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[quote=Anonymous]I could have posted this myself. I still struggle with it and my kids are 11 and 8. So many of my family traditions centered around church and I always think about that around the big holidays. I stopped going to church completely as an adult because I was just so appalled at the abuse scandals and the church's handling of it. I also grew to dislike the church's position on gays and women's reproductive rights, which I didn't fully appreciate until I left home and learned a bit more about the world. I haven't found a way to reconcile those things because the attitude of most Catholics--as evidenced by a PP here--is that you're expect to take it or leave it. But it was part of my identity growing up, and it's hard when that identity no longer fits.

I also relate to what you said about feeling melancholy after attending Mass. My mother died when I was in college and she was very religious. Attending Mass is hard for me because I feel her absence so acutely for that hour in church, even though it's been 20 years since she died. I don't feel like I belong at church anymore and it's not an uplifting experience for me, so I rarely go. I WANT to feel that same comfort and familiarity that I did as a kid, but I don't. Maybe it would be better if I went more often, I don't know.

So what do we do as a family? We talk about God and the teachings of the Bible. My kids have their own children's Bibles and read them regularly. We participate in Advent, Lent (including abstaining from meat on Fridays), we put up a nativity during Christmas, we keep our tree up until Epiphany. We go to Mass on Christmas and Easter. I didn't enroll my kids in CCD but haven't ruled it out yet. I'm trying to foster in them an understanding of God, Jesus, spirituality, and the values that we as a family find important, which part of me believes transcends any particular church or denomination. Whether we take a different approach in the future remains to be seen, but I feel like my kids are getting a decent, albeit informal, foundation in the family religion and traditions. [/quote]

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