So Be Good For Goodness Sake !
The past two days with my three year old have been exceedingly difficult. He's been pushing my buttons right and left, and he's been down right nasty at times. Time outs aren't doing the trick, and beatings are out of the question, so what's a mom to do?
Scooby Doo has been his latest obsession, so after a particularly egregious exchange between the two of us (before I had my coffee! The horror! Doesn't he know?!?!?), I told him Scooby Snacks are gone until he can prove to me he can show good behavior. And manners. And civility, for the love of Joe.
Suddenly, he was the model of perfect behavior. He even covered his mouth when he sneezed and offered his trucks to his brothers. So, silly me, I acquiesced and let him have his Scooby Snacks.
Big mistake. After he swallowed the last one, his head promptly spun around on it's axis several times, and he was back to his old tricks.
So I dropped him off at school and blew off steam by storming through Sam's, snarling "Yes, they're twins!!!!" the whole way through.
Driving home, I was flipping through the stations on the radio, and I paused on the Christian station for a minute. As usual, some preacher was going on about how the Kingdom of Heaven and Eternal Life can be yours, if you follow God's rules and act like a Good Citizen. And suddenly I realized what bothers me about fundamentalist religion, of all types.
And my beef is this:
I don't know if there is life after death, or Heaven, or paradise, or even 40 virgins waiting for me when I die. I'm gambling that none of these things exist, since I'm a science geek, but I'm the first to admit that I have been wrong. At times. But whether or not God or Allah or whomever exists, should we be mindful of following the Golden Rule only if it means getting a reward when we die? Or should being a good person, raising a family of model citizens, volunteering in the soup kitchen, etc., be reward in itself?
In other words, should we "be good" only if it gets us our Scooby Snacks, or should we share, refrain from hitting our siblings and use our indoor voices solely because it's the right thing to do?
I mean REALLY. Suppose all those God fearin' people get to the end of their lives and discover there is no after life? Are some of them going to shake their fists skyward and shout, "DAMN! Think of all the puppies I could have kicked!" I know, they'll be dead, they won't be saying anything. I'm making a point. Work with me, people.
I think we should treat each other with dignity and respect because we should. Period. Any reward is inconsequential to me.
And that's what I want to teach my kids.
The past two days with my three year old have been exceedingly difficult. He's been pushing my buttons right and left, and he's been down right nasty at times. Time outs aren't doing the trick, and beatings are out of the question, so what's a mom to do?
Scooby Doo has been his latest obsession, so after a particularly egregious exchange between the two of us (before I had my coffee! The horror! Doesn't he know?!?!?), I told him Scooby Snacks are gone until he can prove to me he can show good behavior. And manners. And civility, for the love of Joe.
Suddenly, he was the model of perfect behavior. He even covered his mouth when he sneezed and offered his trucks to his brothers. So, silly me, I acquiesced and let him have his Scooby Snacks.
Big mistake. After he swallowed the last one, his head promptly spun around on it's axis several times, and he was back to his old tricks.
So I dropped him off at school and blew off steam by storming through Sam's, snarling "Yes, they're twins!!!!" the whole way through.
Driving home, I was flipping through the stations on the radio, and I paused on the Christian station for a minute. As usual, some preacher was going on about how the Kingdom of Heaven and Eternal Life can be yours, if you follow God's rules and act like a Good Citizen. And suddenly I realized what bothers me about fundamentalist religion, of all types.
And my beef is this:
I don't know if there is life after death, or Heaven, or paradise, or even 40 virgins waiting for me when I die. I'm gambling that none of these things exist, since I'm a science geek, but I'm the first to admit that I have been wrong. At times. But whether or not God or Allah or whomever exists, should we be mindful of following the Golden Rule only if it means getting a reward when we die? Or should being a good person, raising a family of model citizens, volunteering in the soup kitchen, etc., be reward in itself?
In other words, should we "be good" only if it gets us our Scooby Snacks, or should we share, refrain from hitting our siblings and use our indoor voices solely because it's the right thing to do?
I mean REALLY. Suppose all those God fearin' people get to the end of their lives and discover there is no after life? Are some of them going to shake their fists skyward and shout, "DAMN! Think of all the puppies I could have kicked!" I know, they'll be dead, they won't be saying anything. I'm making a point. Work with me, people.
I think we should treat each other with dignity and respect because we should. Period. Any reward is inconsequential to me.
And that's what I want to teach my kids.
posted by The June Cleaver Diaries at 5:48 PM
9 Comments:
I agree. This is something I struggle with all the time, especially since I have close family members who want to use religion as the starting point for teachinig morality. I want to use morality as its own starting point, you know? Sigh. So many challenges, so much to think about. Wine, anyone? :-)
I struggle with the same thing. While I am not particularly "religious" I am spiritual. I believe in being a good person, doing good deeds and believing that there is a right path and a wrong path. I feel like a hypocrite for looking for a church for my children when the last thing I want to do is attend. I just remember being force fed religion as a child by my parents. Then my parents were burned by the church they were devoted to and they stopped attending. I guess I just want to give my girls the choice when it come to religion. I don't plan on giving them a choice to be good people.
I could not agree more, and *that's* why we don't attend a church. I can teach those things to my children without any other "help" (because it often turns out to be much less than help, in my experience, and more like condescending lectures), thank you very much, and I get to sleep in on Sundays.
'I think we should treat each other with dignity and respect because we should. Period. Any reward is inconsequential to me.'
huzzah and hurrah!
I agree.....and your son is old enough to start taking responsibility for his actions - scooby snacks or no scooby snacks :-) It's just going to be a rocky road, June.......
ooh - did someone mention ice-cream???
cq
Hey June--I just tagged you for a Meme. Get crackin sister!
Oh for Pete's sake, DA....
Fine! I'll do it now!
Part of me envys the What Would Jesus Do? people--how nice to have that shorthand as you go through your life. Except that so many of them--TOO many, I think--have decided that Jesus would discriminate against women and gays and people from other cultures and religions and . . . stop me any time.
Henry likes to ask what we are. Are we Jewish? Catholic? Baptist? No, I tell him, we're secular humanists. Well, he asks, what does that mean?
It means we're nice to everyone, I told him.
And he said, OF COURSE!
And that's how it should be, I think.
Amen, Susan.
My 4 year old is the bane of my existance, he acts like you describe your little guy. One minute sweet and loving and the next, he is pure Satan. Ohhooo, does he know how to push my buttons!
I agree with you about fundamentalist religion. I think there is a right thing to do and NOT doing it because of a religion is as bad as not doing it for any reason. Let's take gay discrimination for example? Why do it, because of God, really? *sigh* getting off my soapbox now.
Thanks for leaving a comment on my site.
Post a Comment
<< Home