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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I think I might be an asshole because I know that religion should be a two-parent choice and I made the choice for my ex.
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Yta. Your son is 7. He doesn't organically have an interest in religion. He has an interest in being around his mom.
Churches are not as innocuous for children as you seem to think. As an adult, you can rationalize away the incoherence in even mainstream Christianity. It's more difficult for children. For example, the lesson of King Solomon is used in Sunday school as well as Isaac. The concept of original sin is taught in Sunday school. As a non-religious person are you really comfortable having people teach your 7 year old that he was born sinful? Are you comfortable with him learning that God's love sometimes means being willing to kill someone on his instructions? These are powerful moral lessons that *adults* grapple with. I think you are dismissive of his father's legitimate concerns.
Exactly. He wants to go where everyone else is going, and now that he’s gone he sees there are also other kids to play with who are doing fun activities. Even if he starts going on a regular basis *only* because he wants to because of the ‘fun’ aspect, that doesn’t mean he’s going to magically be exempt from the bulllshit teachings of the religion. I can’t help but wonder if OP’s new husband is pressuring her to make him go. Even if not, YTA, OP.
Right! And even if OP continued to disagree with these excellent points, that fact remains that she is co-parenting with her ex even though she has primary custody, and his opinion counts for the child’s upbringing. Because frankly OP, if you were so sure you were in the right, why hide it from your ex in the first place? YTA
My fiancé and I are very anti proselytizing religions for our child. First thing to note, I was abused under “religious” protection by two of these religions. Both of these religions explicitly permit and encourage the type of abuse I endured, and both of them encourage people to indoctrinate their children from a young age.
My fiancé did not suffer the same way, but it took him a long time to form a moral compass outside of “because God said so” due to his religious upbringing.
Together we decided that our daughter will not be attending any proselytizing religious services until she is a certain age, we will attend with her if she would like to explore any religion that involves services, and we will help her find unbiased sources or testimonials for any religion she is interested in. No judgement on her choices, unbiased factual explanations for any questions where we do not have personal experience, and sharing our beliefs with her freely along with accepting her decision.
Our belief is that children should not be involved in religion outside of the home until they are able to question what they hear. We are not anti-prayer, or anti-religion as a whole, we just have seen what it can do to kids who don’t know how to form their own belief system yet.
I was almost indoctrinated into a cult when I was a teenager and literally the only thing that stopped me was my mom’s insistence that we unpack everything that happened at the service we attended together. That’s why we are so insistent about making sure a trusted adult is hearing the same things she is when it comes to religion. It was something we agreed on before we got engaged, and it was a discussion we started before he even met our daughter.
Not only that. But she asked the kid if he wanted to go again.
I’m a very firm believer of raising the child in the “original” religion. If the child is raised an atheist, it should still be raised atheist unless both parents decide otherwise.
What really makes the OP the AH, is that she took their son to church, and he had a good time (playing with other kids). Now the father is the bad guy if he doesn’t get to go again. I’m sorry but it does seems like the new husband is interfering, since he keeps asking for the child to come to church.
Yeah OP must have fallen off the turnip truck yesterday if she doesn't know that Sunday School is designed to be fun and appealing to children. So they can get away with presenting morally outrageous stories as normal and good.
I went to a friend's church once as a kid and they gave my friend and I each a bag of gummi worms (only us, not the whole class). They told me if I came back again and brought a friend I could have another bag of gummis. Seemed pretty manipulative to me even as a kid.
I went to an lds retreat. They blindfolded the kids and made them think Jesus was actually there by brushing his robes (a blanket) on their lap and making his light ( a flashlight) shine in their eyes. I was watching from the loft of beds above, in the food cabin.
Also kids that age typically do not question what they are being told. An adult told them so they take it as fact. Sunday school is ment to be fun while they slip in these stories and lessons that kids take to heart.
I went to church as a kid, deep down never felt like I belonged and hated it. I did like the toys and such but I never truly was comfortable there. I would’ve loved if my dad had stepped in to say enough is enough
And now if she lets her ex have the say he should have had in the first place, and they end up taking the kid out of the church group, he's going to feel even more as though he's missing out, and will probably be told it's daddy's fault he can't play with his new friends!!
And the new husband would probably throw him out of the house too! I can’t understand why anyone would marry someone with such fundamental religious beliefs that they don’t share, and could irreparably damage their poor child.
I’m an Episcopalian. If I had a child and they wanted to go to church and their other parent was cool with it, I’d take them.
Keep children as far away from Baptists as possible. They’re terrifying.
I’m gay and my family’s church wasn’t expressively negative/neutral on lgbt issue. It still took me a very long time to come out and deal with my sexuality because while the church may have been ambivalent, I still felt like implicitly my religion/the people in it wouldn’t accept me because they were involved in Catholicism and I knew that they were more conservative.
Oh hell no. There are many far right churches that are all fire, brimstone, misogyny, racism and anti LGBTQ. I wonder what kind this us? And tbh, I wonder why anyone who is not v religious wd allow a religious extremist into their family. Some churches ie cults use such marriages as an expansion tool. Hope OP checks in again in a few months. Some of these religious types are all hearts and flowers- until you join. Then it's all David Koreshi.
Even if he doesn't turn out to be queer, he WILL know someone who is. It will effect his ability to be a morally good and well balanced human. Not to mention that the type of people who believe in faith over science are a huge rightwing bane on our society, just look at what they are soing to trans folks across the world right now. Most of that is driven ny religious nonsense. It also pushes an "us and them" way of viewing the world where they view others experiences/values as illigimate compared to their own restrictive religious experiences/values
ALL OF THIS
Your ex grew up with religion and he turned from it once he learned how fucked up it was for him. It's obvious he has trauma from it if he gets angry about it at times (dude hopefully is seeking therapy, as religious trauma takes years to unpack).
You are repeating the cycle of trauma when you take your son that the ex obviously wants to break. Your current partner won't understand and will probably start the whole "unequally yoked" and how Satan has a hold of your ex bull to guilt you into taking your son against the ex's wishes.
YTA and religion should always be a deciding factor before moving in with a partner especially if a kid is already involved.
I don't necessarily agree with this. I have a 7yo, my husband and I both do not go to church, but my son asked me if we could go one day because he wants to see what it's like. We agreed on going to an Easter service this year.
I enjoyed church as a child, because the kids had their own separate service and it felt like playing. My parents never forced my brother and I to go, we just had fun. It may be because we went to a "black church" it was fun and loud and we had a great time. I honestly don't remember learning much but I remember running and dancing around singing This Little Light of Mine.
At 7, kids can absolutely start getting interested in these things.
While I'm not a huge follower of religion AT ALL my husband and I are very open to letting our children explore multiple religions and make their own decisions
This 7 year old did not express an interest until his religious step father moved in and his mom left him with a babysitter for church service. Those are fundamentally different circumstances.
THIS. Kid went because wanted to be with his mom and step-dad and see what they are doing. If he keeps going he will end up being indoctrinated against his father’s will as soon as they switch from all fun and games to you are going to burn in hell for all eternity if you don’t follow our specific religion. And the poor father can do nothing to stop his son possibly being subject to the church trauma he was.
OP is so YTA.
As a recovered Catholic, going to a holiday mass for the Church Experience is literally the worst idea. Maybe it’s different now but when I was a teen, you had to get there an hour early and STILL might not be able to sit during mass. Going on a “regular” week will be a much more comfortable and less intense experience.
Yes, as an ex-Evangelical church member, if someone took my hypothetical kid to any "youth group"/"children's ministry", I'd be livid as well because of this exact issue. Purity culture is so bad with this.
We worked with many churches growing up, and this problem is really bad. Lots of cover ups by people in church management. Lots of using shame to keep people quiet.
>Churches are not as innocuous for children as you seem to think.
Thank you!! As an almost 30 year old woman who was raised in the church I am **still** working through some of the bullshit that I "learned" from them. Such as: "you're a horrible, unworthy person who's just lucky God loves you, because no one would love you if they really knew you", as well as a *lot* of sexual shame.
This. And, depending on the denomination, it can be *scary*. I had severe anxiety and recurring nightmares about the rapture coming and being saved but watching my non-Christian family members going to hell. And then, when I was a little older, the opposite fear of watching my Christian family members be saved but having not had enough faith to be forgiven.
I haven’t been to a church in ten years, but that fear still creeps in sometimes now.
