Thursday, November 7, 2013

Ways To Mess With An Atheist

Karen, you will love that!!

I was just stepping in the door last night when an up-the-wall excited Lily was almost running me over with giddiness: Mami, Mami, Mami, I'm going to SING!!! With a MICROPHONE!!!!!  --  Awesome, Lily! So, where are you singing??  --  In church, Mami, during the service!!

Wait a moment... Did I hear right? We were not going to church before the lantern parade. The plan was to meet her class after church for the parade, together with the other Atheist family in Lily's class. A minute later I was on the phone with the other mom, venting. She told me that two years ago, after we both had successfully skipped the church service, the kindergarten teacher approached her, telling her what a pity it had been that her daughter hadn't been there singing, as she had a very nice voice.

Well, obviously, this year they had decided to prevent the religion-drain, and bind at least one of the kids to the service. I swear, they were sure that we, as parents, could never take all her joy about getting to sing in front of an audience from her? And that we wouldn't. So come tomorrow, hubby's getting to sit through a 30-minute church service, getting to listen to Lily sing, while I walk with Violet to her parade meeting point.

To be honest, we are both honestly pissed off (please excuse the choice of words, but I can't say it any different). There are plenty of opportunities for Lily to sing her solo, they just had a concert for the senior citizens of the town a couple of weeks ago. The teachers know that we are Atheists, that we did not plan on attending the service, so why tying Lily to it like that? She's just a little girl passionate about singing. She'd make it to the 9th ring of hell if a microphone would be waiting for her there, believe me! So why start that power struggle about church with us? Why, I ask you??

12 comments:

  1. I agree with you 100% I don't think them tying her to that is fair at all. I think it's inappropriate.

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    1. Thanks a lot, Jen! The funny thing was when I asked her if the knew what the "service" was all about. She said: I don't care, I'm going to sing!! That's the right attitude ;-)

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  2. Oh it would take more than our daughter singing to get my Other Half to sit through a half hour church service! LOL. Love the line 'she'd make it to the 9th ring of hell if a microphone would be waiting for her there ' - have to say that one made me smile :)

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    1. Guess who got to sit through the service today.. Glad to make you smile, Lizzy, but it's so true for Lily. She doesn't care what it takes to get to her goal ;-)

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  3. Wow, that's so not okay! I guess I would talk to the teacher next week about this incident.

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    1. The teacher knows that we're atheists, and obviously likes the power struggle. I won't get into yet another argument with her, just count down the days until Lily starts 1st grade in September ;-)

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    2. You are right, that's probably the best way to deal with it. But still...

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    3. I know, it pee's me off to now end (even though her singing tonight was truly beautiful). I hate my children being abused in a power struggle. But it will end soon!!!

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  4. I can totally say even though we are Catholic that I would be nightly annoyed if I wasn't truly very religious and the teacher knew this about and did this anyway. I would totally talk to her teacher when you can and voice your concern here. So this happened to you though Stephanie and really wasn't fair or right.

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    1. Thanks so much for your support, Janine! I have already talked to her in the past, voicing my concern about the amount of religion infused in the class, even though it was a public kindergarten. It's just about 10 more months, so we decided to suck it up and not provoke any confrontations that eventually will affect Lily.

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  5. That really is obnoxious if they knew ahead of time that you weren't planning to attend. I always think it's funny that I'm an atheist as well, but some of my favorite songs to sing when I was a kid were religious - I especially enjoyed singing the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel's Messiah, and Godspell was one of my favorite musicals. It was all about the sound to me.

    The only atheist joke I know, as told to me by my atheist college roommate's mom ... What did they say about the atheist at his funeral? He was all dress up with no place to go! ;)

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    1. Well, we didn't mentioned explicitely that we would not attend this time, but we had a solid track record plus some arguments and complaints (even to the principal) about the religious indoctrination in Lily's class..

      It's the same here, with the songs.. Most German holiday songs are some sort of religious, and the holiday season was always my favorite ;-)

      Thanks for the joke!

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