UU Parenting 101

First Delivered at the UU Church of Brevard

Sunday, August 09, 2009 

I like to begin my sermons with an explanation of how the topic was chosen. This one comes to you by special request rather than personal inspiration. Therefore, I beg your patience with whatever clumsiness ensues. I do not hold myself up as a parenting expert. I pray I am a “good enough” parent, and that’s probably the most we can aspire to as parents, but I am by no means accomplished, particularly knowledgeable about the broad spectrum of parenting philosophies, but neither am I, on the other end of things, a miserable failure. Not as of yet anyway. 

There is probably nothing you can say to someone that will anger them more than to tell them the proper way to parent their child. Sometimes I think people are more willing to hear their religious beliefs are in error than to hear there might be a better way of feeding, disciplining, educating or dressing their child. So it probably comes as some relief that in discussing parenting this morning we won’t be addressing such practical concerns. 

UUs embrace diversity, and as a consequence, I hope can tolerate a range of personal choices with respect to these decisions. We have parents in our congregation who send their children to public schools, private schools, and home educate. I’m going to guess the children in our religious education program have been breastfed, bottle fed, weaned at three days, three weeks, three months and three years. These are not parenting choices that distinguish us as UU parents. 

Which of course begs the question, what is a UU parent? In it’s most obvious sense it is an adult who identifies as a UU who has the responsibility of raising a child. Easy enough, but does that convey any sort of identify in the way the phrases “Christian parenting” or “Jewish mother” evoke a recognizable approach to child development?

As many of you know, my extended family consists of a fair number of conservative Southern Baptists. One of the first gifts my cousin received from our family when she became a mom was a book called Babywise, a secularized version of the author’s Christian Preparation for Parenting material. Sadly, many people assume the author is a pediatrician when Gary Ezzo actually has no undergraduate degree and a master's degree in ministry from a program designed for non-college graduates already active in ministry work. However, he taps into a strict father model of the family already embraced by conservative Christians, and thus fitting into their frame, gained ready acceptance. I won’t go into the full details of Babywise, but among other things, it advocates feeding on a schedule regardless of the baby’s hunger and implementing discipline before the age of twelve months. 

By way of explanation, the strict father model of the family consists of a single male head of the household with everyone else expected to obey unquestioningly or risk punishment. The child is born bad and must be strictly raised to be good, often with the gospel of prosperity determining whether goodness can be applied to the child or not. A good person—a moral person—is someone who is disciplined enough to be obedient, to learn what is right, do what is right and not do what is wrong, but most importantly, to pursue self-interest to prosper and become self-reliant. 

Fortunately, this is not by any means indicative of Christian parenting across the board.  

A woman named Kristen, posting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s website says this in her critique of Ezzo’s book. My philosophy of parenting an infant is that I am serving my child in a Christ-like fashion. She is one of the least of these, small and frail, helpless and dependent. I don't manage her, I serve her as a fellow human being and a sister in Christ through baptism. Sometimes that means that if she is bothered by teething pain, I have to get out of bed to comfort her. Sometimes that means that I need to feed her because she's hungry, even if I just fed her two hours ago and have a whole list of chores to do. (1) 

I am sure we are all personally acquainted with Christian parents who use time outs and others who use corporal punishment. We know Jewish parents who feed on a schedule and others who feed on demand. So what is it about our chosen faith that distinguishes our approach to parenting. 

First of all, speaking in terms of probabilities, I think it likely more UU parents operate under the nurturant parent model than the strict father model. Parenting responsibilities are shared and gender neutral. The child is born good and can become better. The world can be a better place and our job is to work on that. The parents’ job is to nurture their children and to raise their children to be nurturers of others. Primary values are empathy and responsibility. 

I think this is an important point to grasp. The child is not viewed in any way as coming into the world in a sinful state. We may think of them as devils from time to time, but we don’t take it literally. Some children may have more challenging personalities than others, but in and of themselves, there are no "Bad Seeds." 

My personal experience, is that there are three primary areas of concern for which UU parents can often feel unprepared and woefully inadequate to address. 

