Dale McGowan, named the 2008 Harvard Humanist of the Year by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University, spoke about his book, Parenting Beyond Belief, at BSEC, which includes essays by Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Julia Sweeney, and numerous other experts and freethinkers. Dale is also the co-author of Raising Freethinkers: A Practical Guide for Parenting Beyond Belief. He writes the secular parenting blog “The Meming of Life” as well as parenting columns for Humanist Network News, edits the Humanist Parenting website for the Institute for Humanist Studies in Albany, New York, and teaches nonreligious parenting seminars across the United States.
In addition to his parenting work, Dale is U.S. Communications Coordinator for Nonviolent Peaceforce, an organization that trains unarmed civilian peacekeepers for deployment to conflict zones around the world. While living in Minneapolis, he served as a charter member of the Critical Thinking Club, Inc. and has taught critical thinking skills in the college classroom, the corporate boardroom, and public venues. He holds degrees in physical anthropology and music theory from UC Berkeley as well as a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Minnesota.
Hemant Mehta: Were you raised with or without religion? How did it impact your childhood?
Dale McGowan: I was raised in what is surely the most common religious environment in the US: the nominally Christian home. We attended a UCC church and my brothers and I received the general message from our folks that religion is a good thing. I didn’t wonder about religious questions too much during my early years—but fortunately doubt was not specifically stigmatized and learning was prized, so when the window did open up, I was able to think clearly. My dad died when I was thirteen, and boom—I was full of questions. I read the entire Bible in a year . . . found it indistinguishable from the Greek and Roman myths I loved and began to ask a more interesting question — why do other people believe this? A more orthodox upbringing could have prevented that question entirely.
HM: What are the challenges faced by parents trying to raise their children without religion?
DM: Top five: (1) Helping children to be freethinkers in a world that stigmatizes and fears religious doubt. (2) Teaching empathy for those who have not found their way out of religious mythology. This is made especially difficult because so many of us fail in that empathy. (3) Being honest about our own opinions and values without indoctrinating our kids. (4) The relative lack of infrastructure and resources for secular families. (5) The eventual plunging of my soul into a lake of fire.
Many people assume that the topic of death must be an enormous challenge for secular parents. I expected it to be, and it’s just not the case . . . The end of life is a common source of questions and wonder for my kids. We talk about it as if we were talking about digestion or planetary motion—as if it were a fascinating fact of life, which it is. Present something as a normal and appropriate thing to ponder and kids—those resilient little creatures—will accept it as normal and appropriate to ponder.
HM: What do the contributors to the book say regarding aspects of childhood such as belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy?
DM: We model freethought values by presenting two contrasting opinions on the Santa myth. In his essay “Put the Claus Away,” Tom Flynn strongly opposes the Santa story, suggesting that it is a lie, teaches kids to be gullible, promotes fear and acquisitiveness, and actually prepares kids for religious belief. I wrote a counterpoint suggesting that the Santa myth—and its ultimate debunking—constitutes the greatest possible dry run for debunking religious mythologies. “Our culture has constructed a silly and temporary myth parallel to its silly and permanent one,” and the one with an expiration date in mid-childhood can prepare us for the other.
HM: What are you hoping the reaction will be to this book?
DM: . . . I’m hoping that we can finally uncork our biggest cultural secret: that fully one in three Americans is a religious doubter. By giving parents (of all people) permission to be out of the closet as nonbelievers, we can pave the way for a future in which religious doubt is no big deal. I’m also expecting a lot of hallelujahs from the closeted middle. Even if the book was nothing but secular nursery rhymes (“Mary Had a Little Doubt,” etc), the mere existence of a book that says ‘Raising kids without religion is a perfectly acceptable thing to do’ can give previously unsupported, unidentified nonbelievers the strength to do it.
HM: Do you have any regrets regarding your own kids’ non-religious upbringing?
DM: None at all. The advantages are too huge. We get into all sorts of fascinating wonderings at the dinner table about life and death and meaning and purpose and the universe and morality and truth and fiction, wonderings that would either be prohibited in religious homes or (even worse) shut down with answers like, “God. It’s God. Now eat your beans.” Think of all the things we just accept that are actually unimaginably strange. My kids emerged from my wife. I saw it. And they are half me and half her. We are standing on a ball that is spinning at 900 miles an hour. We are starstuff that knows it exists. We are related to redwoods and sponges. Freethought parenting actually allows these realizations to take root. The thrill of seeing new minds working their way out into our incredible universe without the millstone of religious nonsense makes any possible regret fade rather quickly.
HM: What is the best advice you can give to parents raising their children without religion?
DM: (1) Relax! Religion often teaches that a very thin thread separates us from catastrophe. Whether confession or church attendance or avoidance of certain thoughts or actions, a long list of gotta-dos and never-dos keeps many believers in a constant state of orange alert. In the absence of all that nonsense, freethinkers can relax. (2) Recognize that moral development is an understandable process, and that kids can be consciously involved in their own moral development. (3) Don’t be afraid of religion. Expose your kids to it as an influential cultural artifact. We too often worry that our children will be seduced by religion if we don’t actively fend it off. More nonsense! As Penn puts it, you don’t have to teach disbelief to kids. Simply releasing them from the fear and ignorance of indoctrination is gift enough. Let them take it from there. (4) Humans need wonder. Fortunately, the wonder inherent in a scientific worldview utterly trumps the religious imagination. (5) Never treat death as an untouchable subject. Touch it all over. The more familiar, the less frightening. It’s a lifelong challenge, but they’ll be all the further along if they don’t have to waste time erasing heaven (and hell) from their conceptual maps. (6) Encourage empathy for religious believers. Discourage arrogance. (7) Model honesty and self-worth by being happily and graciously “out” about your disbelief. (8) Know, really know, that you are not remotely alone.
