Raising Freethinkers is released
Okay, my precious Memlings, come and get it… đ
Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief
Book Description
Praised by Newsweek as âa compelling readâ and Library Journal as âaccessible and down-to-earth,â Dale McGowanâs Parenting Beyond Belief offered freethinking parents everywhere a compassionate introduction to raising caring, ethical children without religious guidance. Now, for the more than 40 million people in the United States who identify themselves as nonreligious, Raising Freethinkers offers solutions to the unique challenges secular parents face and provides specific answers to common questions, as well as over 100 activities for both parents and their children.
This book covers every important topic nonreligious parents need to know to help their children with their own moral and intellectual development, including advice on religious-extended-family issues, death and life, secular celebrations, wondering and questioning, and more.
Complete with reviews of books, DVDs, curricula, educational toys, and online resources relevant to each chapter topic, Raising Freethinkers helps parents raise their children with confidence.
From the Back Cover
âI raised my own freethinking sons not that long ago, and I had little choice but to do it without much practical support. This book is the best, most comprehensive comÂpendium of secular parenting strategies and tips I can imagine. It shows how, without the aid of any supernatural overseer, you can raise kids who are moral, compassionate, curious, and fully aware of the nuances of a truly civilized human society.â
–Susan K. Perry, Ph.D., social psychologist and author of Playing Smart and Loving in Flow, creativity blogger for PsychologyToday.com, and advice columnist for Netscape.com and TheCradle.com
When the book first arrived, I riffled through it, found two errors, and set it aside for a week.1 When I finally picked it up and read in earnest, I was thrilled. It really is exactly what we wanted it to be, and, I hope, just what was needed.
Many thanks to Amanda, Jan, and Molleen for their superb work on this project!
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1In answer to the many questions I’m now getting, the errors were small. The headers in Appendix 1 are hard to read because of the shading used, and one time when I intended to say “Nurture curiosity while it’s natural and wild,” I apparently typed “Hail Satan, father of lies.” I’m sure most people won’t even notice it.
Buy Raising Freethinkers
at last
Of all the unbearably wonderful inaugural moments, this is one I can’t resist sharing.
Back on topic soon.
Seminar news in game show form
Match the nicknames to the cities:
1. Chicago
2. Colorado Springs
3. New York
A. The Big Apple
B. The Windy City
C. The Vatican of Evangelical Christianity
Well done! Bonus round:
Q: What do all three cities have in common?
A. All three include the letter O as in “Obama”
B. All three exclude the letter B as in “Bush”
C. All three are hosting the Parenting Beyond Belief seminar in the coming weeks
D. All of the above
(Answer: D as in “Dale is punchy with writer’s fatigue and posting gibberish.”)
If you’ll be in one of these cities on the dates indicated, why not click on a link below and register for the seminar? I promise to get some sleep before I get there.
Chicago (Jan 24)
Colorado Springs (Mar 1)
New York (Brooklyn) (Mar 28)
“…and a nation of nonbelievers”
I wrote a while back about the fact that President Barack Obama — gosh lemme say that again, actual friggin’ no kidding President Barack Obama— was raised in a nonreligious home.
Now the American Humanist Association has congratulated Obama with an ad in the inaugural edition of the Washington Post:
And how lovely — how surpassingly, achingly, tearfully lovely — that that final meme sounds again and again in Obama’s work, from The Audacity of Hope to a speech in 2006 to the Inaugural Address itself:
Whatever we once were, are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
That’s a meme worth keeping very much alive.
I’d like to buy another consonant [Greatest Hits]
[Another favorite from the archives. Next new post on Groundhog Day.]
First appeared on Sept 25, 2007
Went with Delaney to the “Dads ‘n’ Donuts” event at her school the other day. A fine selection. We finished eating and socializing in the gym a bit early, so we sauntered back to her kindergarten classroom. A couple of dads were already there, being toured by the hand around the classroom by their progeny. Laney grabbed my hand and we joined the conga line.
