Any Book Suggestions?????

I just got a great book at the library for children, it's called Faith, and it shows children of all faiths practicing in different ways. Best of luck to you!

This is just the kind of thing that new moms obsessed over but the other posters are right - she's only 4 months old! I probably obsessed over this same issue. My husband was raised Catholic and wanted to baptize our daughter. I was pretty non-religious but if it was important to him, well OK. So we baptized and I became a Catholic as well. Well, over time, it became apparent that my husband had no desire to actually attend church or be involved with church. So, we've become a non-religious family. Regarding, giving your FIL a book - I'd suggest that you grin and bear it right now and deflect any religious involvement if you're not into it. If he continues to bug you in ten years then maybe a book explaining your beliefs is appropriate. But now he's doing what is proper in his culture. It's up to your husband to tell your FIL to back off or make token gestures to accommodate his father's beliefs.

Dear J.,

Your families include Catholics, Buddhists and Muslims. You and your husband believe in God but do not practice any religion. Your mother-in-law does not practice any religion. I can understand why your father-in-law would like to raise his granddaughter in his faith; he’s the only one practicing anything.

I too was a Catholic, but I now consider myself just Christian and prefer a Bible based non-denominational church. It will be quite some time before you child is “old enough” to decide for herself. I recommend that you and your husband find a non-denominational church and start attending, so you can show your father-in-law that you plan to raise your child as a Christian.

You of course have no obligation to give your father-in-law his way, other then keeping family harmony. However, if you and your husband chose not to practice anything, why not let your father-in-law teach your child his religion and take her to services when she is old enough because he a least is practicing something in the ways of God? I’m not sure when children begun the Muslim version of Sunday school, which in my church is around 3 years old.

I suggest you both pray on it and make what you feel is the best decision for your family. You probably have a Holy Bible and a Holy Koran in your home….two pretty good books to live by. You might check out the Book of Morman and here’s a web-site you might like:

www.nvo.com/isleepless/usingprayertohelpyourself

Lastly, having a child blessed is usually a very special occasion, you all should have been there. While I think your father-in-law was wrong to do this without your knowledge, I suspect his motives were not too sinister. But I don't know the man and you do.

Blessings…….

Hi J.,

This is really not something you need to stress about right now. Your beautiful daughter is only 4 months old :O)

I was raised Catholic, also. I do attend church regularly now, but that has nothing to do with you :O)
Let your F-I-L Blessyour daughter in private, who cares! It makes him feel good, because Religion is important to him. At least she's Blessed :O)

The decision about HOW to introduce God into her life is totally up to you and your hubby. You have no obligation to your F-I-L. I'm sure your FIL will respect whatever you decide to do, as long as he knows that you are putting God into her life :O)

You can simply just have the "idea" of God in your home at all times. Your daughter will learn from that, then when she's older she might ask questions. By then, things may have changed for you and your husband and you might be attending church somewhere :O)

Just honor your FIL with, "I know you want the best for your grand-daughter, and so do we. We just haven't figured out how we want to bring God into her life yet"..... I think he will be please with that response.

~N. :O)

I bought "God's Dream" by Bishop Desmond Tutu for my son - it's beautiful! Very simple explanation that God loves all the children in the world and wants them to be kind to each other. My son loves it at bedtime. My husband is Muslim and I was raised Baptist, my Father-In-Law was a nag about naming our son an Islamic name - I finally told him (out of hubby's earshot) that he had a chance to name his kids and now it was our turn and if we wanted to name our child Rainbow Tunafish he had no say in the matter. I was a bit strong with him because he pitched a full-blown tantrum when he realized my brother-in-law and his wife spelled their daughter's name the English way instead of the Arabic spelling (Jasmine) she was already 2 years old at the time of the blow out.
Anyway - you need to tell your FIL in a respectful way that you're so happy your daughter has such a loving grandfather - but you hope he will respect your position as her parents and leave the spiritual teachings to you and your husband. BEFORE you get fed up and have a moment of anger like I did. Don't buy him a book - he won't read it.
Also - remind him that Christians are "People of the Book" too and your religion and his are not so different - Mohammed said to respect Jews and Christians because they worship Allah too. ;)
BTW - we did NOT name our son Rainbow Tunafish! ;)

