Dear Dáithí: My mom brings our kids to mass without asking us

We all love our grannys, and we must mind them, but this is not on.

Dear Dáithí, 

My husband and I have two young children – a boy aged 6 and a girl aged 3. When we had our son, we decided not to have him baptised – we’re not religious at all, haven’t been to mass since we were both living at home with our parents. We’re more than happy for our children to make any decision they want to when they’re older about what they believe in, but for now, we speak to them about other religions and talk about how we believe in being kind people. The thing is, my mom never agreed with our decision, and recently our son has told us that she has been bringing him to mass on the occasions that he’s been with her for the day. Now we don't particularly have a problem with that as such - she is very religious herself - but she is doing this without asking us. But what drove me to write this letter though is that she recently told him that if he doesn’t believe in god, he doesn’t believe in love, and it’s upset him (and us!). I’m so angry but I don’t want to want to lash out in anger with this one. She’s a wonderful grandmother and loves spending time with our kids and they love spending time with her, so I want to tread carefully here, but also, I really want to put my foot down. How do I do that without alienating her?

This is a new enough phenomenon in that back when I was a young boy, we were all like sheep and followed our parents’ path as they had followed theirs before them. The sheep of 2024 are a much freer being. Some go as far away as possible, with others still wanting to stay within the outlined fence. My opinion about this is do what suits you and what you believe in and that’s exactly what you are doing. I know so many people who don’t go to mass or maybe go for Christmas and really probably don’t even believe in God but are delighted to have the big bouncy castle and the huge outing for the Communion, and to be fair to you, you have done none of this. You have drawn a line in the sand and the best thing about it is that you are happy with your own decision.

I really like the fact too that you speak to your children about other religions, and this is so important in today’s world. The thing about religions is that a lot of them are very similar and when it's all stripped back to the bones of it, it’s a decision between right and wrong, good and bad no matter what way you look at it. I think religion can be good for people when it comes to having a moral compass, that was the way years ago but children may get that from their parents nowadays. The bottom line is once your children have a moral compass that’s the main thing.

Now Nana or Granny or whatever you call her, what are you at? And it's within this relationship this week’s troubles lay. First of all, she is totally 100% wrong. We all love our grannys, and we must mind them, but this is not on. The first and most important reason is that it’s not true. So how do we go about saying this without upsetting anyone and everyone. It's like holding a live hand grenade with the pin pulled - the grenade being the dilemma at hand. If you hand it to granny it's going to go off and if you keep hold of it, you are going to suffer from not doing anything about it.

I really like the fact too that you speak to your children about other religions, and this is so important in today’s world

I’d leave Granny out of it for a while and speak to your son about going to mass, which is not the problem here. Actually I kinda like that she did that, there’s no harm in it. It’s the ‘if you don’t believe in God you don’t believe in love’ that’s pure muck. I’d explore with your son how he is being loved and go through all the examples with him: how you are always there for him, all the quality time you spend together, how you all have made your house a loving home, and so on. What you are doing here is showing him what and where the love is and what you’re not saying straight out is that Granny was lying when she said what she said. Even at the age of six he will cop onto this.

Now Granny doesn’t get away scot-free here either. I know you’re angry, so you need to deal with this when the temperature has cooled. You need to let Granny know first of all how much everyone loves her and how special she is, and then tell her that that very love comes directly from you and your kids and not from God, no middleman involved or needed here! We all know she’s not happy about you and the family not being religious, but I’d focus on the honesty of that. Honesty is a foundation block of any religion and if she still has a problem with that remind her of Psalm 139:14 that tells of ‘embracing your uniqueness’ - she sees you as different to her, and unique. In other words, embrace being different.

All that said we need to keep in mind that we have a few relationships on the go here. You and her, and her and her grand children, and they all must be held dearly. Times have changed so much since your mother was young and maybe this is the way love was explained to her, so it’s worth exploring that too. I’d explain to her exactly what you said to your son and if the message is still not getting through I’d come straight out with it, 'Granny you can’t be saying stuff like that and here’s why. We have a different set of believes, but we still respect yours'!

The main thing here is that the anger and heat is taken out of any chat and a sensible conversation takes place between all the adults. Now if Granny wants to bring the kids to mass, is this the worst thing ever? I’d say let her and have your son ask a million questions about it.