The first is the faith development of the child. There is a distinguishable pattern to how children acquire religious beliefs and incorporate them into their lives. James Fowler wrote a classic book entitled, the Stages of Faith that I believe most parents would find enlightening. Not simply because they will learn to appreciate the spiritual growth of their children, but they might learn more about themselves in the process. Fowler's research and theories are similar to the work of two famous psychologists. Jean Piaget was famous for his cognitive development theories while Kohlberg is known for his work in moral reasoning. Fowler's theory of spiritual development stretches from infancy to old age. Although not an age- related stage theory, Fowler believes that all people go through stages of spirituality during their lives. (2) 

Undifferentiated Faith

Although it is largely inaccessable to empirical research, this stage is when the foundation of faith begins to be formed and has to do with an infant's knowledge of and fondness towards the primary care giver. The baby will come to develop faith in its care giver as its needs for security and comfort are met. Transition to the next stage begins with the emergence of thought and language, which brings symbols in speech and ritual play. 

Intuitive Projective Faith

With a childs’ discovery of language and imagination, he or she begins to build an image of what life is all about. This is a very fantastical and imaginitive stage uninhibited by logic. The imagination is very active and long lasting images (both good and bad) are formed that will later be sorted out by logical and reflective thought. This stage is the first where one has self awareness. Because of strong egocentrism, the perspectives of others cannot be understood. During this stage the child begins to understand cultural taboos concerning sex and death. The use of symbols and imagery give the child an understanding about who he or she is and power to develop a feeling about that knowledge. The major step towards stage 2 is obtaining concrete operational thought. 

Mythical-Literal Faith

When one has aquired concrete operational thought he/she begins to separate what things are real and what are make-believe. The child beings to identify with the stories, beliefs and observances of the group to which they belong. Narrative becomes the major way of giving unity and value to experience. Meaning is within the story without the ability to "step out" of the story to reflect upon it and analyze it. During this stage, there is increased accuracy in taking the perspective of others and thus a morality begins to develop based upon reciprocal fairness and justice. Children, and indeed some adults, in this stage base their understanding of self and universe by the stories they hear and believe.

Synthetic-Conventional Faith

This stage begins with formal operational thought. One can examine what one believes, comparing contradictory stories. This is when one begins to form the basis for spiritual identity and outlook. For instance, which story is true, the big bang theory or the bible creation story? Which group do you believe when your information comes from family, school, work, peers, society, and religion. There must be a synthesis of values and information. The individual in Stage 3 does not take an individual perspective, but seeks to conform to the group that they belong to. This individual is very tuned into the expectations and judgments of the group and seeks to reside in an ideology rather than fully adopting an individual belief. This is "unexamined" faith. There must be a deep reflection and examination of what one believes compared to what his/her religion believes in order to move on to the next stage. 

Individuative-Reflective Faith

This is the stage when an individual is developing in two major ways. The self, previously defined from the perspective of a member of a group, "no longer depends on one's roles or meaning to others." Also as an individual, one's individual world view changes, becoming distinct from views held by others. One reflects on the symbols learned in the past and translates those symbols into concepts and ideas. This is a 'demythologizing' stage. For some adults this stage can be precipitated by changes in primary relationships, such as divorce, the death of a parent or children growing up and leaving home. Or it can result from the challenges of moving, or changing jobs. For most this change comes with the natural occurrence of leaving one's childhood home and forming one's first adult life structures. 

Conjunctive Faith

A stage 5 person is so comfortable with their place in the grand scheme of things. He or she is more interested in what is true than what he or she believes, and understands that the two might be dissimilar. They try to see from any wise perspective and are constantly creating a woven tapestry of belief. They let reality speak for itself regardless of its impact on them. This person trusts that the "known" is out there and takes the initiative to discover it. 

Universalizing Faith

People that move on to stage six overcome the cynicism of stage 5 and endeavor with everything that they are to become the reality they hope for. They wear out their lives in this pursuit through action. These are people who are often martyred by the people they hope to help. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa are some that Fowler mentions. They had visions to which they have commited their total beings. In this stage, the concept of relevant irrelevance has great importance. 

UU parents, hopefully with the help of a supportive congregation committed to a vibrant religious education program, encourage their children to progress through these stages rather than hold them back. Our reading this morning from Kahlil Gibran is an eloquent expression of this desire. One of my aunt’s once expressed to me that she would be utterly devastated if her child left the family’s faith. She honestly did not think she would be able to have a relationship with her own child if he renounced Christ as his Lord and savior. I can sympathize with her, because I think I would be similarly dismayed if one of my children stalled at stage 3 or 4 and embraced a literal form of spirituality that fails to embrace paradox and wrestle with contradiction. 

