Two plus years into a project that has its tenets around respect, compassion and understanding for children of different faiths has not been all wine and roses. Spiritual leaders who I had expected would support this premise hands down have actually been intimidated by it, and on a more personal basis, friends and family who I would have thought would have been all over this have actually shied away from the challenging nature of conversations that would ensue. Ironically, it is these very conversations that I am hoping to evoke through my initiative. Don’t get me wrong, far more people have been impassioned to support this undertaking than not, but the disappointments have been greater and more personal than I had expected.

When you are passionate about something as I am with my project, the highs are a lot higher and the lows – well, you get the picture. Rather than dwell on the disappointments, I came across a news excerpt that has fed me energy for the past month, and I expect for months to come. It was a small story with big time implications that occurred during the recent uprising in Egypt. Former dictator Hosni Muburak’s final attempt to stay in power was based on the premise that without him, fundamentalists would run rampant and the US in particular would pay the price. A funny thing happened to turn this premise on its ear – a new narrative emerged from the younger generation that took on the fundamentalists in a public forum not seen before in this country. A Christian man and a Muslim woman were in a romantic relationship that disturbed the woman’s family to the point that 2 people were killed.

A group of Muslims located the Christian man who was hiding out in a church and they torched the church, just the kind of actions Muburak was claiming would be commonplace in his absence. But a funny thing happened immediately after the burning – a group of young Muslim and Christian leaders joined forces to defuse the situation, and in the days of the revolution, actually took to locking arms around their respective prayer sites when the other group was in observance. Now that’s what I’m talking about, and this is exactly the kind of story I hope to build into my child’s early learning experiences. It’s also the kind of story that gives me an affirmative to the title of this story.

1. to give understanding or information to

2. to free from ignorance, prejudice, or superstition

3. to give spiritual or religious revelation to

4. poetic to shed light on With this said, how is it that the responses to the title question are overwhelmingly negative and defensive?

From my experience, it is the prevailing belief (and fear) that by introducing your child to the existence of other faiths, one risks losing their child to another faith. Most often, the reason given for consciously avoiding this practice (of introducing the child to the existence of other faiths) is that it will confuse the child. My answer to this is that it all depends on how this introduction is framed. Let me stress the phrase existence of other faiths; how much does the meaning change if the premise was ‘Introducing your child to other faiths?’ I submit that inserting the word ‘existence’ changes it substantially. I am endorsing a very high level introduction that simply lets the child know of the existence of other faiths.

The very fear that is voiced about confusing the child becomes far more prevalent if and when the child comes across a peer of another faith without any orientation or guidance of any kind. This is where confusion and even fear can step into the equation. At this point, the reader should be shaking their head a bit as they try to rationalize the argument against introducing a child to the existence of other faiths with the very definition of enlightenment. Let me ease your confusion – there is no rational for this. It is a disconnect, plain and simple. While I do recognize the need to keep it simple, it’s really not that difficult to keep it simple. Simply mentioning the names of other faiths with positive connotations is really all that is needed. My early child education lesson with my daughter on the Buddhist faith not only made for an interesting and entertaining discussion, it also provoked more questions about her own faith. This actually had enabled me to enter into a more in depth conversation on her own faith.

Children respond well to comparisons and contrasts and these discussions are helping her to solidify her own spiritual identity, which flies in the face of the concerns mentioned at the start of this article. And at the core of these discussions are life lessons that I hope all children will carry with them through adulthood – Respect, Compassion & Understanding for others who are different than you.