I had one of *those* talks with my mother.

[treeskin]

You know, the talks where you find yourself biting your tongue half the time, not saying what you
really feel in order to keep the peace. At least she wasn't ranting about something I or my sister did. Or maybe not. That would have been something I'd have stood up to.

Most of my friends know my mom teaches at a small rural Kansas school district (or you do now). She teaches fifth and sixth grade science and social studies, and a reading class, her largest class has 26 students. Small school. The local folks will also remember that Kansans voted a conservative state school board back into office, and the evolution/creation in schools debate is heating up again.

Anyway, the phone call....

While my mom sat there and told me she didn't like the increasing push for teaching Intelligent Design in science classrooms, she also said she wasn't that worried about it. That ID was covered in material covered in junior high and high school, and it wasn't her problem. I'm not comfortable with that position, but I can understand that she already has a lot on her plate in her job.

What really got me was her statement, "you know, you just can't teach social studies without bringing up the Bible." ??????? She went on to tell me how her students got excited when they figured out the Sumerians in her class were the same people they learned about in Sunday school. And then, the kicker: when her students asked her about the overlap, she tells them that just proves that the Bible is true.

Gods above and below.

I couldn't think of anything to say to that. And I should have, because I know that were I a parent whose child came home and told me about this, I'd be up in arms, and on a march to the school district's office with a complaint. Not because she's not a good teacher, because I think she is in most ways, but because it's a public school, and "this proves the Bible is true" has absolutely no place in a fifth-grade social studies class.

There are so many other ways that question could have been answered, starting with simply, "these are two ways of looking at the same events" and moving back to the topic. Mom says she's also told her students she's not supposed to mention God in the classroom, and the way she repeated herself to me sounded...like an instruction she disagreed with, something she'll follow in the surface, but break in spirit.

Until now, my mom's conscience and strong stand for teaching the basics, without frills and Powerpoint, has maintained my belief that some public schools still perform the function for which they were founded. But Mom told me flat out last night that she thinks I got a better education than her current students are getting, simply because of curriculum changes and the month spent on state and federal testing. She's probably right. Between that, and well-meaning people like my mother bringing God into the public schools, I've got to worry about the generation that getting ready to start school.



I guess this is one more thing that shows how people become what they surround themselves with. Mom starting going to church actively (2-3 times a week, in a town 50 miles away) about seven years ago, and she's becoming more conservative each year. The more often she's going to church, the more comments she makes to By & I about attending church with her when she visits. Or about my sister's conversion to Catholicism (which she disapproves of highly, because we all know Catholics are idol-worshipping and misguided, just a step up from the pagans). Or comments about how she thinks all children should go to Sunday school, from an early age, because they learn to sit still and pay attention there (nothing a good preschool wouldn't do).

It hurts to see, because it seems like a switch is thrown whenever God is mentioned, that turns off the analytical and questioning part of her brain. And Mom's a smart woman, in most areas of her life. She's so matter-of-fact about her Christianity, so blinded now to anything else that might exist.

I should have had the religion talk with Mom years ago; it looks impossible now. The world outside her church windows is very different from the world under my tree.

Comments

[treeskin.livejournal.com]

I've been having this argument with myself for years. You're not saying anything that I haven't said to myself.

I've considered myself pagan since 17, I just didn't try to practice until I'd left her house. My reasons for not coming out to her early on were good-intentioned. In that one year (1990)I'd been through some serious sexual trauma (more than once, one incident occuring in her house), watched three older relatives die of cancer, and dealt with the aftermath when the art teacher at our school (who was a friend of Mom's) shot his family and then himself. I didn't bring it up then, because Mom already had a LOT to deal with. Then I went off to college, joined marching band, and couldn't come home as often as she wanted me to, and she was very upset about that. So again, I kept quiet, not wanting to rock the boat any more that I already had. At the end of my first year, I moved in with Byron, Mom and I had some very painful arguments (mostly about how inappropriate it would look for her daughter to live with a boy), and after that we more or less didn't speak for two years. And again, I said nothing.

Not saying that keeping quiet was the wisest thing to do any of these times, just presenting what was happening and why. I've lived with not showing my complete self to my family for 15+ years now, and I'm used to it. Not happy about it, but I am used to it. Barring one or other of us shifting further away from center (which is possible, I admit, I'm as liberal as she is conservative), I can keep going this way. The relationship was damaged a long time ago, by a lot of little things Mom thinks were unimportant. I was reconciled to that distance with the family before I left the church.

Part of why I've not said anything recently was that in order to explain my faith to her, I'd have to explain why I made the choices I did. I simply don't have the energy to tell my mother that I was raped by my senior prom date under her roof. That experience (and the times later) ties in very strongly to why I left the church and became pagan, I don't know if I could explain one without the other. Before, I couldn't talk about it at all, now I don't see the need. Not knowing this doesn't hurt her. And I think knowing would, because she'd find my not telling her as hurtful as the fact that it happened. (My family's weird that way. We all hide stuff from each other, to spare people's feelings, then get mad when we find out, because the person invovled hadn't broadcast it to the world.)

Now, none of the above was a good reason for not saying something about the God in school comments. I should have. I was just so surprised to hear those words coming from my mother, I didn't know what to say. I'm thinking about that now, about how to bring it up, so it does make her think, and it's not hurtful.

[c3fyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know...:( No easy solution, and we've talked some about this stuff before. It just pains me to see it, sometimes, and I wish you (and several others in my tribe) didn't have to make these choices. It really sucks. And it makes me rather angry at people's parentals/family in general that any of us have to creep around and pretend to be what we aren't. *sigh* Anyhow, hope I didn't sound unsympathetic, I sympathise entirely with so much of it. Possibly see you tonight at FF?

[treeskin.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say that I pretend to be something I'm not, I just don't admit all that I am in front of Mom. So there are gaps in what I present to her, and I expect she's perceptive to enough to pick that up. But we're both polite, and tired of an already strained extended family (as in, Mom's not speaking to one of her brothers, and rarely talks to the other, for various reasons), so neither of us say anything.

By will be at First Friday, I'm going to stay home and go to bed early. I started the work week with two nights of 5 hrs sleep, and that's just not enough.