My Mother and Religion

Greetings All

I know I don't make that many of these personal journal entries, but I thought it was time to talk about a subject that, at the time of this upload, I felt was important. As I talked about in a previous post I was raised Catholic, but eventually decided to leave the church. If you're wondering why I was raised Catholic, well it's because my mom was. If you're wondering why she was raised Catholic, it's because her mother and father were. If you're wondering why they were raised Catholic it's because their parents were.... Side note, but it really is interesting how most people end up staying in the religion they were raised in and then insist that theirs is the right one. Really weird how that works out....

I won't talk too much about my mom's experience because honestly, I don't know that much myself, only what I've heard from others. Though some things I can probably guess at. I think I should start with the fact that if you are Latino there's a very high chance you were raised Catholic. Why are you very likely to be raised Catholic? Well because the Spanish who came over to Central and South America beat it into our ancestors...

I'm honestly not sure that we as a culture have really grappled with that at all, and I think it's long past time that we do. No one really wants to admit that or at least the Latinos who are still Catholic don't want to talk about that. As for me, well I've talked about being raised Catholic in the past so feel free to read that entry to learn more about how that went. But yeah the only reason that the vast majority of Latinos are even Catholic is because of what happened centuries in the past. Nowadays we just kind of accept that Latinos are Catholic but few people ever really admit the reason as to why. I think that's because once you start saying that "your culture belongs to a certain religion because it was beaten into your ancestors" you start to wonder if that religion really is worth following....

It's important for us all to be on the same page about that as to my point earlier of how my parents are the same religion they were raised as really goes to show religion digs its roots into things and doesn't let go. To any of you who are reading this who are still religious, I'm willing to bet that most of you are the same religion you were raised in, just something to think about. Why is it that so many of us end up staying in the religion we were raised in and then become so certain that that specific religion is the right one? You'd think if one religion was more "right" than any of the others more people would seek it out and be converted...

But the reason I want to talk about my mom specifically is in regards to how I feel it affected her, and the reaction she had when I told her that I was no longer a practicing Catholic. My mom like most parents of the time was not very good at understanding new things. I think that's something that is endemic to the "Boomer" generation, and that probably has a lot to do with the fact that there was no internet back then. Access to new information was a lot more limited than it is now, and unless you were one to go seek it out for yourself you weren't likely to find it. Ergo you simply believed what you already knew to be true.

I do remember my mom at points being against Dungeons and Dragons, parroting the belief that it was some sort of "satanic ritual." It's a bit odd as I never had an interest in it as a kid, but it was one of those things that made the rounds in the news occasionally so there were times she would make sure and remind me not to associate with people who played it because it was some kind of "devil's game." Side note: while I'm more familiar with DnD nowadays I still haven't played it (not because of the Satan stuff, but because I find it too complicated. Also I don't have the time or friends to do it with...) But I bring this up to show that my mother was the type of person who if told, "Dungeons and Dragons is satanic" she would not do her own research into it and simply pass along that information and present it as true.

Another thing my mom was really against was video games. While I had an SNES growing up (and later my family would get some other gaming systems) my mom strictly controlled how often me and my brothers could play it. Being unfamiliar with video games she had no concept of "saving" either, so there would be times I'd be playing and making progress in a game only to have the time run out and have my mom (sometimes forcibly) turn off the game system before allowing me a chance to save. Needless to say, I didn't complete that many RPGs...

Continuing on from her dislike of video games she was also not a fan of violent video games. For those too young to remember after the school shooting at Columbine a lot of talk show hosts and politicians started accusing violent video games of being the cause of that. Every now and then you might hear that argument crop up again, but it was basically everywhere in the past. There were news reports and lawsuits about it, it really got out of hand, but again as with most cases of fear mongering it worked. Parents became afraid that if they let their kids play violent video games they would all become psychos who would shoot up a school! And my mom was one of them. Again she heard politicians and news people talk about this, and instead of doing her own research (especially when you consider how Japan has video games but not school shootings) simply believed what people told her. Perhaps you've started to notice a pattern here on how my mom would believe things she's told instead of looking into it herself. When you're raised to be religious that sort of thought process is kind of baked into the narrative.

