Losing My Religion

In my neighbourhood, Christmas lights supplant jack o'lanterns about as quickly and readily as Paris Hilton supplants her BFFs. By the first of December in Toronto, the snow had not yet fallen, but my company had already had its annual holiday bash, Holt Renfrew had already unveiled their holiday windows, and the well-meaning questions had already started:

“Have you put up your Christmas tree yet?”
“Is Bee excited to see Santa Claus?”
“What are you getting Bee for Christmas?”
“Have you sent out your Christmas cards yet?”

The answer to these questions would be a respective and respectuful no, no, nothing, and no. I ain’t no grinch, and I’m not trying to bah-humbug anybody’s good time. The thing is, I’m Jewish. The other thing is, Chris is a non-practicing realistic skeptic agnostic, tho his family is traditionally Christian. The toddling, talking, soon-to-be-asking-questions thing is, therefore, both. I guess.

My – our – incapacity to identify or declare Bee’s religious heritage has not been an issue for 16 of her 18 months of life. But in December (this being her second), the question of the religion of our child inevitably gets raised, and we realize that at some point we will have to form an opinion regarding it, one way or another. I think.

You see, this vagueness, ambiguity and haziness of the issue has always been present in our relationship. Of course, we have always been aware that Chris and I come from very different backgrounds (in so, so many ways), but we have always been comfortable with each of our level of involvement (or lack thereof) in religion. We were married by a judge. We celebrate religious holidays at our respective parents’ houses. We go to church or synagogue when someone gets married or dies. We don’t say grace. While pregnant, we of course discussed the religious upbringing of our child (or, again, lack thereof), and it boiled down to this:

Penelope – I want to continue the traditional aspects of my religion that I hold dear, like big meals, Yiddish swear words and menorahs. I would prefer it if Bee knew the actual reasons for our holidays, though we must also continue my grandfather’s tradition of filling our head with stories about how we won the war with my aunt’s matzo balls and such. She must never forget. One day I would like her to go to Israel.

Chris – I want my child to make up her own mind, and to not believe the hype. However, I will not quash my parents’ attempts at showing her how to rock it, United-style.

How’s that for direction? Fine, when the idea of a child and her religious upbringing is an abstract collage of peaceful inclusion and convictions, but somewhat different when a real child enters your real world, and time for talk of what to have for dinner is hard to come by, let alone deliberations over one’s child’s practices of faith (or lack thereof).

Happily, our parents, who are completely accepting of the differences of background, have not questioned us about our intentions one way or the other. My mother did not insist on a baby-naming, nor did his on a baptism. So she had neither. I wanted Bee to have a Hebrew name, so I gave her one. Tzipporah Batsheba. I think it’s pretty. We thank whoever we believe in that day that we did not have a boy, so that we could avoid the circumcision decision. Avoiding decisions is something we are good at. Imparting a cohesive opinion regarding organized religion – mine, his, or any other – and our child, is something we are not.

I suppose the fair thing to do is to first examine exactly what religion (and it’s less bloody bedfellows, spirituality and faith) means to us. But I’ve had 31 years to figure that shit out, and I’m no closer to understanding it than I am to understanding quantum physics or the appeal of James Blunt.

The thing is, all of this proselytizing, philosophising, hand-wringing, and ultimately, uncertainty, is based not on our desire to choose one – to check a religion off of a list and say, there you go! You are a Jew/Christian/Pagan/Druze/Whatever – it’s about the fact that we don’t really want to do that at all. Is that fair? Is it fair that it seems like her religious identity, when inevitably asked about at some point, will have to be explained with, ‘Well, my mum’s Jewish, and my dad’s family is Christian?” Is it fair to assume that she will achieve a comfort level regarding this subject – this aspect of who she is – on her own, with little guidance (Chris calls it interference) from us? Is it fair to do this without completely accepting in myself the possibility that she may one day follow a doctrine that I know little about? How would I feel if Bee became a Rasta, or Islamic, or gasp! a goth? Is it fair that Christmas is going to be something that only happens at her gram and granddad’s house?

I understand that this is a complicated issue (at least to us), and in a way, I envy those whose religious footing is steadfast and unwaivering. Because for me and Chris, and so, for Bee, our grip on religion is about as precarious as a jolly fat man trying to get his jolly fat self down a skinny-ass chimney.
But I guess we don’t have to worry about that.


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