Hi J.. I just wanted to comment as I see we have some things in common. I was raised Catholic. My husband was raised Muslim. Neither of us practices either faith. As far as the father-in-law thing, I wouldn't worry about it. It doesn't harm a child to be blessed or baptized and one day it might be something that endears her to grandpa knowing that she was important to him. I don't think it would affect her choice of what faith to practice. I baptized my first two daughters Catholic, but they are not Catholic today. My husband and I are agnostic and have allowed them to attend different churches with their friends even for years at a time. Eventually the four adult kids all ended up Agnostic like us. We were supportive of them participating in different faiths because of the values and moral base that is common, even though we do not participate in any organized religion.

R. (mom of four girls age 3, 5, 19, 21 + stepkids 22 & 25)

Hi J.-
You are in a very precarious position with your father in law. Muslims believe so strongly in their faith that a convert is a miracle. Literally. And as much as this sounds stern, the men of that particular religion are set in their ways even more so because they are the control- the masters of their homes, lives, and domain, and answer only to Allah. The women are to be dutiful wives, daughters, and are blessed servants. This is a not a negative, but a woman has her place. That your husband does not practice and is not concerned with changing your beliefs or forcing your daughter's, is wonderful. I would just google books about the topics you are curious about, personally. As for your daughter, if you are upset about the muslim blessing, perhaps you should have her blessed in the catholic church? This way, she is blessed from both parents beliefs. And when she is older, she may choose whatever belief she feels fills her heart and soul and hopefully everyone will accept and be happy with it. Ask yourself- this is a little extreme, but I have a friend who did this- if your daughter decided to go wiccan, would you be happy with this? Or if she decided to be a Christian? Or if she decided to be a witch (which is different from a Wiccan) and marry a self proclaimed Warlock, would you be ok with it? Or if she decided to become a shaman priestess? or an atheist? Are you ok if she decided to become a muslim? A Catholic? THese are serious questions you should ask yourself. The respect of all faiths is not the same as being ok with her being involved in just any faith or belief. I hope this helps. Google and Amazon usually have a pretty helpful search engine, and I am positive there are books like that available. They have ones for race, religion, etc. To teach kids to be respectful of others. Along with your continuing positive influence, she should be an amazing woman when she grows up.
-E. M

I don't have any book suggestions for your child, but I just got finished reading the book The Shack by William Paul Young. The book has an amazing way of revealing God's love for us no matter what your religion is. It would be a wonderful read for you and your FIL.
L.

Hi J.,
Well, this is a can of worms! First of all, I have to say I don't have any book suggestions for you and I'm sorry about that. I wish it was that simple. I will tell you where I'm coming from. My family is Protestant, Pentecostal to be exact. When I met my husband, he wasn't anything at all, but it was such an important part of my life that I told him if we were to be together, we needed to agree in matters of faith. We now have 4 beautiful girls we are raising in this same faith. It has been my observation that it is incredibly important that parents agree about spiritual matters and pass those values on to their children. Children are not good with multiple choice questions. They will end up choosing nothing at all rather than to have to think about choosing one thing. If Muslim is not your thing (and it sounds like it's not), then you need to have a big sit-down with your husband and discuss what the two of you want to do about your faith. I say faith and not religion, because I believe religion is a set of rules and faith is the actual living of good values and morals. There are many religious people who I don't believe are godly people at all because it's not in their hearts. In fact, when people ask me what religion I am, I usually say I'm a Christian, because I would rather be Christ-like than religious. Anyway, I do think you are right to be concerned about it at this time. But I think your energies should be directed toward your marriage at this point. Differences in "religion" is one of the main causes of divorce. If this is indeed important to you to have some sense of God in your home, it has to start with you and your husband together, and you must agree. Otherwise, you are leaving your child to flounder as she grows up and realizes this issue was not important enough to her parents for them to agree, so why should God be important to her at all. As far as your father in law, it has been my experience that stout Muslim men cannot be changed by a book or any other simple method. I have also seen the way they treat their women, and it is despicable. That is just my experience and may not be the way it is with your husband's family, so I apologize if that was offensive. It just doesn't seem to be a religion that encourages self esteem, self worth and confidence in women. We all are of equal worth in God's eyes, and any religion which teaches any differently cannot be from God. I do believe, as someone suggested previously, that you and your husband should begin trying to find a place of worship you both can agree on. Our children learn by our actions. If the two of you are essentially nothing in terms of religion or denomination, then that's what your child will be. They do as they see. If you want your child to believe in God, it takes living it in front of them. Once you and your husband agree, you might want to leave it up to him to let your father in law know what you have decided. I have a feeling he will not like it one bit, but it probably would be best coming from his own son rather than from you. And lastly, I would just encourage you again to find a place of worship. You say you are spiritual and you do believe in God, but it takes constant exposure to the Word of God and the people of God to stay strong spiritually. No place is perfect, because every church has human beings in it! But don't give up just because of the imperfection of humanity. A church is no different than any other gathering of people. You take the good with the not so good, and just remember that God loves everyone, despite our humanity! God bless.