“This is where alllll of the books are,” Laney said. “And that’s the whiteboard. Here’s the globe, and the puppets…and this,” she gestured proudly, “is my desk!”
I barely heard the last two, since I was still riveted on the whiteboard — which, oh-by-the-way, had THIS on it — scroll ye down:
.
.
.
.
.
.
THIS WEEK!
I am neither making this up nor exaggerating its appearance. Much. The actual medium was dry-erase markers, not tie-dye, but that is amazingly close to the actual appearance of the glorious crux splendidior on the whiteboard in my daughter’s public school classroom.
And what a cross it was! Every color of the rainbow! I’d have burst into a chorus of Crown Him with Many Crowns if not for eleven or twelve things.
DĂ©jĂ vu. I flashed back to the near-encounter with FAITH at Curriculum Night. But this one was in full view. If anyone else had me in view, they’d have surely assumed I’d suffered a small but effective stroke. I was completely frozen and trying to stay that way. Time stopped, looked at me funny, then continued on its way. I knew that if I came to, I’d leap onto a chair and point and squeal “CROSS! CRAWWWWWWSSSSS!!” I’d have no choice: the point-and-shriek is mandated for all encounters with crosses in the by-laws of the Atheist-Vampire Accords of 1294.
A little girl entered my periphery, guiding her father by the hand. “And this,” she said, pointing to the cross, “is what we’re learning about this week!”
She paused for dramatic effect, then announced, with pedantic precision, “Lower-case t!”
What if she comes anyway? [Greatest Hits]
[I’m up against a conundrum within a paradox. Between now and February 1 I have the busiest two weeks of my freelance writing life, including resumption of the job I loved and left behind when I left Minneapolis — U.S. Communications Coordinator for Nonviolent Peaceforce. But Raising Freethinkers is also due to launch in a matter of moments, so this is no time to abandon the Meming of Life. My solution is a short series of “greatest hits” — five or six of the most popular posts from the past two years. Enjoy, and I’ll see you again with new thoughts on Groundhog Day.]
What if she comes anyway?
First appeared on October 10, 2007
Her name was first spoken in hushed tones among children all over America [over] twenty years ago. Even in Sweden folklorists reported Bloody Mary’s fame. Children of all races and classes told of the hideous demon conjured by chanting her name before a mirror in a pitch-dark room. And when she crashes through the glass, she mutilates children before killing them. Bloody Mary is depicted in Miami kids’ drawings with a red rosary that, the secret stories say, she uses as a weapon, striking children across the face.
from “Myths Over Miami” by Lynda Edwards in the Miami New Times, Sept. 1997
“Dad?”
“Yeah, B?” It was Erin, my nine-year-old, nicknamed “The B.”
“Can you come into the bathroom with me?”
“Why, you need to talk about something?” Our family has an odd habit: one person sits on the edge of the tub and chats up the person on the commode. A gift from my wife’s side.
“No…I’m scared to go in there.”
“It’s the middle of the day, B.”
“I know, but…Daddy, just come in with me.”
“Not ’til you tell me what you’re afraid of.”
She hesitated — then said, “The mirror.”
“What about the mirror?”
She leaned in and whispered, “Bloody Mary.”
I resisted the urge to say, No thanks, I’ll have a Tanqueray and tonic. I knew just what she meant. I was a kid too, you know.
“DesirĂ©e at school says if you turn off the lights and turn around three times in front of the mirror with your eyes closed and say Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, then open your eyes — a woman all covered in blood will be looking at you from in the mirror!”
A quiver-chill went through me. I was a kid again. I remember exactly how it felt to hear such ghastly things whispered by a true believer. Their wide-eyed conviction always did a fine job of convincing me as well. But in my day, Bloody Mary came crashing through the glass at you — a detail Erin didn’t seem to need to hear.
“So just go in, leave the light on, and don’t spin around or say the name, B.” I knew how hopelessly lame a thing that was to say. What if she comes anyway? Once the concept is in your head, why, the very thought of Bloody Mary might conjure her up. She might appear just because she knows I know! And she knows I know she knows I know!
