Not Everyone Can Be Bought

A bit of background, I have two kids who don’t mind attending church and one who refuses to go. The two who don’t mind it much are the two who have been doing Vacation Bible School this week. Yesterday was “Bring a Friend” Day where the kids were encouraged to bring a friend and if you did you and the friend got a prize. I have ALWAYS had a problem with this sort of behavior with a church or any other religious organization or spiritual path who choose to do this. I see it as sort of scammy. In my humble opinion, you should invite a friend because you honestly want them to come hang out with you for the day. Anywho when I heard about it I groaned and just knew that somehow this was going to go badly.

Since Claire’s friends already attend the VBS she had her sister left. So she asks Molly whom doesn’t want to go but I can see she really wants to help her sister get the prize. After 20 min she agrees and Claire is bouncing around the house ecstatic. Now the child already loves to go to VBS but now she is literally grabbing people’s hands and trying to drag them to the car. I stay behind to take care of some things and relish in the fact that I will be without kids for 3 hours. Except when they get to the church Molly changes her mind and comes home. Leaving her sister in tears.

Now before I go into my mini rant I want to clarify that Molly was punished. We simply felt that she should have followed through on her agreement and she really hurt her sister’s feelings. I think that they both learned a lesson and I wouldn’t be surprised if Claire doesn’t bother asking Molly something like that again.

Ok so here is my rant. You can’t buy people into doing what you want. Not even opportunists. I am an opportunist and Molly takes after me. But we can’t be bought. I know that doesn’t sound like it makes sense but ultimatley if the opportunity involves me compromising my ethics, morals, or personal feelings about something I won’t succumb to it. Molly is very much the same way. And why is a church doing this? I mean seriously! All I see is a scammy sort of way to get bodies into the church and maybe convincing someone they need to be at church. On top of this, these are children….not grown adults and to me this is preying on the innocence of children. Not something that sits well with me. For that matter is the church stupid? Offer a prize to kids and that is all they are thinking about. It’s not about sharing their faith but getting a prize. Why are they not teaching these kids about how living their faith in effect  shares it with others?

Ok end of that rant. Now on to the other issue at hand. I see Claire as this child who wants to be told what to beleive. I have pretty headstrong kids, so this takes me by surprise. I can’t seem to make her understand that she doesn’t need to make a decision yet and that she has to be the one to tell us what is in her heart. I don’t have an issue letting her learn about any spiritual path I just don’t feel that I can tell her which is the “right” one. For awhile she proclaimed she was Christian. Then out of the blue she wanted to be pagan. Now she wants to be Christian again. I know I flopped around for years and I wonder, did I drive anyone nuts with it? But part of this is her personality. She thrives on approval of others which is something I wish I could change about her. I wish I could make her understand that it’s all up to her and she doesn’t have to have approval of others. But then I have to yell at myself that she is only 8. I just feel lost because I take it a step at a time and I can feel her looking to me waiting for me to tell her it’s “right”. And I can’t compromise my feelings about it and just say “yea sure kid, this is right”. Ugh!