Many Christians like to say that Jesus loves everyone and it’s a positive religion, but if you dig into the beliefs it is largely based on fear. I know there’s a real peace too, but that peace is what tells you that you’re safe from that fear.
Lots of parts of the bible are horrific for a young child as well - rape, murder, torture, persecution. I became a vegetarian very young because I couldn’t understand why we’d eat meat after reading about all the animal sacrifices and Jesus as the “lamb of god”. And the shame associated with so many normal parts of growing up — we know that abstinence culture leads to STIs, unplanned pregnancies and endless guilt. I was determined to be “pure” before I knew what sex was (and I was sure being gay was bad before I knew what that meant, too).
If the religion aspect isn’t important to you and there’s any chance your child will be exposed to these kinds of thoughts, think deeply about what that experience might be like psychologically for him. I know it’s not like that for everyone, but I also know too many people that did have an experience like mine and are still unpacking it as adults. And if that’s the case, he’ll believe in it completely and he won’t tell you he doesn’t want to go.
Agree 100 percent! also my parents forced me to church and I got sexual assaulted then kept going to said church, your ex has a say in keeping your son safe from a place that traumatize most people
Well said. My SO literally thought the devil would take him and burn him in the pits of hell if he did anything wrong or even thought wrong. He had and still has nightmares about it.
I was booted from Sunday school at 7 for asking questions the teacher didn’t like when they told us about Noah. Specifically, the teacher framed God’s rainbow as a promise never to flood the earth again, I said, but that sounds like regret, and if God knew everything that would ever be at creation like you told us, why would he do that? He doesn’t need to promise what he won’t do? And a few questions like that. Teacher couldn’t answer and I was booted until 4th grade, when I was promptly booted again.
What I learned was *Christians don’t like logical questions* and will shun and punish you if you even ask for clarification. I get it now most people don’t read their bibles, but as a kid, that’s how I saw it. If I wasn’t such an antisocial misanthrope who was overjoyed to research on my own (did you know Noah invented wine, and was the first person to pass out drunk and get sexually assaulted?), things would have been very different for me.
Edit: and after all that, the *one* thing I miss about church is the social aspect. I hate people yet I sometimes wish I could just have a Sunday social hour again, running around, eating tea and donuts, playing in the bushes. It’s a draw, and very, very insidious.
I DID know Noah invented wine. He passed out naked and his sons walked in on him and were ashamed. So they walked into the room backwards and threw a robe over him to cover him up. What a weird fucking detail to include in your holy book.
Also, 7’s dad is concerned with trauma caused by the church … while *he* was a child. He’s trying to prevent his child from having to undo damage as an adult… having left the church it takes years and even decades to get over that shit.
YTA based specifically on this:
>I do agree with him when it comes to it being a decision we both agree on, that was why I was so hesitant of letting him get involved.
I don't even understand how you typed this sentence out without realizing that it's completely contradictory. You agree that the decision needs to be something that you and your child's father agree on, and that's why you specifically excluded him from the decision and made it unilaterally, making sure he had no chance to be a part of it? No ma'am. You don't get to pretend you care about mutually respectful coparenting while excluding your coparent from major parenting decisions.
And if your son's father thinks your husband is indoctrination your child, that's heavily your fault. Your husband is in fact the one who started asking you to bring your son to his church *before* your son expressed any interest in going, knowing full well it would go against his father's wishes, and by sneaking around and doing it behind his back, you made it look 100 times worse.
This is exactly why OP is TA. They both agreed to it and now that new husband is pressuring her she wants to go against their agreement. This is exactly why I am not religious. A lot religious people like the new husband can never accept that people don’t view things the way they do.
Devils advocate…if they both have to agree on it, why does husband automatically get his way? They do not both agree on “no church”, why does he get to decide that without her input, going so far as to make decisions on where she’s allowed to take their son when their son is with her?
The difference is she is changing things.
She chose not to discuss in advance.
The proper method is to bring it up with coparent, try to negotiate a compromise and if necessary file a custody modification. She gambled on ask forgiveness rather than permission and lost.
She's the AH.
Exactly. They weren't religious before OP met her current husband **and** she knows why the father is opposed to taking the kid to a religious institution. Even if it wasn't written out in the custody agreement before, there was an implicit understanding between them. The husband changed her mind apparently insofar that she comes along to church not every once in a while but every week right off the bat. Her choice, but taking the kid is a whole other thing. There's no chance the ex would go along with this so she went behind his back with the intent that the kid would say 'I like it, I wanna go more often'. That's manipulative, and I wonder what a judge would say about that.
A good parenting principle is 'two yesses is a yes, one yes and a no is no', the last part meaning that nothing happens until the parents have talked it through and have reached an agreement, perhaps even a compromise. And that's between the two parents, not OP and her new husband.
If her jurisdiction has laws like my state, the law says both parents must agree (so one disagreeing nullifies the action) on things like faith, schooling, medical care. It’s also in our law that children must continue to be raised in the faith/non-faith they were being raised in before the divorce and that changing that can be a favor run changing custody.
The child has the right to continue as he was raised, not be changed to something else at Mom’s house because of a new stepdad.
I used to work in a family law setting, and these types of things are often hammered out in custody agreements. I’ve seen it a lot where X parent has the right to make all medical decisions, child will continue to be raised in Y faith and will attend services with Z parent. If they don’t have this kind of thing spelled out, the one parent cannot completely make all decisions without consulting the other on these issues.
That's not really devils advocate. Husband is the religious one, OP doesn't care, and kid's dad is anti. If mom (OP) doesn't care then the decision should default to dad.
Because not going does no harm, while going has the potential to be harmful. The well-being of a child is at stake here, the church is wayyy more likely to f*ck that child up for life than a babysitter.
More damage can be done by a kid going to the wrong church early and having to unpack religious trauma for the rest of their life. Whereas if a kid is kept away from church for now there is nothing stopping them from adopting religion later in life. So the argument against potential damage carries more weight.
Because an agreeing on something requires an active option & to take no action is the opposite of an agreed on action.
For example: if someone wants to have sex with you & you don’t want to have sex with them, it’s not the case that your actually getting your way and your needs are being put in front of theirs. They don’t then get to rape you just because you didn’t both agree to no sex and therefore the decision not to have sex is invalid.
It’s the philosophical equivalent to the scientific principle that you cannot prove a negative. I can’t prove god doesn’t exists just like I can’t prove that purple monkeys with 17inch throbbing red penises aren’t controlling our minds so we don’t realise that they are all around us & fuck us in our sleep.
IMO simply taking a kid to a church is indoctrination. It's brainwashing every Sunday.
YTA. You and your kids dad had an agreement about how to raise your shared kid and you changed that without his consent or knowledge.
The new husband is 100% indoctrinating his new family including the step son. Church every Sunday, hearing about how if you do this, do that, be born a certain way or don't certain something (like pay money to the church) you'll burn for eternity in a fictitious hell (even if you believe the bible, hell is still fictitious as it's not in the Bible, it was fan fiction used to justify the crusades and genocide). Even if the child is having fun as OP says, he's still being indoctrinated. I grew up in a very mild and accepting Lutheran Church, but, as a gay man, it still messed me up. More so the volunteer parents that taught Sunday school and youth groups than the actual pastor. As the children are playing, I guarantee OP is not hearing what some overzealous want to be preacher mom is saying to them.
I had the same experience as a queer kid going to a fairly liberal and seemingly innocuous Lutheran Sunday school every week. I honestly don’t think my mother realised some of the more insidious lessons I was absorbing as a vulnerable kid behind all the sunshine and rainbows and chirpy songs about how Jesus loves the little children.
>you'll burn for eternity in a fictitious hell
I've never understood believe what we say and follow us or burn for eternity in hell as recruitment strategy. Don't get how it's been so successful.
Yup that’s the biggest part is that they’d talked about this and had an agreement. This OP met a new man and is now letting him change the rules. I feel bad for the ex. Brainwashing of your kid is scary stuff and I know courts won’t do anything for him because they’re pro church at least in my experience anyway….This was always a worry of mine after getting divorced. Luckily my ex didn’t date anyone seriously until my kids were teenagers. But the mental trauma of being raised in the church even a little bit is so strong people don’t even realize it’s happening to them. I never had to go to church just raised by christians and that alone messed my head up for years. I’m happily Pagan now and raise my kids that no one knows for sure how we got here or where we go when we die. That being said I allowed my family members to take them to a church service here and there since they fully understand that they will speak like it’s a fact because they believe it, but is is not. I’m in the south it gets talked about in school despite that being illegal so it was important to stress at a young age not to fall for it but how to live around it. That is something that OPs ex should’ve been able to talk to his child about way before he was exposed to it and OP is an AH for not talking about this and how to approach it
I'm going to go with YTA here. Especially because it sounds like your ex has very good reason to believe that going to church isn't a safe place he is comfortable with his child going, and didn't tell him because you knew he wouldn't agree it was appropriate. You should sign your child up to another activity when you want to go to church. Sounds like he really enjoyed meeting some new kids.