“Okay, I’ll go with you. But you know what I’m gonna do.”
“NO DADDY!”
We went eye to eye. “Sweetie, tell me the truth. Do you think Bloody Mary is real, or just a story?”
She looked away. “Just a story.”
“So why be afraid of a story?” Again, I know. Lame! Yes, it’s true, it’s just a story — but ultimately, in our human hearts and reptile brains, such a defense against fear is hopelessly lame.
Her forehead puckered into a plead. “But Daddy, even if she’s just a story — what if she comes anyway?”
See? I remember.
She sat on the lid of the toilet, whimpering.
I turned out the lights. Nooooohohohoho, she
began to moan, with a dash of fourth-grade melodrama.
_______________________________
I walked into the bathroom myself and pulled the curtains. She followed, timidly, cupping her hand by her eyes to avoid the vanity mirror. “You don’t have to come in if you dont want to, B,” I said. She sat on the lid of the toilet, whimpering. I turned out the lights. Nooooohohohoho, she began to moan, with a dash of fourth-grade melodrama.
I walked to the mirror and began to turn. Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary! I opened my eyes. “See?” I knocked on the mirror. “Helloooooo! Hey lady! Look B, nobody’s home!”
Erin peeled her hands from her eyes and squealed with delight. “I’m gonna do it!”
She walked slowly to the mirror, trembling with anticipation. Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary…Bloody Mary! She peeked through her fingers.
“Eeeeeheeheeheehee!” she squealed delightedly, jumped up and down, hugged me. But if you believe she was cured — if you think Daddy’s words were really enough to slay the dragon — then you were never a kid. Maybe we said her name too fast, you see, or too slow, or or or maybe we didn’t believe in her enough. Maybe she just can’t be tricked by skeptical dads into showing herself. Erin didn’t say any of these things, but I know she was thinking them. And sure enough, the very next day, Erin was requiring bodyguards in the bathroom again.
I haven’t tried to talk her out of it. To paraphrase Swift, you can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into in the first place. For a while, it’s even a little bit fun to believe such a thing is possible. And thinking I could talk her out of it anyway would be denying an inescapable fact: that when I pulled my own hands from my eyes in that darkened bathroom and saw the mirror, the rationalist, just for a tiny fraction of a second, dropped back and hid behind me as my little boy heart raced at the question that never quite completely goes away:
What if she comes anyway?
[For one of the most hair-raising and powerful essays I’ve ever read, see the full text of Lynda Edwards’ gripping 1997 piece on the Bloody Mary story as told among the homeless children of Miami — complete with illustrations.]
A (really) new kind of politics
Okay, okay. OKAY! I keep getting a drip drip drip of emails asking me to weigh in on Obama ‘s decision to invite pastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation.
At first I thought it was a strange and galling. Warren is awful on several issues, though admittedly good on several others. Then, with the help of several smart commentators on the left, I began to see it very differently.
It began with the benefit of doubt. The more I observe him and learn about him, the more my opinion climbs regarding Obama’s intellect and values. Since it started quite high, that’s saying something. So when I find myself thinking he’s done something stupid, I have to take a moment to see if he’s actually figured something out that I haven’t yet.
I’m convinced that’s the case with the Warren invitation.
Most of our left-wing chatter about “change” — let’s be honest — has really meant “doing things our way for once.” But Obama and his team are thinking on a whole new level. The answer to the favorite caustic headline on progressive blogs since the Warren invite — some snide version of “THIS is Change We Can Believe In??” — is Yes, dammit, it is!
Every President-elect talks about reaching across the aisle after an election, of “healing the divisions that plague our nation,” blah blah blah. Until now they haven’t been all that serious. Oh, they’d meet with leaders from the other party to repeat their platitudes, appoint a member of the opposing party as Secretary of Feng Shui — but it always stopped at such window-dressing. Until now.