Hi J.,

Just wanted to say thanks for asking this question. I was raised Calvinist Protestant and now term myself "spiritual." My boyfriend and his family are Buddhist, but neither of us affiliates with church or religion.

We decided our son can choose for himself. His Chinese grandparents take him to the Buddhist temple sometimes. My parents would freak out if they knew, but they live in another state. They pound on the Christmas and Easter story when they see him and buy him all sorts of children's bibles and religious CD's for children for me to give him at home. I don't mind that stuff but their looks and comments get on my nerves. They are unhappy that neither child is baptized.

In the end, I guess we should consider ourselves lucky to have family who care about our children, as annoying as the way they show their caring might be ;-)

Hello J.: I doubt that there is a book on the planet that your father in law would read or you could force down him if he is so rude as to have your child without your permission for a "blessing". I would have said -hey start in your own home with your wife 1st!
The fact that you are even talking to him or exposing your child to him tells what nice people you and your husband are. If 3 out of 4 of you are not committed to any religion than I do have a book that a dear friend gave me that she used for her children called " The comprehensive study of religion" and she has another book I willhave to get the name of by a man that traveled the world learning about different religions and having that actual religion make statements of their beliefs whic most authors don't they just give their own opion and contact you with it, but it sounds like you are good people and have values that you can and will instil in your childs heart.
I have 2 of my 5 children not active in our faith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) and they are married to the loves of my life that are not members. That said smile-- they are doing a wonderful job raising their children to be great compassionet people. 2 times a year they bring their children and we all go to the Methodist or Catholic church with Great Grandparents- sort of a bring and brag about your children day. I really believe from my experiance as a foster mother that if you don't give your children a foundation then when they get to be older they will fall into many " popular " things that may not teach what it is you want them to do.

Just learning to follow the Ten Commandments and really knowing them -- will help you a lot too. I love and adore and respect my children my birth and the sweet ones they have married way to much to ever force my strong beliefs on them and because of it we each make sure that all 6 of the children learn to pray, read them scripture stories and teach the 10 commandments. I have no fear that they won't be good people because of the foundation that we all have given them. I pray for your best wishes in this that you are trying to do. Please enjoy the wonderful adventure of parenthood for this is but one curve on the roller coaster ride of your life- and I for myself would not have missed it for the word! Nana G

Hi J., I know I'm a little late in responding but thought I would anyway. The only real book that I can suggest for anyone (I'm not just referring to your fil) is the Bible. I don't like religion because even God hates religion. We just need a relationship with our Creator of this universe. The Bible has all the answers we will ever need for everything. The world is crazy right now but it is supposed to happen according to the book of Revelation (the last book in the Bible). Jesus is the only one who will give us true peace in such an unstable world. I hope this helps you out.