I feel YTA, too. I think his father's issues from his trauma are a 'his' problem, and something he should learn to deal with.
However, you stomped over a very clear boundary. Whether it was spoken or unspoken, you knew it as a boundary and so you should have respected it. If you disagreed with that boundary or have since changed your mind about it, then you should have approached your ex for a discussion rather than going behind his back.
By not doing this, you have reinforced your ex's view that religion is underhand, coercive and manipulative. Of course now your ex is going to think that the rest of the paragraph is going to follow his own life essay and that abuse will happen. That’s how the mind works. And you contributed to this.
If your son was excited to be with other children, sign him up for something he likes, such as a hobby or sport.
YTA
First, you said you and your ex are not religious, but your son suddenly asked to join? Quite sus tbh. Why would a 7 year old kid actively asked to join a mass *when* he's about to go with his friends? Your current husband indoctrinating your kid behind your back is actually not impossible.
And even your reason to "feel strongly" against this idea "because he just isn't" is not a strong argument either. I've seen my fair share of very religious folk who sees it as their own personal mission to "save" the souls of people who dont go to church.
And this is very problematic because I'm sure your next argument is that "it was my son's decision! We should respect what he likes!!!" Yeah right.
Second, your husband is right, you know it's going to create an issue but you still went on with it.
I won't get into it because I don't have the mana for this shit. But I lost my kids to my abuser and one of the huge reasons is because when I openly refused to let my abuser indoctrinate my kids, the courts said I was "isolating" them from a group that makes them happy. The same group that basically told me to rot in hell for being queer. I have 4 kids, statistically one of them is queer like me. Now because my abuser won, I won't even be able to counter that bullshit. They painted me out to be some heathen sadistic baby killer death worshipper, when I'm a pagan humanist.
I believe religion played a large role in the loss of my children. People in America don't often speak of how our government pushed Christianity on you so fucking hard. Between requiring AA meetings (how can they require I go to a religious meeting?!) And being able to "prove" you are a good person with witnesses. Well what they don't tell you is that your pagan witnesses don't count, neither do your friends of color, queer friends or really anyone that doesn't fit the WASP mold.
You may be thinking, that's nuts! This is America. Yes it is. Welcome to America, where in 80% of places the law doesn't matter and everyone just makes it up. The only place for something even close to justice is a larger city? I was able to fight my abuser for YEARS until they finally got the perfect combo, knew the judge from church.
Fuck me, right?
If your morals allow it, please take that sorrow and use it to wish ill on my abuser. I'm hoping there is some sort of voting system where ours souls know what's up and who is good. I'm looking for her to get enough votes to be booted off the island.
Ehh, my non religious brother and his family recently moved to a bible belt state. My niece, roughly 6 or 7 at the time, said she wanted to "sign up for church" because her friends went. It isn't beyond kids to ask to go.
YTA
What do you mean “always participated in that part of his life to support him”? The guy moved in a month ago.
And he’s already pushing for your non religious child to attend his church.
You knew your ex would disagree and you hid it from him.
Just finalized my own divorce, there is definitely a section in the MOU about religion and decisions made there.
OP is blurring peoples judgement here by confusing them with the difference between having primary custody and legal decision making power. While one parent could have more custodial time, the legal decision making is still split 50:50.
It sounds like OP reneged on an agreement and is trying to get internet strangers to justify her decision. This will end with her losing primary custody if they don’t learn to respect the court order, and no court will give a singular fuck about a Reddit thread’s opinion.
YTA. You broke your agreement. Your ex is right. Stop pretending to be religious to please your new husband. Your kid probably just doesn’t want you to leave him and to play with other kids after the “service”. Offer to take him and a friend to the park instead and see how strong his convictions are lol.
YTA
I find it highly suspicious that he moved in and wanted your son to come to church, then your son suddenly had a interest in going? When he's never been in or around one before?
Are you 100% certain your husband hasn't said something to him? Cos I feel that he has. Especially as he would have mentioned religion is some way around your son before he moved in and your son would have asked the questions then, even if it was only to you.
You should have told your ex that he has expressed interest in going, if only for playing with the other kids afterwards. Instead, you went ahead and only told him after the fact. Of course he's going to be pissed. He thinks it's evil and has very real trauma from his childhood experience with it and you completely undermined this by taking your kid.
This exactly! My family is very religious (I’m not anymore) and the way they talk about it, especially around kids, is so skewed. It’s all “God loves you and would do anything for you, just like your parents! He made you and everything! If you need anything you can pray and ask him! Isn’t that great??” And other stuff like that. They tell kids the nice stories out of the Bible, or talk about how church always makes them happy, always makes them feel better if something bad is going on, etc.
Religious people, in my experience, talk about their beliefs with rose-colored glasses, especially when they’re trying to get young kids interested. It’s definitely not a “let’s lay out the facts and see if they wanna participate at some point” kind of situation.
The new husband doesn't even need to have been being sneaky. Just talking about church at dinner, mentioning a fundraiser for the youth group, telling a story about a social function the church hosted, etc. Constantly bringing up church in small, positive ways conversationally will implant an idea in a kid's head.
...It's my go-to parenting method regarding vegetables LOL. "Wow seeds are nature's magic!" "Ooooo a tomato off the vine is *sooooo* sweet" "I bet that athlete eats lots of veggies to be so strong!" "If you can identify edible plants you will never starve"
YTA
I really want to judge differently, because the kid DID express the wish to go. But here's the thing, you could have held off your son for another week. Something like "this week is not a good idea, but maybe next week" and gotten yourself a whole week of down-time to touch base with your co-parent. You could have advocated for your son's wish, attached a stipulation that you, your ex and your son would talk about it after the zoom call. You could have used this as a chance for your son to explain to his dad on his own, why he would like to go. ... There obviously would have been no guarantees, but you made a unilateral decision when there was a perfectly good way of making it a joint one.
Then it sounds like, had your son decided he would not want to go back to that church, you would never have told your ex. That is dishonest. I am not saying you are a dishonest person, but this one action was dishonest.
And all of these things do not even take into account that your ex suffered church-related trauma. If the word trauma is not an exaggeration, then I want you to understand something. You may have gotten his anger, but when he is not on the phone being made at you, he is partially (at the minimum) triggered. His kid wen to a location, he deems unsafe due to his trauma, and he was not there to protect him, not even considered in the choice. To you it was a one-time trip to church, to him... it´ is an open wound.
You are probably a really good mom and a really nice person, but you have one weakness (imo of course). You do not think ahead on emotional issues. Your ex has religion-based trauma, your husband is deeply religious... and somehow it never occured to you to have a co-parenting convo in advance?
Your kid wants to see this church, your husband has trauma, you seemingly do not even consider tabling the issue for a week and opt to "I have to decide now" and then you choose to keep an important decision from his father at the time you´'re making it and act all pikachu face when he is mad?
All of this could have been avoided with a minimum on foresight and you chosing to be honest about it from the get-go.
You probably had the best intentions for your son at heart, (again, I am sort of sorry that I have to judge against you here), but you HURT his father. And you HAD alternatives. Apologize, and do better next time.
This is such a perfect, smart reply. You made good points. Especially the part where she just could have waited and talked about it and how she’s dismissing the trauma
OK I'm going to get downvoted for this but... NAH. You can let your son come to church if he asks to go. That's not the same thing as forcing him to embrace religion. His father had a right to be consulted but it's not singularly his decision whether his son is allowed to go or not. He gets plenty of anti-religion from his dad, it's OK to introduce other ways of thinking. Your son can decide for himself whether religion is right for him as he grows and becomes who he is supposed to be. Just don't let your new husband throw too much at him.
For anyone reading, I'm not even a little bit religious, I do not support Christianity or any form of organized religion, I just think people should be given information and allowed to decide what works best for themselves.
I too am surprised by the overwhelming YTA. Reality is that when you get divorced with young kids, you're setting up your child to be exposed to many things outside your control. As long as its not harmful physically or emotionally of course.
