Dear Jack,
My boyfriend and I have been together for three years. I have a five-year-old son from a previous relationship. My boyfriend recently started going to church and now he wants me and my son to go with him, even though he knows I’m not a religious person. I’m not exactly an atheist. I just don’t know, and really, I don’t care to know. It’s not that important to me.
I’ve told my boyfriend how I feel about this. I liked our old Sunday mornings together, sitting around the house in our pajamas, but I didn’t get upset when he started going to church. He’s disappointed that I won’t go to church with him, but he still wants to take my son. He thinks it’s important that my son receive a sound moral base on which to build his life. As if he needs a church for that.
My boyfriend is really good with my son. I totally trust them together. I’m just not sure about sending him off to church. I mean, what’s the point? And what if he comes back one of these little brainwashed zombie Jesus kids you see on Youtube?
–Having Zombie Nightmares
Dear Zombified,
If my sainted mother were here, God rest her soul, she would say, “He wants the boy to have a sound moral base? Then tell the fornicating SOB to marry the boy’s mother instead of living in sin for three years!”
You don’t sound like you feel strongly one way or another about religion. You’re just a little nervous about letting go of your son.
In my opinion, a five-year-old has no concept of church and isn’t going to obtain any kind of moral base, zombified or otherwise, on which to build his life by squatting behind a high church pew scribbling pictures of dinosaurs on the back of donation envelopes. Unless the church in question has an advanced zombification program (and some do), your son should be safe from their clutches until the age of eight or nine, at which point you can revisit this issue.
If, at that point, your boyfriend is still your boyfriend, I suggest listening to my mother’s advice, to be sure.
Bottom line – you’re the boy’s mother. If you don’t want him in church, don’t let your boyfriend take him. A kid’s moral base is built upon the daily living example of his parent or parents, not the sermons that put his parents to sleep once a week.
But if it were me, I’d seize the opportunity to have an hour or two alone on Sunday morning. This could be a blessing.
Got a problem? Jack Waggon will set you straight: jack.wagg@gmail.com.
