Letters to my children

Dear Nathan, May, Elijah, Sariah and B (he's going by both Brigham and Benjamin right now, depending on who's talking),

A while back I read a blog post on a friend's blog that has inspired me. I'm going to write you all a series of letters. Let me explain:

This past year, we have been through a tremendous shift in our way of thinking. That is, I have gone through a tremendous shift. We have had many discussions and I think you understand the gist of why I have made the shift.

However, as we have discussed in the past, kids and teens tend to parrot what their parents say at home. We've come in contact with kids talking about politics and can see that they are saying just what they have heard their parents say. I've been guilty of parroting back what I heard, have you?

Your grandparents have expressed concern that you kids will follow suit with whatever Papa and I decide to teach you. They feel like you don't have a chance. (They say this out of love and concern for you and because of their feelings that they have the Truth, so we don't need to be disdainful about this.) They feel like you will never know the Truth because we, your parents have taken you from it. This may be true in some sense. It's probably not terribly likely that any of you will return to the LDS church. However, it's possible and if you choose to do so, I will fully support your decision. I want you to have the chance to think through the issues. Get out your skeptics toolbag, get out your heart, use your brain and away we go.....

When each of you was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we gave you a challenge. We didn't want your baptism to be about us and what we wanted for you. We wanted it to be about your own relationship with God. We asked you to pray and be sure this is what you wanted. This was, in our minds, giving you full choice in the matter. What we forgot to count in were the many, many discussions via Primary, Family Home Evening, scripture study etc. that weighed in on the matter. Not only that, but your friends were being baptized at age 8. What would it have felt like to be the only one in the class who didn't do it? It's a rare child who chooses by themselves to wait for a later baptism. (We don't look back now and wish you never had been baptized. Every experience you have in your life provides opportunity and growth.)

What I have now realized is that it is very difficult to stand on your own, think through or meditate through an issue and make a decision. But, that is exactly what I'm going to ask you to do. I want you to take the time to think, explore, research, question, reason, feel about many different subjects. I want you to see that when you do this, there will be positions you had never considered before. I want you to learn to adjust your thinking, if need be, because of new evidence that has been presented. Or, I want you to learn to hold strong if the evidence doesn't meet your criteria for making a change in your position.

I'm 39 years old. I still haven't learned to do this well. I'm working on it.

As you read through my letters to you, I want you to feel free to pick them apart. I want you to ask questions. I want you to feel spurred on to research on your own if you don't understand. I want you to feel free to seek out people with differing viewpoints and listen to what they have to say about a subject (I will help you find these people if you don't know where to find them). I want you to question your own positions. I want you to ask yourself if you hold that position because your parents hold it or if you have researched or had experiences that support your position. I want you to feel free to discuss deeper with me or point out flaws in my logic.

I will begin writing letters soon. For now, you may read this blog post by my friend Natasha. Oops! Just searched her blog for the post she wrote and I can't find it. Well, instead, read this poem she wrote for her son.