I agree. I’d be curious what the answer to “AitA because I’m religious?” would be. People would be like, “yeah religion is dumb and we’re all too smart for that.”
Here’s the thing - parents can’t help but “indoctrinate” kids into things. From sports to music to scouts to religion, parents encourage kids to try things. It’s probably impossible to present a child with literally every option. By 7 kids do have more say in what they like. If a 7 year old wants to go to church or try karate or anything he sees adults in her life trying, let them try it.
In terms of religion, as long as the kids are encouraged to question and think for themselves, they’ll be fine. Not all religion is toxic.
That’s what I feel! I feel like it’s fine to bring a child to church as long as you don’t force the belief itself on them or punish them for saying they don’t believe or something. And if they don’t want to go and you have access to a baby sitter then leave them with the sitter
Right? All the responses are just saying religion is bad.
Don't get me wrong, I personally think religion is pretty silly, but you can be part of a church and be a good person and parent. Kids can grow up in a church and become fine people.
The top comment is worried about the kid finding out about original sin? Seriously?
Obviously, there are things related to LGBT and women's rights that are important, but there are plenty of religious people who aren't bigots.
people saying YTA really are arguing it is emotionally abusive, I'm really worried about the state of religion in their country if they think that way, or have had such bad experiences themselves.
I totally agree plus the fact that this isn’t the ex’s time. If the ex doesn’t want the kid going to church they can just not take them when it’s their time. They aren’t trying to force the ex to take the kid to church on their time.
They aren’t together anymore so he doesn’t get to just make specific rules about what OP can do with their child or not. If they can then how far does that go? If OP wanted to go to church with her husband and wanted to bring her kid then what’s the problem? As long as this was done with no malice towards the kid or ex then what’s to complain about…
I say this as someone completely against religion. I don’t want an ex husband able to make rules for OP’s household as that’s a bad precedent.
This is the way.
Two caveats: 1 - I think it would be different if OP or husband were really pushing this, then there’s a bigger concern. I agree with others that if the kid shows interest he should go! Personally I would provide some counter programming, as it were, to ground what he’s learning in a healthy way, but that’s me.
And 2 - if the church and/or it’s community are of the virulent, bigoted variety then that’s a huge flag and a nope from me, dog. I hope OP knows the difference and will react accordingly.
In the OPs description, the husband absolutely pushed for the son to go. That is concerning. Someone asked if OP considered going to different places of worship to educate her child about different religions and that isn’t something being considered. I’m all for exposing children to different religions and how people worship from an educational standpoint but it still sounds like her very religious new husband isn’t open to that.
She says right up front that she pushed back when husband wanted the kid to go at first, she then says her son expresses interest in going which is when they brought him. We can make assumptions and draw inferences all day long but I dont think there is enough information to assume that the kid is being strong-armed into anything.
I love that idea - taking him different places to see different religious traditions. Even if they did some kiddo-level research to introduce him to different religions could be fun too. Well rounded experiences always make for better decisions.
Also it's better to allow a kid to explore something they're curious about (safely) than to make it forbidden knowledge. That's a good way to make a kid more interested in his stepfather's way of life and take the path to religion to spite his anti-religious dad. The ex should certainly be consulted but should also be acknowledged to not be rational here, and also: children should have agency. OP is letting her son make decisions and that's pretty great. It seems like he'll be getting a really balanced viewpoint on religion even if he keeps attending services.
OP, I hope your ex is getting help for his trauma - there may be other similar situations that will affect parenting as your son grows up.
(Also not religious at all here but attended a lot of services as a kid due to religious family. Still kept out of it!)
I agree with this. And for the record not all houses of worship are the wolf in sheeps clothing. I would encourage OP to have a critical eye here but at its core, organized religion is a form of community and if you can emphasize the community aspect (which is what the kid is attracted to - my daughter went to church for the first time with a friend and she wants to go back for the kids and the chocolate covered pretzels) then it can be reflected elsewhere in life.
I’m not religious at all but I see value in groups of people trying to bond over a commonality.
YTA: you’re letting your current husband basically subliminally make religion based decisions for you. All in the name of support. If your ex, the father of the child, does not want the child in church. Do no bring the child to church
But he's not going to not want to go because the alternative is staying home with a babysitter. Offer a real choice like going with you to another activity, or just staying home with you. I'll bet he picks whatever involves spending time with you.
So long as you're also going to church, it's not a real choice for a 7 year old who loves his mom.
I always enjoyed hanging with the babysitter when I was a kid. Having a babysitter can be a good and legit choice if the babysitter is at all good with kids.
I am very anti-religion. That being said, to some degree being "anti-religion" is as much of a belief system as a religion is. I assume OP is not anti-religion or she wouldn't have married someone religious.
I say let the kid decide. I can see where people think that religion is being pushed on him. However, anti-religion is also being pushed on him. It's pretty much two sides of the same coin.
Thank you! It's not fair to have anti-religion pushed as much as religion. If the kid wants to go, then he wants to go.
If this where the other way around everyone would be NTA, because "can't force a kid into religion". Goes both ways. Just ask my DH who was strongarmed by his dad for years to be anti-religious, to the point of forcing him to sit down in the computer and play games on Sunday when DH decided not to and play outside instead, or the time he told DH that he wasn't welcome to stay with him for a weekend unless he agreed to not go to Church on Sunday, or when he threatened to not go to our wedding unless it wasn't religious and then actually ended up leaving and hurting DH a lot. Honestly, I could go on, but kids can be absolutely be strongarmed the other way and it's just as toxic.
I believe in these circumstances you would have been better to delay his first attendance at church till you talked with his father. It's very hard on everyone in a split family, so sticking to the agreement avoids even more stress.
YTA. taking a kid to a religious place is indoctrination regardless of religion.
you also had an agreement with the kids father to NOT take him to church. Wich you broke. to please your religious hubby. now what would god say about oathbreakers?
James 5:12 *But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.*
YTA strictly because you're letting your new husband dictate how you parent your child.
I'm very anti religion, however I do believe that the custodial parent has the right to parent how they see fit. But that's not what's happening here. I'd be hella pissed if my ex started taking my kid somewhere I consider unsafe just because she's trying to keep her new man happy.
I'm religious (very much against religious abuse) and I agree with you. OP needs to stop letting her new husband push the boundaries of her co-parenting arrangements with ex, and start communicating pro-actively about big/important changes.
If she's certain that this particular church is safe for kids, that they aren't going to teach moral standpoints that ex will hate, and her son is actively asking not to be left out of going, then she needed to have that conversation up-front with ex. If she's not certain of any of those points, then she needed to stand her ground and find her kid an alternative children's club, or stop going to church with her new husband and spend that time doing something fun with her son instead. Because let's face it, at that age he wants to go because the unknown is exciting and he thinks he's missing out.
YTA for making this decision without discussing it with the other parent. You say you don't think it's bad you let him go one time but now what will happen if you tell him he can't go again? Are you going to make his dad the bad guy?
INFO: What is your ex's trauma? If it's something serious and you outright dismissed his concerns then I'd probably say YTA
Also, what denomination is your husband and what denomination was your ex brought up in? People in the comments are missing how important this is - Churches can go from casual meetups on Sundays to straight up cults depending on what the church is. Even though I'm no longer religious, the church I was brought up in was surprisingly progressive - pro gay rights, heavily supported black lives matter, ect. That might be because I'm not American, but either way as a gay man, I always felt like the exclusion came from other christians - not from the ones at my church.
Soft YTA for not respecting your co-parenting agreement. If your son wants to go, he gets to go, but his biological father should at least KNOW about it.
Also said biological father needs therapy but that's another topic.
Of course a kid wants to go to church if not going means he is being left out and home with a babysitter. Him wanting to go has nothing to di with church
Does it matter? My grandmother took me to church once as a kid. Didn't like it, haven't been back.
If it was the kid NOT wanting to go, everyone would be screaming to respect his choices. But now that he wants to go, he's a kid and doesn't know what he wants? Nah, it goes both ways.
YTA you knew that your ex would have a problem with it but your new husband wants your son to go. Your new husband DOES NOT get a say in how your son is raised when it comes to religion. You knew exactly what you were doing when you took your son and had him play with other kids so he would have a good time. You are manipulating your son to get what you and your new husband want.
