My article on Skeptical Parenting that was published in Skeptical Inquirer is finally available online. I know it has been hard for you to sleep at night while waiting for this day.
Skeptical Parenting: Raising Young Critical Thinkers
There comes a moment in every parent’s life when your child asks you
the question you most feared hearing from your dear one’s lips.
“Mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Where did people come from?”
“You mean babies? Well, um, first the man takes his penis and . . .”
“No, no, I mean the very first people. Where did the first people on Earth come from?”
I was dumbfounded. What could I say? I knew this moment was coming
and yet was completely unprepared. I would be more than happy to
discuss sex with him, but evolution? How could I explain evolution to
my three-year-old when I myself was fuzzy on the process? I was, after
all, the product of the South Carolina public education system.
And that is when I said the worst possible thing any parent can say
to a child asking about this controversial subject. No, I did not tell
him that we came from God or that we were planted here millennia ago as
an extraterrestrial experiment. I told him something much, much worse.
Go to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry to finish the article!
Excellent article, I really enjoyed it. I’ve always been a skeptic (e.g. I don’t recall a time when I wasn’t, although I can only remember with any real clarity back to elementary school) so I’m a little unsure how to *teach* critical thinking since I never was taught it myself.
When my daughter eventually asks about the first humans I’m likely to go a different wrong route than you and start with “Well, do you know what DNA is? Let’s start there”.
Nice piece of work madam! Although I am not a full blown skeptic (yet) my children will be raised to question everything. What else can you expect with a scientist mom around? I have often thought about how we will approach some of the early questions from them on topics such as evolution. It is really nice to know there are so many resources out there!
How does a skeptic inquire into the quality and value of a private education that still exists within the doctrinal system forced upon us by civilized life?
Anonymooose, it depends on where you live. In my area, almost all private schools are religious based.
However, there is one that is not, but it is $10,000 per year, so even if Carl Sagan’s ghost was the headmaster, my son could not go.
You just have to ask around to local parents who are also non-believers.
Excellent article. I had the interesting position of becoming a skeptic after having my child. For the first 3 years of my son’s life we were church goers, my son was baptised, we prayed etc. etc. Once I “saw the light” I wondered about the best way to back track and inform my son of my misunderstandings. Fortunately he figured it out on his own. One day, out of the blue, at age four, he asked me if there really was a god. I asked him what he thought and we reasoned it out right then. I’m pretty sure he figured out the truth about Santa at the same time but was seven before he finally asked me “If I don’t believe there is a Santa, will I still get presents?”