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I have read this thread and while I don't know how I feel about a 5-year-old being an atheist, I do know how I feel about teaching a child that a promise/vow/oath is something that MUST be honored and never to be taken lightly or "worked around".
For most parents I have met, teaching a child that a lie is a big deal and will engender punishment is one of the first things we tell the little sprout when he says that somebody else broke the lamp or his sister ate the candy when both statements are falsehoods.
You cannot sign up the boy for Cub Scouts if you allow him to treat that promise as something that doesn't matter.
Good for you.
A 5/6/7 year old really can't take any oath seriously because they don't have the tools or information needed to judge the veracity of the oath. To a child it is just words and will remain so until they form their own ideas and chose for themselves. In the meantime, IMO this just comes down to a parent choosing not to allow a child an activity they may enjoy - based on the parent's nitpicked values - not the child's.
To say that "I cannot allow them to join because I cannot allow them to swear to the oath" is like saying I cannot allow my child to walk down the street because they do not know the entirety of US federal and state laws and therefore they might do or say something against a law and they should not be in public unless and until they fully appreciate and decide to abide by all laws - that's a lot to expect from a 6 year old.
To me it is an argument based on selfishness and not on the child's best interests.
Last edited by blktoptrvl; 10-11-2018 at 12:07 PM..
A 5/6/7 year old really can't take any oath seriously because they don't have the tools or information needed to judge the veracity of the oath. To a child it is just words and will remain so until they form their own ideas and chose for themselves. In the meantime, IMO this just comes down to a parent choosing not to allow a child an activity they may enjoy - based on the parent's nitpicked values - not the child's.
I am curious, as a parent, which of your values would you say are important to instill and which are nitpicks? Do you have values?
Of course a child can't take an oath seriously. That is why we should not be asking them to make them! Not starting young on how to dissemble to get what you want. I know that is a high bar for some.
Quote:
To say that "I cannot allow them to join because they cannot allow them to sear to the oath" is like saying I cannot allow my child to walk down the street because they do not know the entirety of US federal and state laws and therefore they might do something against a law that they cannot really appreciate.
To me it is an argument based on selfishness and not on the child's best interests.
To me it sounds like a well thought out decision taken by a good parent. The child's best interest is definitely better served by the long term goal of integrity than getting to play with the other kids in that one group.
I agree with what you are saying. I also didn't meant to indicate your dad is a bad person, but the truth is he is lying to the organization. He may be comfortable with that, I am not.
His 40 years of service to his scouts, his troop, his council, his OA lodge, and to the organization in general, strongly say otherwise, and I can vouch for that, as I've witnessed each one of those 40 years.
Because the parent has an agenda and is using his child as an excuse to further his agenda. Unfortunately the child is being used as a tool to voice his objection to God. He could just have the child join some other club but then he couldn't get his atheist viewpoints across.
While I thought my suggestion was an acceptable work around, the OP doesn't, and I respect that.
I'm a Christian woman, as a Christian woman, I can accept and applaud that this father wants to instill honesty and forthrightness in his child. It's his perrogative to do as he will here.
Because the OP is more concerned with having an argument, than with the social well-being of his son.
Next step would be to make the kid the test case for bringing a perfectly justifiable separation of church and state lawsuit to get the words "under God" out of the pledge of allegiance. He could spend most of his son's childhood on that lawsuit, and scar the kid for life. Heck of a lot easier than actually interacting with the kid, being a dad, and putting the effort in to raise a happy, socially well-adjusted child.
I've seen a lot of these kind of fathers in my line of work. They often want to argue about everything - immunizations, fluoridated water, the sort of stuff that most of us just accept as mainstream. They're people who are on the autistic spectrum, very controlling, have poor social skills, and raise children who are miserable and socially isolated, because the parent simply cannot see another person's point of view, in the same way that someone who is totally tone deaf cannot carry a tune.
This father cannot see that his 5 yr old WANTS to be with and like the other boys in his grade, and wants to participate in scouting. Instead, he's going to take a stand on the exceedingly minor role that god plays in their oath, and make the kid miserable and isolated. Of course, Dad will use money that says on it, "In God We Trust", even though that too violates his atheism, because it's convenient for him to use money. His life would be made incredibly difficult if he decided that he would not use money. So he tacitly goes along with it. But his KID, now, that's much easier for him to make the kid comply with Dad's beliefs. Dad doesn't suffer at all by it. And since he cannot see how anyone else feels, he cannot see that it's a hardship on the kid to not be allowed to participate in cub scouts.
Because the OP is more concerned with having an argument, than with the social well-being of his son.
Next step would be to make the kid the test case for bringing a perfectly justifiable separation of church and state lawsuit to get the words "under God" out of the pledge of allegiance. He could spend most of his son's childhood on that lawsuit, and scar the kid for life. Heck of a lot easier than actually interacting with the kid, being a dad, and putting the effort in to raise a happy, socially well-adjusted child.
I've seen a lot of these kind of fathers in my line of work. They often want to argue about everything - immunizations, fluoridated water, the sort of stuff that most of us just accept as mainstream. They're people who are on the autistic spectrum, very controlling, have poor social skills, and raise children who are miserable and socially isolated, because the parent simply cannot see another person's point of view, in the same way that someone who is totally tone deaf cannot carry a tune.
This father cannot see that his 5 yr old WANTS to be with and like the other boys in his grade, and wants to participate in scouting. Instead, he's going to take a stand on the exceedingly minor role that god plays in their oath, and make the kid miserable and isolated. Of course, Dad will use money that says on it, "In God We Trust", even though that too violates his atheism, because it's convenient for him to use money. His life would be made incredibly difficult if he decided that he would not use money. So he tacitly goes along with it. But his KID, now, that's much easier for him to make the kid comply with Dad's beliefs. Dad doesn't suffer at all by it. And since he cannot see how anyone else feels, he cannot see that it's a hardship on the kid to not be allowed to participate in cub scouts.
THAT'S why this thread has gone on so long.
You're making a lot of bold assumptions about how I act as a father and my relationship with my child. I'm not easily offended but this is quite frankly very offensive.
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