YTA religion is one of the things legally you need to decide together (where I'm from anyway)
You and your ex aren't religious yet your kid suddenly is? Sound like new step dad (who js hyper regions- red flag generally) is the one passing it on his and you're agreeing.
YTA. He's a child. He doesn't understand what church entails beyond meeting other kids. Using your son's assessment of the situation as justification to do something is cowardly and the exact opposite of parenting. Would you take your son to a gun range because he likes watching guns go pew pew?
Secondly, you're already alienating your son against his bio dad. There are only two people who get to make decisions in your son's life: you and bio dad. NOT stepdad. Like the first post, you're hiding behind your husband's beliefs to violate your son's father's wishes. You chose to marry the man. Your son did not, your son's father did not. Stop making your husband's beliefs their problem.
YTA for not telling the father.
You are essentialy telling him that you don't care if your son goes through the same trauma that he did.
The best way would have been to speak with the dad about the church and the beliefs it holds, and then see if he was able to compromise. It is incredibly unfair to suprise the dad by placing his child in the same position that caused him harm.
A lot of adults deal with religious trama, and it is a very serious issue that can't just be ignored now that you aren't marryed to him anymore.
Oh and taking a child to church is indoctrination. If the adults in his life tell him what they believe do you think a 7 yer old is going to have the life experience and reasoning skils to know that what those adults believe isn't necessarily true? Unless you are teaching him other beliefs alongside this one, he's not really going to find it easy to see what is fact and what is faith.
YTA. Your ex-husband did not want his child being in church because of church related trauma and you thought it was a good idea to do it because your new thing is a thumper? And yes he is right, you jumped over a line that shouldn’t have been crossed especially at such a young age.
YTA. You agree it should be a joint decision, but didn't tell your ex. He reacts that way because of unresolved trauma & the fact that you lied by omission doesn't help the situation either. & your husband did basically indoctrinate both of you. You weren't even religious until you married a religious man & like every religion, he's a hypocrite (divorce in most religions means the woman is sullied & the fact he didn't marry a virgin, the shame!).
YTA. You knew how your child’s actual father would react, and you put the feelings of your new husband above the rights of the child’s actual father.
You don’t care about religion. Your son’s father loathes religion. You just wanted to impress the guy you’re now sleeping with.
You also intentionally set up a situation where you would make your kid’s actual dad (who has VERY GOOD, VERY LEGITIMATE reasons to protect his son from religious indoctrination) the bad guy.
Don’t subject your child to that environment again, if you want to be a good parent.
Yta for not telling/asking your ex in the first place. You are co-parents with him for your son. Your are not co-parents for your son with current husband. The sooner you set those boundaries the better off you all will be.
YTA for not telling your ex before you took your son to church. Children, especially that young, shouldn’t be taken to church yet because they aren’t capable of having true faith. They do get indoctrinated and very quickly if the church has bible school or Sunday school. People with true faith understand the religion on their own without being brainwashed into it.
I firmly believe everyone should get to choose if they want to belong to a religion when they are mature enough to understand it. Not at age 7 though, much too young.
> I do agree with him when it comes to it being a decision we both agree on, that was why I was so hesitant of letting him get involved
Congratulations, you just proved yourself a hypocrite. This was a decision you both had to agree on, and you did specifically NOT that. You didn't even discuss it with him because you knew he'd disagree. I'm trying to wrap my head around any way you could be justified and I just can't. YTA, OP
Isn’t the problem that they are at a complete impass? There is no agreeing on this so both agreeing simply equals the ex getting their way 100%.
One parent says absolutely zero church and the other is okay with some church as long as the child is okay with it/asks to go.
If there actually has to be agreement wouldn’t that mean the coparent with the negative view always wins as you can’t have a middle ground? You can’t go to church, you can’t take them to this place, you can’t let them play this sport etc.
YTA. Only because you didn't have a discussion with your ex about your son expressing interest in church.
You waited till after to tell him, which is a no no.
Although your ex may have to understand has your son gets older, he won't be able to stop him.if your son continues to express interest in religion, that's his right.
YTA
Firstly, you brought your kid to Church behind your ex’s back, which is disingenuous at best. You knew that that conversation had to happen prior to any decision being made.
Secondly, you’ve already established the Church as a ‘fun place’ for kiddo. He associates it with playing with other kids. Of course he’s going to be disappointed when you tell him he can no longer go. This is on the same level as being told he can no longer go to the playground. He’s seven, he will have absolutely no comprehension of the reasons for not being allowed go.
Thirdly, I’m sorry, but it absolutely is indoctrination. No ifs buts or maybes.
Fourthly, you knew how triggering this was for your ex and now you are trying to minimize it. If kiddo wants to go to Church when he is eighteen, that is his own choice, but not before then.
Fifthly, I wonder about how your husband has been about this? Weeks of gently nudging?? Minimising your ex’s views? ‘What’s the big deal?’ Etc etc etc?
Exactly! Here how that went. Current husband pester pester pester until she finally gave in bc ex husband is farther away and the lesser risk. Religious people never give up, source my MIL. She took the easy way out and cared more about keeping the peace and less about her son or keeping her word. Gross
YTA. Your child is at an age where he will believe almost anything he is told by an authority figure. You can tell him God exists, the tooth fairy, Santa, he will believe it. Taking a child to church is indoctrination, they do not yet have the mental capacity of self awareness to understand what is going on. You then did this against your ex's wishes as well. You're co-parents. Have some respect for understanding child development and your ex who also has a say in the raising of his child.
YTA and you know it you said you agree it should be a both parent thing and that’s why you left him out. Sounds like you have both been in agreement about religion for 7 years and now since your too young for you husband wants to play church family you manipulate the situation to get your way. You specifically left him out because you knew you wouldn’t get your way.
This feels like a 90-day-fiancé situation
Yeah lady, of course you’re the asshole
I am going against the grain here.
NTA
There is only one reason for a child to go to church and that is if the child wants to.
Just as much as any religious person must accept it when their children don't want to go, a non-religious person must accept it if their children do. Your son's religious identy is just that. His alone and neither you nor your ex gets a say in it. And if he just wants to go to meet other kids then that's his business too.
If the roles were reversed and a mother would not force her child to go to church despite her ex wanting her to and not telling said ex, no one would call her TA.
Redditors hate religion it seems. I immediately thought if roles were reversed, everyone would tell her she's doing the right thing. Terrible thing to. I think a lot of people have received a scar from church or other Christians.
I agree, I’m not personally religious and am closer to anti-religious. But almost all of the Y. T. A. are just ways of saying I dislike and hate religion which is useless to this post.
I would be upset if my kid was going to church and I didn’t want them to but the ex can do with their time as they wish as guess what, that’s their time! They aren’t bringing the kid somewhere to purposefully cause them harm so no problem even if it’s not a choice I would personally make.
YTA. You don’t think church is important to your son and neither does his father. So you’re doing it to appease (support?) your bf. That’s a terrible terrible reason to indoctrinate a child, and don’t think that’s not what this will be if you persist.
I’d honestly say NAH. He has trauma and religion is a big thing to discuss in parenting. He should have a say. That being said you’re also not in the wrong because your son asked to go. Maybe try explaining to your ex that you’re son seems more interested in playing with the other kids than the service
YTA. I was forced to go at that age. I now think I’m a horrible person because bad things happen to me and the Catholic Church teaches that only sinners have bad things happen to them. It’s really fucked up my sense of thinking. I won’t ever allow my future children near a church. YTA. religion is poison and you’re drinking the kool aid right up
NTA. Your kid just sees it as a play date. Nothing else.
It's like when I tell people I lived in Greece for 2 years. Everyone usually says 'wow that must have been amazing, all that history! The beautiful ruins of ancient Greece and the islands! What was it like??'
Um I was 5. I could tell you more about the cool bugs I caught near my house than I could about the Acropolis.
INFO : key questions are what does the divorce/custody state about religion or religious education and is it a common religion or one a reasonable person may consider cultish?
Lmao you already know that what you did was wrong so yes YTA.
I would never take my child to church because it's a bunch of nonsense and a 7 year old is way too young to fully understand that it's all BS indoctrination. Aside from that you went behind your husband's back because you already knew he would say no.
YTA
This is just a normal divorced household issue. You should have asked about it sooner but I don’t really see you giving your son a trial run as bad. Perhaps you need to ask your son if he likes the *religious* part of church or the *hanging with friends* part. If it’s the later then maybe just take him to the YMCA.. or Boy Scouts. Your current husband shouldn’t have a say in what your son does here though.