What makes all of this even more ironic is how my mom (supposedly) was very pro-education. As I said in another journal she had me and my brothers go to a private Catholic school and wanted us to go to college even from a young age. This might have to do with the big push for education that was made by minority groups when she was young. And to be fair my mother was one of the first in her family to go to college. She had four siblings and three out of the four did end up graduating from college. Though this was of course during a time when college was not as expensive as it is today. She would also go on to get a Master's Degree from USC which again is a big accomplishment in its own right and of her siblings I believe she's the only one to do that.

Which honestly makes her weird obsession with religion all the more mystifying....

In general, education is supposed to make you more tolerant and less fearful. It's supposed to give you an understanding of how things work and a basis for how to seek out answers to questions. Religion is precisely the opposite, it doesn't ask questions instead it tells you what it purports to be real and then demands that you accept it's word as law. Religious explanations for things have repeatedly been proven wrong and yet it still wants to insist it is right (ie: the world being only 6,000 years old, the Earth being the center of the universe, evolution being wrong) The more educated you become the less you are supposed to accept things that don't make sense. I could go on about how much religion doesn't make sense, but there are books out there that can do a better job about that than I can, books written by Professors who are a lot smarter than me.

My mother's strict adherence to religion is even more surprising when you consider her more liberal values. She fancies herself a feminist and feels that it's okay for women to divorce a man, she herself is divorced from my father (something the Catholic Church is against). She feels that a woman should live with a man before marrying him (again something the church is against) and finally that women should have freedom over their bodies in regards to abortion rights (something that the Church....well you get the picture....)

Considering the current frenzy going on in the U.S. over abortion laws I thought maybe that would finally make her see some sense in regards to her support for the church, but no, she still feels it's okay to give money to an institution that says women can't have abortions and also women can't be priests and sees no irony in doing that while also claiming to be a feminist. Furthermore, she doesn't seem to want to discuss how half of all Catholics are Trump supporters or how most of the judges on the Supreme Court who voted to overturn Roe v Wade are also Catholic. To her these are inconvenient facts that are not worth talking about. Any inconvenient fact that questions the authority/morality of the Catholic Church is not worth being discussed and all that matters is the fact that she was "raised Catholic."

With all that now out of the way I want to talk about when I told my mother I was no longer Catholic. Again I've talked about the reasons for why in another post, so read that if you are curious, but there did come a time when I had to finally tell my mother of my decision. I remember because we were talking about something else and she advised that I pray for help with whatever the issue was. That's when I told her I don't pray anymore and further clarified that I was no longer Catholic. My stated reason at the time was because of the Church supporting a measure in California that aimed to ban gay marriage and while that is certainly true, there were other reasons that I didn't bother telling her because I didn't think she'd understand. My mother was not happy to hear this and her immediate response was to tell me and my brother (who is also an atheist) that she would no longer invite us over for Christmas or give us gifts (her logic being that it was a "religious" holiday)

Now as I've said before I'm a straight guy and have never had the experience of having to "come out" to my parents. And while this reaction isn't quite the same, I'd like to think this experience of "coming out of religion" to my mom has at least allowed me to empathize a little with what LGBT individuals might experience when they are faced with the task of having to do this to their own parents. I know it's not exactly the same, and I understand that LGBT individuals might face more stress or harsh reprisals in these same type of situations, as someone who tries to be compassionate I think it has given me a taste of what that might feel like. While this may have started out harsh I should assure you this does have a happy ending.

