Aug 13 2007
Tradition
I call my mother once a week, sometimes more if something big and family-related is going down. I’ve been told this is unusual behavior for people my age who don’t have children - apparently they stay in closer contact with their parents. It’s not that I don’t enjoy talking to my mother, but an hour phone call leaves me emotionally exhausted, for reasons that are entirely within my control.
Something she said during my weekly phone call yesterday really bugged me. She’s having some difficulties coping with the marital arrangements, largely based on her own beliefs regarding god and religion.
I should point out that while I was baptized Catholic and attended church and CCD regularly for some periods of my life, I never received first communion or confirmation. I was allowed to attend all sorts of differing religious services with friends, and I have always held a degree of respect for religion and religious people. I went through a period where I wanted very much to be religious because I felt something in my spirit was lacking.
But I don’t feel that way anymore. I’ve finally become comfortable enough with the fact that the beliefs I grew up having in the shadows and never really actively acknowledged are not my beliefs anymore, and I’m okay with that. I’m better than okay with that. I’m happy with it.
My mother is a good person and she has a good heart but she does not understand that I am an atheist. Practically, she doesn’t understand that as an atheist, any rituals I see as predominantly religious in nature, I would feel like a farce being a part of. And as I am talking to her about the planned marriage ceremony - she tells me I should dunk the rings in holy water first because that’s what a priest would do in a catholic church.
I’m pissed. But I say matter-of-factly, “why would I do that? I’m not Catholic. Michael’s not Catholic.”
And she responds, “but you were baptized Catholic.”
and I tell her, “I’ve renounced my baptism. I am not Catholic. I don’t believe in God. I am an atheist.”
and she changes the subject very quickly. It makes me wonder what she would have done if I had actually married the Jewish ex-bf, especially since I liked temple far more than I ever liked a church service.
And how she and the rest of my uber-religious family will react to the totally relaxed party we’ll throw in October. Or to the no-baptism thing if/when we choose to have kids. It really doesn’t bother me if they think I’m going to hell so long as they don’t talk to me about it.
But it hurts me when my mother, who I think used to understand me pretty well, doesn’t get it. Doesn’t understand that her beliefs are her beliefs, that her traditions are her traditions and that some of those beliefs and traditions I’ll keep, and others I’ll make my own. That’s what every generation does.
K.
The contents of this blog entry may not reflect the views of the Webmaster of Doom, Michael.
this was part of the reason I eloped too, though she didn’t say anything like “dunk rings in holy water blahblah.”
Dad was pretty much agnostic at the end there. I used to have atheism discussions with him and over time he changed to a more agnostic/atheistic view. You probably talked to him about that stuff too.