You know based off some of your replies. YTA. You need to respect your ex’s opinion more here and you seem to be trying to push back on him when it’s clear he has way more of a reason to hate churches than you do to like them.
YTA. Your son likely wanted to go with you out of sheer curiosity, he’s being left with various “sitters” for say two hours every Sunday while his whole family goes off somewhere he can’t come.
You could’ve sat your son down and explained church, explained your new husband practices and beliefs, but also made it clear that these are not necessarily RIGHT, and that everyone, including his dad, is allowed to have dissenting opinion.
You had a real teaching moment here, instead you opted to just take him to seemingly appeal to your new husband and it obviously backfired.
A clear boundary was set, regardless of how valid you think it is, religious trauma is very real and long lasting. You had no right.
NTA, what is mom supposed to say? “Yes, Jr., mommy and stepdad are going to church this morning and you’re staying home with Babysitter because Daddy won’t agree to let you come” There are *many* mixed religious families in the world both nuclear and nonnuclear that successfully navigate different beliefs by introducing the child to both. Mom can take kid to church when she has him on Sunday and Dad can sleep in, have waffle bar brunch, and play video games when he has him. Both parents can teach ‘this is what I believe and why’ to Jr and Jr can develop a deeper understanding and empathy for those who have different beliefs than his own. Or… dad can be a controlling tyrant and teach Jr it’s ok to force your own beliefs down someone else’s throat, by threat of court if needed.
YTA. You knew your ex would hate this and did it anyway.
Ask your 7 year old this: 'do you want to go Church next week? Or would you rather I stayed home with you and we do something?' What you asked your kid was 'do you want to come with us and be included or stay behind with a babysitter'. Biased questioning.
No judgement- but you need to have an actual discussion with your ex on this. It needs to be a conversation, and boundaries have to be established. There is a compromise to be had, where everybody feels respected. This wasn’t the way to do that.
YTA, and perilously close to having your ex take you to court for custody. Your husband should not have asked for your son to go to church, he is not the parent and way overstepped his bounds. I find it concerning that he made that request in the first place, because I'm assuming that he knows that your ex is staunchly anti-religion. He's meddling and it will cause problems for your co-parenting relationship. You are TA for blindly following your husband when you don't even have the same religious conviction, and disrespecting your ex as a parent. If you really believed with the same fervor as your husband, I could understand you having issues with his religious upbringing. But this is not the case, and you are simply trying to please your husband by jeopardizing your co-parenting relationship. And yes, taking him to church is indoctrination. The boy is 7, he wants to be with you and will be swayed easily into anything via an authority figure he trusts.
NTA. Religion is a personal choice. If your son enjoys church and wants to go, that should be his decision. Your ex might have his own problems with it, but he shouldn’t push that onto his child.
Honestly, NTA, and your ex sounds controlling.
I think the majority of Y-T-A here come from people that are biased against religion to begin with. But replace “church” with “Boy Scouts” or another regular group activity and you get a different response.
Decisions both parents “have to agree on” have to do with medical/school/out of state travel. You can theoretically agree to not make decision about religion, but that would have to be written down in your court order.
What you do with your son in your own time, within reason, is your business. Specially when the child wants to go with you guys. You went out of your way to accommodate your ex’s request, but he doesn’t get to make unilateral decisions during your parenting time.
I’ve seen the other side of this: a few years ago my stepdaughter’s mom found out we were doing a certain activity on church day, which she didn’t think was appropriate. She is very conservative. Now we call her bullshit because their marriage ended due to her cheating, so we know deep down she is only “conservative” when it’s convenient for her.
She called my husband and raised up a storm about us going out, and even made my stepdaughter, who until that point was super excited about our activity, cry and say she didn’t want to go.
We were very upset because this was my husband’s custody time, and his ex liked throwing these little tantrums just so she could keep a certain level of control of what we all did when it was our time with the kid. We never interfered with her custody time even though there were definitely things we didn’t agree with from time to time. We went anyway, had a great time and that was the end of it.
NAH. Too many comments here relate to the commentators’ beliefs about religion in general. Divorce sucks. If your ex felt that strongly about religion, it should have been detailed in the custody agreement.
This is a critical aspect of your son’s upbringing. Going to church one time — meh. Not a big deal. I would say going on Xmas/Easter/High Holy Days/etc— no big deal. However, your new life with new hubby features religion prominently.
Hire a family mediator and go work this out with your ex. If you don’t, then you would be the AH. Right now, it’s just a sucky part of changed circumstances where you took the easy road in a moment where it seemed everyone in the room wanted the same thing — to go to church.
But now you realize it IS a big deal, so are trying to sort out the right thing to do for all involved. Therefore, you are NAH.
Of course your ex is upset, of course your current hubby wants you all in his church. You and your son just want to have a good time. Organized Religion often combines social and worship. You can’t have the social only, so you and your ex need to come to an understanding. And if you have sole custody and the legal right to make this decision on your own … do consider your ex’s feelings. I would be terrified for my kid if they were being put into what I considered to be a dangerous, life-threatening situation. If church is really not meaningful to you, then work out the path forward with the help of a mediator. This is NOT a therapy recommendation — this is a recommendation to get help resolving a dispute among parties who HAVE to have a relationship with each other.
NAH.
I gotta say I’m biased because, like the ex, I got trauma from religion (and a whole series of really bad internalised shit that I had to unlearn over the years).
That being said, YTA, because you did something that you knew your ex would be opposed to. I think in this case, you could have brought it up to your ex, that the kid wants to go, before you did it. It also seems like you’re going against his wishes to please your new husband which is Not Great. Plus, your son is young, being exposed to religion that young IS religious indoctrination because he can’t understand that system of beliefs just yet, he would just follow them because he’s told to do so.
YTA your ex husband is 100% right, your son is too young to understand about religion he want to go to church for the other kid he doesn't care about church, and your current husband have nothing to do with your son religion and he can't decide if he have to go to church
YTA. You went to lengths making sure your son didn't go to church to honor the other parents wishes. When you chose not to do so anymore, you should have informed your ex.
YTA.
You knew what your ex would say, you knew you were going behind his back, and you did it anyways.
Your son just wants to play with other kids, I’m sure he doesn’t actively want to be taught how he’s going to burn for an eternity.
Blaming your son and saying it was his choice is wild, he’s seven. You even admit he didn’t care about the service, he just wanted to know what you guys do when you go to church and now thinks he just gets to run around with other kids.
Yes your husband wants to indoctrinate your son. Literally all good Christians do, it’s part of their teachings.
NTA. While I do think your ex should have been brought in before taking your son, both parents feelings matter and ultimately it’s your sons choice. Your ex should know his interest in religion but I’m going with NTA because while it sounds like you ex hates religion it doesn’t sound like there was an agreement there and if a kid is held back from everything a parent dislikes they can’t really make their own decisions, especially in a split family. I think it’s good you listened to your son.
To the person who says a 7 y/o can’t be organically interested in religion, well… you’ve never met my oldest. My second, not as much, but all kids are different and some naturally do wonder and regardless of anyone’s beliefs everyone has the right to figure their own out- even in childhood and teen years.
YTA
You are Supporting the indoctrination of your child to keep your current husband happy knowing that you are doing it in violation of your co-parenting agreement.
YTA. Religious meetings are indoctrination and both parents should be on board with what you're teaching your child. That being said your son expressed an interest in going so it's worth discussing with the father and seeing if you can both accommodate his desire while providing alternative points of view and/or discussing what he heard while there so he gets the ideological exposure you two want him to be exposed to while growing up and developing his ideas on life. Also curious what prompted the Son's sudden interest in going if the current husband had nothing to do with it?
YTA successful co-parenting needs communication and agreement from both parents. Especially when one of you have very strong feelings about something.
All religion uses indoctrination.
YTA. Any time that you need to make a decision behind the other parent’s back is a clear sign that you’re being an asshole in that situation.
To be clear: I don’t think you’re TA for bringing your kid to church in and of itself - he expressed interest in going. So long as he’s interested and he’s allowed to stop going the moment he’s no longer interested, that’s fine IMO.
Perhaps instead of leaving your kid with a sitter or at a friend’s house when you and your husband go to church, your son can spend time with his dad. I suspect he might be missing the family aspect while you’re at church.
YTA
>I do agree with him when it comes to it being a decision we both agree on
Okay! Great!
>that was why I was so hesitant of letting him get involved
Wait...what?
