Originally published at National Catholic Register
In a recent parenting-advice column published by Slate titled, “We Put Our Kindergartner in Catholic School. Uh, We Never Expected She’d Actually Start to Believe,” a nonbelieving parent shared that she was disturbed her daughter “loved the Catholic teachings” she was taught in kindergarten at her local Catholic school.
“The stories they are learning and how they are taught are very appealing to a young child, and I know that, even when she gets older, my daughter might just be someone who is attracted to religion and spirituality in a way that I never was,” the girl’s mother, writing anonymously under the sobriquet “Jesus Is Not the Reason for My Season.”
“I also get that the ‘we are made of stardust’ is not exactly [the] warmest and fuzziest thought. Lately, however, she has been asking really pointed questions about what I believe, and I’m not quite sure how to answer them,” she continued. “For example, the other day, she asked if I believed in Jesus, if I believed that Adam and Eve were real, and on and on. I tried asking her what she believed, but she just asked me again: ‘I want to know what you believe.’”
“The short