Eventually, my mom, my brother, and a therapist sat down and talked about this issue. A lot of stuff was said (including how Christmas isn't just a religious holiday, for those of you wondering why I talked about that a lot in "Froggy Little Christmas" this is why) but also how mom's action of not inviting me and my brother over for Christmas was not conducive to a warm and healthy family environment. While I've complained about my mom being stuck in the past in regards to her beliefs I am glad that she was at least a "modern" enough person to accept advice from a therapist and not do something that would have likely divided us further. To give some context by this point in time my mother and father were divorced and me and my brothers were for the most part only talking to my mother and were only spending the Holidays with her and two other cousins from her side of the family (another story for another time). Though honestly, that makes the thought that mom wanted to "not invite us for Christmas" even more bizarre and hurtful, like again... I don't understand her logic or thought process at all. I also should mention that one of my cousins is gay and as far as I know she doesn't go to church either, she basically an atheist in all but name, so was my mother going to not invite her either???

While I say we've gotten over it, I haven't really forgotten it. And the fact that my mom was willing to do that to me and my brother still hurts to a degree. Especially because while the whole divorce was going on with my dad me and my brothers sided with my mom. We had helped her move into her new house and had been doing a lot to help her out when we could. Anytime she asked me for a favor if it was within my power to do it I would, so for all of that to just be thrown out and her being willing to not have us over for Christmas over us "not being Catholic" was really hurtful at the time and still stings a bit even now. Though I will say I think it was that moment when I finally realized my mom was just a regular person.

So what I mean by that is, when you're a kid you tend to think of your parents differently. It's natural that when we're young we put our parents on a pedestal to a degree. We like to think that they know all the answers and that they are usually right. Well my mom was a bit different in that she liked to insist that she was right, and not just about any one thing, about everything. Whenever we were told to do something growing up my mom always insisted that we do the thing her way, and often times would punish us if we didn't. It extended to almost everything we did, whether it was setting the table or cleaning our rooms or whatever. Not only that but she constantly liked to bring up her Master's Degree and how having one proved that she was "right about everything." Now to be fair my mom doesn't do this as much in the present anymore but I haven't forgotten how she did it all the time in the past. So yeah to see her become so aggressive to me and my brother over us not being Catholic anymore, after everything we've done to help her during a difficult time in her life, was both hurtful, but also served to show me that my mom was NOT a perfect person and was just as much capable of having failings like any other human being. I think most of you will experience a moment like that with your parents as you get older when you start to see your parents as regular people. Though how that will feel will also depend on how your parents presented themselves to you growing up. In my mom's case, when you grow up having one of your parents tell you that they're "perfect" it can be a real shock to discover they're not.

The reason this was such a big moment for me was because it finally made me realize my mom was NOT a perfect person. It's also the point when I started to look back at some of the things she'd done in the past and finally understood why she acted the way she did. And while I did understand her a bit better after this, it also made me a bit resentful of the fact that she liked to present herself as perfect while still being a human with flaws. Flaws she's not too keen on admitting, instead trying to pretend as though a Master's Degree somehow made her perfect.

The irony being that despite her degree she never in all her years had the wisdom to question what she'd been taught about religion, and despite not having a Master's Degree myself I am at least proud that I was able to make my own conclusions about it and that I made a choice to say "you don't need religion to be a good moral person." I think making that choice for me was one of the first real choices I ever made that I felt I had control over. It was a choice that would help define the kind of person I wanted to be as I grew up. It helped me learn to make my own decisions about things and form my own opinions on important matters.

I'd like to think I learned more about compassion and empathy from my life experiences than I ever learned from religion. I know that therapy helped me much more than prayer ever did. And I know it's more important for us to apologize for our wrongdoings, and then try and change so that we don't repeat them, than it is to ask a priest for forgiveness.

As for my mom, well she has changed from the person she was growing up, and while I do appreciate that, there's a part of me that wishes she could change more. It's a bit frustrating to see her still trapped by a religion that her parents (who are both dead) forced her into, who were of course forced into it by their parents, and so on. I know at this point there's nothing I can say that would ever make my mom leave religion, but if nothing else I'm glad that I was able to. It's a good example of how powerful a grip those sorts of things can have on your life and a reminder of why it's important to "break the cycle" of abusive behavior.