Those of us who’ve obsessively studied this man for the past two years should have seen this coming. When Obama joined the Harvard Law Review, the organization was bitterly divided between a conservative faction called the Federalist Society and…well, everyone else. From his first days on the Review, Obama (in the disbelieving words of a fellow progressive on the Review) “spent time with [members of the Federalists] socially — something I would never do.” And when he became president of the Review, Obama appointed not one, but three Federalists to top editorial positions.
Did he do this because he agreed with them? Hardly. He did it because, as the inelegant but spot-on proverb puts it, he’d rather have them inside the tent pissing out. He was in charge, but he had the confidence to allow everyone a real voice. A real voice. And it’s not just for show — as many of those in his inner circles have noted, he genuinely wants and needs to hear everyone.
Now consider the whole fracas over Obama’s expressed willingness to talk to our enemies, including Ahmadinejad. Conservatives hooted with derision: You’d be endorsing evildoers!
No, liberals replied. It’s essential to build relationships and keep communication open, especially with our enemies. Isn’t that obvious?
But now that our own issues and enemies are involved, we seem not to be able to see the same principle at work. Instead, we liberals hoot: You’re endorsing evildoers!
For all his wrongheadedness on key issues, Rick Warren has shown a willingness to reach across the aisle, to open lines of communication when others have refused, often angering his team in the process. Obama has seized this opening despite their differences. In so doing, he may help moderate evangelical attitudes toward him. By co-opting one of their generals with a gracious gesture of inclusion that goes beyond the usual tokenism, he has quite possibly made it easier to move forward on several fronts. And progress on those fronts matters much more than the opportunity to pack the inaugural moment with partisan purity.
So before we declare ourselves utterly betrayed, let’s at least consider the possibility that the us-vs.-them politics we’re angrily demanding is less helpful in the long run than Obama’s longsighted approach. If the operative root of progressive is progress, I think Obama just may be more progressive than those of us who elected him.
More on Obama’s tenure as president of the Harvard Law Review
An outstanding column by E.J. Dionne on the Warren choice
THANK YOU
Fully 72 hours before the annual visit of the Solstice Monkey, the Parenting Beyond Belief Solstice Drive is over, and I’m simply at a loss for words.
As of yesterday morning, thanks to the humanistic generosity of the many friends of this site, we had raised 53 percent of the year’s operating and upgrading debt. I was thrilled and humbled by your willingness to help out with this effort so I can continue to offer and improve on this level of support for nonreligious parents.
Then last night, my thrilled-and-humbled-ometer blew out completely as Richard Hendricks and Angie Lemon — an Austin couple who attended my recent seminar there — retired the remainder of the debt in a single stroke.
A note from Richard and Angie:
My wife and I would like to thank Dale for all he does for the secular parenting community. As secular humanists, we understand that all we have to rely upon is each other, so the help and generosity we show to one another is especially precious. And so we decided that we could make a real difference here, and support the kind of community we would like to see grow, by paying off the rest of the website’s fees for the year. Thank you Dale for all your hard work.
Richard Hendricks
Angie Lemon
Austin, TX
Parenting our son beyond belief since 11/8/2002
You are so welcome. Thank you, Richard and Angie, and many, many thanks again to all who participated.
Though the donation button will appear again at some point to defray ongoing expenses, this is the first and last time I’ll ever mention it. Now that we are out from under that financial unpleasantness, I plan to turn our efforts outward. Watch for an exciting new charitable initiative in early ’09.
In the meantime, start scattering bananas to get the Monkey through that longest night!
Go Crimson!
I want my ashes scattered on the streets of a big university town. They may very well be my favorite places on Earth — and what better way to express affection than showering your beloved with charred carbon?
Spending the weekend in and around Harvard Square in Cambridge reminded me so much of Berkeley I could hardly stand it. I can see now why they call Harvard “The Berkeley of the East.” (Heh.)
I remember how overloaded my 18-year-old senses were, a newly-minted freshman on Telegraph Avenue, 400 miles and a thousand light years from home. I was completely overwhelmed for the first six weeks, then gradually reached that epiphanic moment when you realize you don’t have to process or understand everything — that it’s OK to co-exist with the unfamiliar.