A second primary area of concern for UU parents is the authority by which we inculcate values in our children. Our living tradition acknowledges the wisdom of the world’s religions and the Jewish and Christian teachings inspiring us to love our neighbors as ourselves, but it does not provide for scriptural authority concerning morality. On what do we base our moral instruction when we cannot fall back on, “because the Bible says so,” or “because that would make God mad.” I’m going to guess that very few UU parents tell their children to behave lest they wind up in the pits of hell. Though while their misbehaving we may feel like that’s where we are. 

Humanist ethics are very much a part of UU parenting regardless of the parent’s individual faith believes and spiritual path. 

As C.S. Coon says in Progressive Humanism, A New Approach to the Humanist Philosophy, "We now know enough about human origins and human social evolution so that we can begin to develop a new perspective on this question of where ethics come from. Once we accept the fact that morality, like language and religion, is culture-specific rather than universal, the scales fall from our eyes and we see the world around us in a different and humbler light. We see that there is no morality in nature as such, there are only forces and processes that have operated over millions, even billions of years to bring about our present condition. God, at least the God we used to worship, can now be recognized as a device of the human imagination. Morality, it follows, is equally a human invention. Common sense must replace the scriptures and the priesthood as the validator of our moral code. And why not? Part of the modern humanist ethic is the core belief that humanity, not some imagined deity, is ultimately responsible for our common fate and future. We are our own saviors and redeemers, as Corliss Lamont so eloquently put it. It is up to us, just us alone, both to develop the ethical principles guiding our conduct, and, through common sense or acceptance by the majority, to validate them." (3) 

Parents will be asked, “Why is it bad to steal if I want it?” and “Why do I have to thank my soccer coach for volunteering this season?” Sometimes manners and courtesy questions can lead to great ethical discussions, so don’t brush them off.  UU Parents have to be prepared with the more than just, “because I said so.” We have to be intimately aware of our own moral and ethical standards and be able to communicate the basis by which we make these moral judgments. Additionally, UU parents should be open to having their reasoning challenged and understand the difference between their values, which may be open to change, and their convictions, which are not.  

These types of discussions are likely to arise with older children and this is where a UU congregation can support parents by insisting upon an excellent Youth group as part of their programming.

The third area of primary concern is helping children face mortality. The philosopher Thomas Nagel echoes my own sentiments regarding the fear of death. “We all accept the fact that there was a time before we were born, when we didn’t yet exist—so why should we be so disturbed at the prospect of nonexistence after our death? But somehow it doesn’t feel the same. The prospect of nonexistence is frightening, at least to many people, in a way that past nonexistence cannot be.” (4. p. 93-94) 

UU parents do not all share the same beliefs regarding human mortality, indeed parenting partners might not even have the same beliefs. Honestly, I’m not sure how a UU congregation can do much to assist in this regard since beliefs about death can tend to the dogmatic. It strikes me as a little odd to present children with the alternatives in a religious education class and send them on their way with the message to pick whichever belief suits you.  Certainly we can all be open about our beliefs regarding death and what may or may not follow. We can be respective of these differences acknowledging that there really is no way to know for certain since there isn’t a person in this room who has gone through that experience and come back to tell us the tale.  

When it comes to death, as a congregation we can help our UU parents and their children by avoiding euphemisms for death, acknowledging death openly when it occurs, dealing honestly with our grief and discomfort, be aware that children go through phases where they are intensively interested in the subject but this does not indicate any pathological morbidity on their part. Children will play-act death situations as they do everything that is part of their lives. 

UU parents should take responsibility for telling children what happens in their religious, social and family traditions when someone dies. If they do have religious beliefs that explain life after death or what death means, this can be very helpful. And of course, therein lies the dilemma and brings us full circle. How do we share our beliefs without dictating them to our children as dogma?  

We UU parents tread a very fine line, it’s a delicate balancing act. We are responsible for transmitting our beliefs and our values. We would be neglecting our duties as parents if we failed to do so. On the other hand, we honor the uniqueness of the child and encourage individuation. We nurture. We love them unconditionally providing them with a safe haven in an imperfect world. A relationship that is not predicated on who or what they are, but simply because they are. A UU congregation that cherishes this relationship and nurtures it with the support of a family-friendly inter-generational all-encompassing religious education and youth programming is worthy beyond all measure.

Peace be with you.

Ann Fuller, August 2009

Cited Resources

1. http://www.thisclassicallife.com/tclarchives/2005_03_01_index.php

2. http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d46/psy/dev/Spring01/Spirituality/fowler.html

3. http://www.progressivehumanism.com/ethics.html

4. Nagel, Thomas. What Does It All Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. Oxford University Press. New York. 1987

 

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