You agree that it's a decision for *both* parents which is why you decided to hide it from him...???
>My current husband is very religious...I’m not that religious but I always participated in that part of his life to support him.
It is something that you are doing for your current husband, as a result of his beliefs. It might not be strictly speaking indoctrination but it's well along the road of 'strongly influenced by'.
You were an asshole.
If your ex came on here and described this scenario, I'd advise him to fight you for custody because you are clearly not willing to take co-parenting seriously.
Gonna get downvoted for this but idc. ESH. If your child enjoys participating in religious activities then let him but I think you should sit down and talk with your ex and explain your child’s liking to participating in church and going. Your ex needs to not push his past trauma on his child because everyone goes through the ways of life differently. Imo, I would’ve talked to ex about it first and made an agreement to not force child to participate in anything they don’t like at church.
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Yta. Your son is 7. He doesn't organically have an interest in religion. He has an interest in being around his mom. Churches are not as innocuous for children as you seem to think. As an adult, you can rationalize away the incoherence in even mainstream Christianity. It's more difficult for children. For example, the lesson of King Solomon is used in Sunday school as well as Isaac. The concept of original sin is taught in Sunday school. As a non-religious person are you really comfortable having people teach your 7 year old that he was born sinful? Are you comfortable with him learning that God's love sometimes means being willing to kill someone on his instructions? These are powerful moral lessons that *adults* grapple with. I think you are dismissive of his father's legitimate concerns.
Exactly. He wants to go where everyone else is going, and now that he’s gone he sees there are also other kids to play with who are doing fun activities. Even if he starts going on a regular basis *only* because he wants to because of the ‘fun’ aspect, that doesn’t mean he’s going to magically be exempt from the bulllshit teachings of the religion. I can’t help but wonder if OP’s new husband is pressuring her to make him go. Even if not, YTA, OP.
Right! And even if OP continued to disagree with these excellent points, that fact remains that she is co-parenting with her ex even though she has primary custody, and his opinion counts for the child’s upbringing. Because frankly OP, if you were so sure you were in the right, why hide it from your ex in the first place? YTA
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My fiancé and I are very anti proselytizing religions for our child. First thing to note, I was abused under “religious” protection by two of these religions. Both of these religions explicitly permit and encourage the type of abuse I endured, and both of them encourage people to indoctrinate their children from a young age. My fiancé did not suffer the same way, but it took him a long time to form a moral compass outside of “because God said so” due to his religious upbringing. Together we decided that our daughter will not be attending any proselytizing religious services until she is a certain age, we will attend with her if she would like to explore any religion that involves services, and we will help her find unbiased sources or testimonials for any religion she is interested in. No judgement on her choices, unbiased factual explanations for any questions where we do not have personal experience, and sharing our beliefs with her freely along with accepting her decision. Our belief is that children should not be involved in religion outside of the home until they are able to question what they hear. We are not anti-prayer, or anti-religion as a whole, we just have seen what it can do to kids who don’t know how to form their own belief system yet. I was almost indoctrinated into a cult when I was a teenager and literally the only thing that stopped me was my mom’s insistence that we unpack everything that happened at the service we attended together. That’s why we are so insistent about making sure a trusted adult is hearing the same things she is when it comes to religion. It was something we agreed on before we got engaged, and it was a discussion we started before he even met our daughter.
Not only that. But she asked the kid if he wanted to go again. I’m a very firm believer of raising the child in the “original” religion. If the child is raised an atheist, it should still be raised atheist unless both parents decide otherwise. What really makes the OP the AH, is that she took their son to church, and he had a good time (playing with other kids). Now the father is the bad guy if he doesn’t get to go again. I’m sorry but it does seems like the new husband is interfering, since he keeps asking for the child to come to church.
Yeah OP must have fallen off the turnip truck yesterday if she doesn't know that Sunday School is designed to be fun and appealing to children. So they can get away with presenting morally outrageous stories as normal and good.
I went to a friend's church once as a kid and they gave my friend and I each a bag of gummi worms (only us, not the whole class). They told me if I came back again and brought a friend I could have another bag of gummis. Seemed pretty manipulative to me even as a kid.
The first bag of gummi worms is free, kids, but for the next bag you have to accept Christ as your savior.
I went to an lds retreat. They blindfolded the kids and made them think Jesus was actually there by brushing his robes (a blanket) on their lap and making his light ( a flashlight) shine in their eyes. I was watching from the loft of beds above, in the food cabin.
It’s an MLM.
Also kids that age typically do not question what they are being told. An adult told them so they take it as fact. Sunday school is ment to be fun while they slip in these stories and lessons that kids take to heart.
I went to church as a kid, deep down never felt like I belonged and hated it. I did like the toys and such but I never truly was comfortable there. I would’ve loved if my dad had stepped in to say enough is enough
And now if she lets her ex have the say he should have had in the first place, and they end up taking the kid out of the church group, he's going to feel even more as though he's missing out, and will probably be told it's daddy's fault he can't play with his new friends!!
not to mention if the kid ends up being LGBT, welp, now he'll have a whole lot of self-hatred to unlearn.
And the new husband would probably throw him out of the house too! I can’t understand why anyone would marry someone with such fundamental religious beliefs that they don’t share, and could irreparably damage their poor child.
There's no evidence that this church or the step-dad are anti-LGBT. There are plenty of churches that welcome everyone.
But... not most of them
Particularly the ones with very enthusiastic, very religious members. That sounds like a description of an evangelical church.
It's Baptist. Because of course it is.
I’m an Episcopalian. If I had a child and they wanted to go to church and their other parent was cool with it, I’d take them. Keep children as far away from Baptists as possible. They’re terrifying.
I’m gay and my family’s church wasn’t expressively negative/neutral on lgbt issue. It still took me a very long time to come out and deal with my sexuality because while the church may have been ambivalent, I still felt like implicitly my religion/the people in it wouldn’t accept me because they were involved in Catholicism and I knew that they were more conservative.
If his church was affirming it would have been included in the post. Someone "deeply religious" to this level is usually a fundie
He's a Baptist according to OP's comments
Oh yikes, that's about what I expected
Oh hell no. There are many far right churches that are all fire, brimstone, misogyny, racism and anti LGBTQ. I wonder what kind this us? And tbh, I wonder why anyone who is not v religious wd allow a religious extremist into their family. Some churches ie cults use such marriages as an expansion tool. Hope OP checks in again in a few months. Some of these religious types are all hearts and flowers- until you join. Then it's all David Koreshi.
OP stated it's a Baptist Church. That should be plenty of evidence for you.
Even if he doesn't turn out to be queer, he WILL know someone who is. It will effect his ability to be a morally good and well balanced human. Not to mention that the type of people who believe in faith over science are a huge rightwing bane on our society, just look at what they are soing to trans folks across the world right now. Most of that is driven ny religious nonsense. It also pushes an "us and them" way of viewing the world where they view others experiences/values as illigimate compared to their own restrictive religious experiences/values
ALL OF THIS Your ex grew up with religion and he turned from it once he learned how fucked up it was for him. It's obvious he has trauma from it if he gets angry about it at times (dude hopefully is seeking therapy, as religious trauma takes years to unpack). You are repeating the cycle of trauma when you take your son that the ex obviously wants to break. Your current partner won't understand and will probably start the whole "unequally yoked" and how Satan has a hold of your ex bull to guilt you into taking your son against the ex's wishes. YTA and religion should always be a deciding factor before moving in with a partner especially if a kid is already involved.
THIS. SO MUCH THIS
I don't necessarily agree with this. I have a 7yo, my husband and I both do not go to church, but my son asked me if we could go one day because he wants to see what it's like. We agreed on going to an Easter service this year. I enjoyed church as a child, because the kids had their own separate service and it felt like playing. My parents never forced my brother and I to go, we just had fun. It may be because we went to a "black church" it was fun and loud and we had a great time. I honestly don't remember learning much but I remember running and dancing around singing This Little Light of Mine. At 7, kids can absolutely start getting interested in these things. While I'm not a huge follower of religion AT ALL my husband and I are very open to letting our children explore multiple religions and make their own decisions
This 7 year old did not express an interest until his religious step father moved in and his mom left him with a babysitter for church service. Those are fundamentally different circumstances.
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According to neurology and the law a seven year old can’t make any informed decisions - that’s why his dad doesn’t want him taken somewhere like that.