I began to tolerate, then like, then embrace and explore the whole incredible exciting mess. It changed me for good, in both senses of that phrase. I hope and suspect my kids will ignore the pathetic Deputy-Dog faces on their parents and dive into a university town far from home.
The weekend at Harvard was simply phenomenal. I had the pleasure at last of meeting Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain and all-around force-of-nature Greg Epstein, who placed my name in nomination for Harvard Humanist of the Year several months ago and who organized the whole shebang.
One of many high points of the weekend was learning from Greg, over a post-seminar pint at the pub, that my work first came to his attention just days after PBB was released. It wasn’t the book that caught his eye, but this very blog, so young at the time that its umbilical stump was still hanging on.
Greg was being brutalized that week for referring to Dawkins et al. as atheist “fundamentalists” (note the quotes, which change the meaning, too subtly for some). Duncan Crary (communications director for the Institute for Humanist Studies) suggested that he check out a particular post on a new blog called the Meming of Life. Titled “Unholier than thou,” the post was my own irritated response to those who were barking that my approach toward religion was too conciliatory:
One of the less helpful notions in orthodox religious thought is the idea that there is a very small circle in which we may dance….
One of the frankly hilarious features of the freethought world is our tendency to reproduce this irritating feature of religion in our own way by twisting ourselves in knots just as Gordian, just as asphyxiating, defining ever-smaller circles around ourselves and spurning those outside the circle as insufficiently pure.
Letâs call this syndrome âunholier-than-thouâ (UTT).
Do you have UTT? Some symptoms to watch for:
1. Insisting that anyone who does not share your taste for slurs and epithets against religious believers is âgutless.â
2. Arguing endlessly about labels (atheist vs. humanist, humanist vs. secular humanist, atheist vs. nontheist, disbeliever vs. nonbeliever vs. nonreligious, ad infinitum). Insisting that any one label is obviously right or obviously wrong is a classic sign of UTT. Seek professional help.
3. Attempting to banish another person from the (un)sacred circle by claiming s/he has a connection to some form of thought or way of life less rigorously rational and secularly pure than oneâs own. The secular equivalent of screaming WIIIIITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Other high points of the weekend included the fact that Becca came with me, that the talk and seminar were well-received, seeing the good and great August Brunsman, Amanda Metskas, and Kate Miller again, meeting blog regulars Ryan and Jim — and that Bex and I got to walk around in snow and then leave without shoveling it.
Then there’s the thing that continues to move and energize me — other people’s stories. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not that kind of guy in general. But for some reason I never tire of hearing personal variations on the theme of nonreligious experience, whether childhood memories or deconversions or the stories of raising fearlessly curious kids who think for themselves. So thanks to everyone who participated on Saturday, and a special thanks to Greg and the trustees of the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy for a truly marvelous honor.
Onward to Austin!
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Fund drive update: Twelve days until the Solstice, by which time I hope to have retired this site’s bummer of an operating debt for the year. Many thanks to those whose humanistic generosity has helped us reach 31%! Click on the Donate button atop the sidebar to join in the fun.
Back in a geologic jif
Busy time — Harvard event this Saturday, Austin next Saturday…I’ll definitely post a few times in between the two. For one thing I’ve got to tell y’all about the return of the elves to Atlanta, this time with a twist. They’re not stuffed elves that move around in the night like last year. They’re real elves who break in, eat food and leave misspelled notes. (The jury is out on which is creepier.)
I’ll also be posting the third and final winner of the First Annual PBB Column Competition and answering a request for gift-book recommendations for the kidlings.
In the meantime, thanks once again to all who have been clicking that Donate button in the margin to help out with the care and feeding of the site. We are nearly on pace to retire this year’s site operations debt by Solstice morning, which would be a tremendous stress-reliever. Here’s a stat for added incentive:
< Number of employees of FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, largest Christian parenting organization in the US: 1,100
< Number of employees of PARENTING BEYOND BELIEF, largest nonreligious parenting organization in the US: 1
See you next week.