "Cut the toe off, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot." The maiden cut the toe off, forced the foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the king's son. Then he took her on his his horse as his bride and rode away with her. They were obliged, however, to pass the grave, and there, on the hazel-tree, sat the two pigeons and cried,



"Turn and peep, turn and peep,
there's blood within the shoe,
the shoe it is too small for her,
the true bride waits for you."

Then he looked at her foot and saw how the blood was trickling from it. He turned his horse round and took the false bride home again, and said she was not the true one, and that the other sister was to put the shoe on. Then this one went into her chamber and got her toes safely into the shoe, but her heel was too large. So her mother gave her a knife and said, "Cut a bit off your heel, when you are queen you will have no more need to go on foot." The maiden cut a bit off her heel, forced her foot into the shoe, swallowed the pain, and went out to the king's son. He took her on his horse as his bride, and rode away with her, but when they passed by the hazel-tree, the two pigeons sat on it and cried,

...

Oh, all of those were steeped in blood and gore before they became Disnefied. The originals are .

Have you seen the book "Tatterhood"? It's a collection of folktales that depart from the usual gender roles, even though they're genuine (as in have been around forever, passed down via storytelling, not new).

I'll have to check out that title, soz.

Sorry to wander so far on your thread. Rote recitation is sort of tangled up with subliminal messages....yadda yadda ... sorry.

Wow, thanks for that, Lash!

I had read many of the early variations of the Little Red Riding Hood stories, but never the Cinderella story.

I've got to look for an edition of the Grimm compilations.

I fall into the "no big deal" camp. I don't really even interpret it as a Christian thing - three of the world's major religions believe in the same God and, to me, anyway, God means so many things.

We've been dealing with the religion issue around here upon just returning from a rather prayer filled visit to Mr. B's family. God I can handle pretty easily; the whole "in Jesus' name....." is giving me a bit of trouble though.

I DO understand that it is a tricky deal for most people. Mo and I wanted to bring back a book for his class from our trip. I wanted something about the Trail of Tears or the Cherokees but we couldn't find anything. I finally landed on "The Ledgerbook of Thomas Blue Eagle" but faced with all the yells at me to get a move on I only had time to read the first few pages before deciding to buy it.

It is a really great book. I did, however, have to send a note to Mo's teacher saying that we understood that not all kindergarteners (or their teacher) might not appreciate every aspect of the story. If people are clamoring to ban "Little Red Ridinghood" from school libraries because the illustration shows a bottle of wine in her picnic basket I wonder what they might think of a bunch of kids smoking a peace pipe.

Mo thought the peace pipe was cool. So do I. But I had to throw in a little culture lesson and a no-smoking lesson in with it.

There are some other things in the book that we enjoyed that other families might find objectionable.

This is just a round about way of saying that I think kindergarten is not too young to expose children to a variety of religious thought. My parents allowed me to experiment with a wide variety of religions even though they were non-religious. The Daisy Scouts seem pretty flexible with their terminology but even if they weren't I would still be okay with it.

Expose, I have no problem with. She has been exposed to a variety of religious thought and that will continue. But there is a lot of distance between "some people believe in God and this is what that means" and "I promise to serve God."

To take the peace pipe example, it's the difference between "some people smoke peace pipes and that's cool" and "I promise to smoke a peace pipe."

I understand that for a lot of people it's just "eh they're just saying that, it doesn't mean anything," and I'm pretty much going that route -- that it doesn't carry enough meaning to get too het up about it. But it's more than mere exposure.

Read her Harry Potter first.

If you can believe it, I haven't read any of them so have only the vaguest idea of what's involved. Ballast?

I'm thinking more about the "experiment with religions" part of Boomer's post...

I used to go over to my friend's house for dinner all the time and they said grace -- before long I had it memorized and would recite along with them (of my own accord, they didn't mind if I did it or not), "God is great, God is good, and we thank him for this food, by his hand we all are fed, give us Lord our daily bread. Amen." That didn't have any particular ill effects on me.

I guess it's the requirement aspect that I don't like. I'll talk to the leader about that.

The indoctrination thing is the troubling part. My girls attended a christian pre-school. It was the only program in town that offered what we were looking for (which had nothing to do with Christianity). They said grace before snack and celebrated Christmas and Easter with pageants. I was fine with all of it, explaining that we didn't say grace because we didn't believe our food came from God, until M announced that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. That's when I started doing some de-programming. I continued de-programming a number of things they were taught in the public schools (Christopher Columbus "discovering" America, for instance).

I don't think I ever told them to say "under God", or to skip it, during the Pledge of Allegiance, but just explained what it meant to me as opposed to others. De-programming is an on-going enterprise.

Sorry to be cryptic.

More later--I hope.

You did mention, though, that you're trying to teach her to put a lot of weight into making promises. That seems like a really good thing to teach. I think you're right to hesitate on going the "oh, it's just something you say" route. I personally really favor the idea of substituting good for god. That way if she HAS to say something, at least it has a nice meaning she can actually believe in.

I do also agree with Lash though-- on the whole, the idea of having to recite anything smacks of indoctrination and I wouldn't like it.

My mom was very relieved that I dropped out of girl scouts of my own accord after two or three meetings, so she didn't have to worry about whether it was a good idea or not! (Our local troop not only did the god stuff, but also had a girly calendar on the wall where the meetings were... )

Girly calendar? Like the Power Puff Girls?

no, no...I get it.... probably more like Josie and the Pussycats huh?

'Zactly.

Mommy thought those Pussycats were just a little too over the top.

I've been keeping my nose out of this thread 'cause I know what I'm about to say will start a backlash but what the heck I won't be around for the next few days so lash away...We indoctrinate our children every day. Yes; we do. We know what's best for them because we're their parent(s). It's okay to tolerate others' views but deep down inside our children know that we think those other views are WRONG because they don't think like us and we're RIGHT. I can understand why nobody wants their very young child under the influence of someone they disagree with but eventually it will come down to the personality of the child. The most important gift you can give your child is permission to question authority (even yours) and popular opinion (even yours).

That's very true, Tai Chi. You stated it well.

I wrote to the Daisy Scout leader and I liked her reply. I was looking for both content and tone -- if she seemed dithery and concerned (oh no, an atheist, whatever shall we do?!) or straightforward. She replied quickly and was really straightforward.

The way I handle the God thing at school (in the pledge) [she's a teacher] is that I tell the students not to say that part . For example "One nation under ____". I will do the same for the Girl Scout law. Thanks for letting me know! I enjoyed meeting you and [sozlet] also!

Not completely clear if she meant that she'd have ALL the kids leave out the God part or just sozlet -- probably the latter.

So I'm reassured that this won't be pursued unduly, and that sozlet can focus on having fun with her friends, and exercise her budding judgment. I'll tell her that she can handle it how she wants -- say "God," say "good," or say nothing.

Thanks for your help as I examined this one, everyone!