DO CHILDREN NEED RELIGION?: How Parents Today Are Thinking About the Big Questions - Hardcover

The answer seems to be ``yes,'' although Fay (A Mortal Condition, 1983) so hedges her answers in this thoughtful but meandering discussion that some readers may close the covers more bewildered than before. This much is clear: Fay, an ex-Catholic, doesn't write for the majority of Americans who fit snugly into a traditional faith; she addresses herself to baby boomers who have abandoned their childhood religion but feel uneasy in a home emptied of God (a subsidiary target is boomers in cross-faith marriages). Fay raises issues that most child experts (e.g., Spock, Leach, Brazelton) fail to address: What do we tell Jack and Jill about God? (``Will it be a revisionist She or the ancient He, a black God, a white God, or one tactfully disembodied and color-free?''). What about death? Heaven? The meaning of right and wrong? Fay asks friends for their advice and opinions, describes her own Catholic upbringing, tells how she responds to the questions of her young daughter, Anna. She dips into child psychology and faith development, and sometimes loses herself in statistical material. Gradually, the real issue emerges: not whether kids need God, but whether their parents do. As anecdotes proliferate, the impression grows of a generation that has lost something precious and doesn't know how to recapture it. Some claim cultural rather than spiritual allegiance to a faith; others jump to new religions or try to jazz up old ones. In each case, it boils down to parents searching for their own religious bearings before passing the compass to their children--a risky business, as Fay points out (the next generation may inherit spiritual myopia, as well as an inability to swim in what Fay calls ``the symbolic stream of Western culture''). Too hesitant for baby boomers looking for clear-cut advice-- and for just that reason, an intelligent presentation of the price of uncertainty. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The importance of religion as a social element in our nation's society has changed considerably in the last 50 to 100 years; it is no longer considered a requirement but an option for many. This book is aimed at parents seeking information on transmitting religious beliefs to their children. Fay, a mother and the author of A Mortal Condition ( LJ 11/1/83 ) , a journal of the struggle of eight cancer patients, conducts interviews with believers, nonbelievers, and those undecided. She discusses how questions of life and death are handled without a religious system of belief. She finds that many traditions and holidays can be lost if parents choose not to involve their children in religion. One cannot help but wonder whether Fay's nonbeliever status hinders her efforts at objectivity; she speaks often of her own disillusionment. However, this book is not designed to provide an answer to the question posed by its title. It provides varying viewpoints on an issue that can only be decided by individual parents. While it is recommended for general collections, a useful accompanying text is Robert Coles's The Spiritual Life of Children ( LJ 11/1/90), which is a more objective and thorough treatment of the subject.
- Joanna M. Thompson, Bluefield State Coll. Lib., W. Va.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.