Child’s right to religion vs. inertia of tradition

By Susantha Hewa

When parents are of the same faith, it is absurd to ask whose religion- either the father’s or the mother’s, the child is going to adopt, unless the question is asked by a rascally neighbour to denigrate a noticeable want of ‘religiosity’ of one of the parents. Say, for example, that the mother is quite devout while the father appears to be the very incarnation of sin, the scamp might ask, tongue in cheek, whose ‘religion’ is the little brat going to pursue – to mean, whether he is going to emulate the maternal piety or the paternal depravity.

However, if the parents are of different faiths, the question whether the child is to inherit either the father’s religion or that of the mother can only indicate curiosity; not derision as seen above. Of course, now the question sounds pertinent and reasonable because, usually a child takes only either the mother’s or the father’s. Secondly, as many people believe, religion influences a person’s character and outlook on life, not to mention what he may think of the ‘next’ world. However, often the next question, “Why, or why not, mother’s/father’s?” is suppressed as it may put the parents on the spot. However, the fixing of the child’s faith is worth some consideration as it may uncover some worrying issues about the ‘naturalness’ attributed to the tradition of parents passing their religion to children’s; issues that usually go unnoticed when parents happen to be of the same faith, which is more the norm than the exception.

First, let’s look at the norm the same-faith marriage where the child follows the parents’ shared faith. Say, for example, the parents are Christians. Naturally, the child will be groomed to be Christian. Nobody thinks of asking “why” if he wouldn’t want to be regarded as screwy. However, if one parent happens to be Buddhist, the apparent ‘naturalness’ of faith passing from parents to child becomes problematic, because the child is denied of one of them. Further, it puts into perspective different criteria the parents are compelled to apply in deciding what the child’s faith would be. Will the criteria be secular or religious, or both? For example, will the parents have to consider the relative material advantages of the child being a Christian or a Buddhist ; say for example, when seeking admission to a ‘prestigious’ school or such other paybacks? Think of the very idea of such secular considerations coming to taint such spiritual concerns! What is more pertinent, it forces us to reflect on the “child’s right” to a religion, which should overrule the “parents’ right” to impose one on him based on not so purely ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ reasons.

What if the parents are equally serious about their faith? Surely, it would make the matter of agreeing on the child’s faith more difficult. If they are not going to toss a coin to settle the matter, one has to give in, and so won’t the ‘yielding’ party feel pangs of conscience coming from a sense of laxity of faith? And, if, for example the Christian parent were to acquiesce, would it be more of a ‘sacrifice’ than it would be, if she or he were Buddhist, or vice versa? Given that not all religions are equally demanding of the devotion of the followers, wouldn’t the more intransigent religion determine the outcome? How fair is it for the child as well as the more pliable parent of the less obdurate faith? All these vexing problems can be avoided by the blatantly secular method of trying your luck with a tossed coin. No damage to either the conjugal love or the religious zeal of either parent. Nor would the compliant party be maligned behind closed doors by the more conformist relatives for his or her lack of religious ‘committment’. How dependent can we be on commonplace manipulating techniques, when we allowed love to take precedence over religion in the matter of tying the knot!

Now, what about the snug complacency we feel about the ‘naturalness’ of the transmission of religion from parents to the child? Should the next child be initiated into the other faith to bring about a sense of fairness and balance? Come to think of it, such problems would be less vexing if both parents were less devout or if their religions were more accommodating. Just think how expedient it would be for the young people aspiring to enter wedlock if they were shrewdly unromantic and stoic enough to find their dream partner strictly from the same religious flock! Not a bit like intermarriage between people from two different disciplines, say, physics and biology; little chance of the parents having to worry about whether the posterity would be physicists or biologists.

Let’s look for other options available for the woebegone parents. If the tradition of inheritance is to be honoured without considering practical problems, the child is to be exposed to both religions simultaneously by taking him to the Church as well as the Temple and making him participate in the respective rituals and helping him to be familiar with the relevant narratives, etc. Here, we are faced with two issues. First, will the kid get his wires crossed? After all, it is totally different from a kid being exposed to two or more languages, where he will acquire all of them with no confusion. However, exposure to two religions is a different ball game altogether, where each has its quota of absolute claims irreconcilable with those of the other. If, by any chance, he is going to get confused, he would denounce both out of desperation and ruin his chances of being ‘religious’, whichever faith it may be. Second, on the moral front, no one would know whether two religions would do a better job in making him extra virtuous or, conversely, move into a moral labyrinth. Therefore, there seems to be more to it than meets the eye as regards the seemingly ‘natural and uncomplicated’ practice of parents using their ‘prerogative’ to mould their children in their faith.

We have yet another option, which is to expose him to neither religion till he grows up and begins to take an interest in it. However, hardly any parent would consider this option favourably because it amounts to a disavowal of their mandate to initiate him into a religion, whatever it may be. Secondly, later, as an adolescent he may not take any interest in the ‘subject’ of religion because a person coming to know a religion past his early childhood wouldn’t perhaps want to study it unless it entails some benefits, academic or otherwise. And, if he studies it using his general learning skills as all adults do, it is unlikely that he would be affected by it in anyway comparable to how it would affect someone who acquires it as a child in the conventional way. “Imbibing” a religion as a child would make him a devotee whereas “learning” it cognitively as an adult would make him a dispassionate student of it. And, the latter process of learning it as an adult would not involve the unavoidable and intricate process of inducing belief in multiple ways. As such, learning any modern-day religion as an adult would not be any different from learning any primeval religion where the learner is unlikely to be devoted to it. In other words, it wouldn’t be any different from learning any other subject- from physics and biology to history and anthropology. If he becomes passionate about it, he would end up becoming a scholar/researcher of religion, but there would be no danger of his passion making him a fanatic, who would even give his life or take the life of others in its interest or propagation.

What all this focuses on is the question of child’s right to religion- the right to choose his or her religion if and when he or she is ready. Nowadays, there would be few who would endorse a tradition where parents decide on their child’s future partner when she or he is still a toddler. Can the hoary tradition of parents imposing their religion on their children be any different, although hardly anybody would doubt their integrity and good intentions?