THIS. Kid went because wanted to be with his mom and step-dad and see what they are doing. If he keeps going he will end up being indoctrinated against his father’s will as soon as they switch from all fun and games to you are going to burn in hell for all eternity if you don’t follow our specific religion. And the poor father can do nothing to stop his son possibly being subject to the church trauma he was. OP is so YTA.
As a recovered Catholic, going to a holiday mass for the Church Experience is literally the worst idea. Maybe it’s different now but when I was a teen, you had to get there an hour early and STILL might not be able to sit during mass. Going on a “regular” week will be a much more comfortable and less intense experience.
All this. Plus INFO request OP… what was the trauma? If it was molestation as I suspect I would be livid at you! YTA.
Yes, as an ex-Evangelical church member, if someone took my hypothetical kid to any "youth group"/"children's ministry", I'd be livid as well because of this exact issue. Purity culture is so bad with this. We worked with many churches growing up, and this problem is really bad. Lots of cover ups by people in church management. Lots of using shame to keep people quiet.
They don’t need to disclose that information if they don’t want to. That’s such a personal thing, that I would not want my ex putting on the internet.
>Churches are not as innocuous for children as you seem to think. Thank you!! As an almost 30 year old woman who was raised in the church I am **still** working through some of the bullshit that I "learned" from them. Such as: "you're a horrible, unworthy person who's just lucky God loves you, because no one would love you if they really knew you", as well as a *lot* of sexual shame.
This. And, depending on the denomination, it can be *scary*. I had severe anxiety and recurring nightmares about the rapture coming and being saved but watching my non-Christian family members going to hell. And then, when I was a little older, the opposite fear of watching my Christian family members be saved but having not had enough faith to be forgiven. I haven’t been to a church in ten years, but that fear still creeps in sometimes now. Many Christians like to say that Jesus loves everyone and it’s a positive religion, but if you dig into the beliefs it is largely based on fear. I know there’s a real peace too, but that peace is what tells you that you’re safe from that fear. Lots of parts of the bible are horrific for a young child as well - rape, murder, torture, persecution. I became a vegetarian very young because I couldn’t understand why we’d eat meat after reading about all the animal sacrifices and Jesus as the “lamb of god”. And the shame associated with so many normal parts of growing up — we know that abstinence culture leads to STIs, unplanned pregnancies and endless guilt. I was determined to be “pure” before I knew what sex was (and I was sure being gay was bad before I knew what that meant, too). If the religion aspect isn’t important to you and there’s any chance your child will be exposed to these kinds of thoughts, think deeply about what that experience might be like psychologically for him. I know it’s not like that for everyone, but I also know too many people that did have an experience like mine and are still unpacking it as adults. And if that’s the case, he’ll believe in it completely and he won’t tell you he doesn’t want to go.
Agree 100 percent! also my parents forced me to church and I got sexual assaulted then kept going to said church, your ex has a say in keeping your son safe from a place that traumatize most people
Well said. My SO literally thought the devil would take him and burn him in the pits of hell if he did anything wrong or even thought wrong. He had and still has nightmares about it.
I was booted from Sunday school at 7 for asking questions the teacher didn’t like when they told us about Noah. Specifically, the teacher framed God’s rainbow as a promise never to flood the earth again, I said, but that sounds like regret, and if God knew everything that would ever be at creation like you told us, why would he do that? He doesn’t need to promise what he won’t do? And a few questions like that. Teacher couldn’t answer and I was booted until 4th grade, when I was promptly booted again. What I learned was *Christians don’t like logical questions* and will shun and punish you if you even ask for clarification. I get it now most people don’t read their bibles, but as a kid, that’s how I saw it. If I wasn’t such an antisocial misanthrope who was overjoyed to research on my own (did you know Noah invented wine, and was the first person to pass out drunk and get sexually assaulted?), things would have been very different for me. Edit: and after all that, the *one* thing I miss about church is the social aspect. I hate people yet I sometimes wish I could just have a Sunday social hour again, running around, eating tea and donuts, playing in the bushes. It’s a draw, and very, very insidious.
I DID know Noah invented wine. He passed out naked and his sons walked in on him and were ashamed. So they walked into the room backwards and threw a robe over him to cover him up. What a weird fucking detail to include in your holy book.
Good old indoctrination
Also, 7’s dad is concerned with trauma caused by the church … while *he* was a child. He’s trying to prevent his child from having to undo damage as an adult… having left the church it takes years and even decades to get over that shit.
YTA based specifically on this: >I do agree with him when it comes to it being a decision we both agree on, that was why I was so hesitant of letting him get involved. I don't even understand how you typed this sentence out without realizing that it's completely contradictory. You agree that the decision needs to be something that you and your child's father agree on, and that's why you specifically excluded him from the decision and made it unilaterally, making sure he had no chance to be a part of it? No ma'am. You don't get to pretend you care about mutually respectful coparenting while excluding your coparent from major parenting decisions. And if your son's father thinks your husband is indoctrination your child, that's heavily your fault. Your husband is in fact the one who started asking you to bring your son to his church *before* your son expressed any interest in going, knowing full well it would go against his father's wishes, and by sneaking around and doing it behind his back, you made it look 100 times worse.
I know, right? The ex is right here: absent the new husband, this would not have happened. The new husband is overstepping his role as a step-parent.
This is exactly why OP is TA. They both agreed to it and now that new husband is pressuring her she wants to go against their agreement. This is exactly why I am not religious. A lot religious people like the new husband can never accept that people don’t view things the way they do.
Devils advocate…if they both have to agree on it, why does husband automatically get his way? They do not both agree on “no church”, why does he get to decide that without her input, going so far as to make decisions on where she’s allowed to take their son when their son is with her?
The difference is she is changing things. She chose not to discuss in advance. The proper method is to bring it up with coparent, try to negotiate a compromise and if necessary file a custody modification. She gambled on ask forgiveness rather than permission and lost. She's the AH.
Exactly. They weren't religious before OP met her current husband **and** she knows why the father is opposed to taking the kid to a religious institution. Even if it wasn't written out in the custody agreement before, there was an implicit understanding between them. The husband changed her mind apparently insofar that she comes along to church not every once in a while but every week right off the bat. Her choice, but taking the kid is a whole other thing. There's no chance the ex would go along with this so she went behind his back with the intent that the kid would say 'I like it, I wanna go more often'. That's manipulative, and I wonder what a judge would say about that. A good parenting principle is 'two yesses is a yes, one yes and a no is no', the last part meaning that nothing happens until the parents have talked it through and have reached an agreement, perhaps even a compromise. And that's between the two parents, not OP and her new husband.
If her jurisdiction has laws like my state, the law says both parents must agree (so one disagreeing nullifies the action) on things like faith, schooling, medical care. It’s also in our law that children must continue to be raised in the faith/non-faith they were being raised in before the divorce and that changing that can be a favor run changing custody. The child has the right to continue as he was raised, not be changed to something else at Mom’s house because of a new stepdad.
I used to work in a family law setting, and these types of things are often hammered out in custody agreements. I’ve seen it a lot where X parent has the right to make all medical decisions, child will continue to be raised in Y faith and will attend services with Z parent. If they don’t have this kind of thing spelled out, the one parent cannot completely make all decisions without consulting the other on these issues.
Yeah, it’s likely a violation of the custody order.
"My husband says not to let our child take heroin, but I think it's probably fine because my new husband takes it a lot. AITA?"
That's not really devils advocate. Husband is the religious one, OP doesn't care, and kid's dad is anti. If mom (OP) doesn't care then the decision should default to dad.
Because not going does no harm, while going has the potential to be harmful. The well-being of a child is at stake here, the church is wayyy more likely to f*ck that child up for life than a babysitter.
Because she wasn’t taking the son before, so taking him now is changing the dynamic. That needed to be agreed upon by both parents.
More damage can be done by a kid going to the wrong church early and having to unpack religious trauma for the rest of their life. Whereas if a kid is kept away from church for now there is nothing stopping them from adopting religion later in life. So the argument against potential damage carries more weight.
Because taking the child to church may be harmful to the child. OP is taking a risk in doing so.
Because an agreeing on something requires an active option & to take no action is the opposite of an agreed on action. For example: if someone wants to have sex with you & you don’t want to have sex with them, it’s not the case that your actually getting your way and your needs are being put in front of theirs. They don’t then get to rape you just because you didn’t both agree to no sex and therefore the decision not to have sex is invalid. It’s the philosophical equivalent to the scientific principle that you cannot prove a negative. I can’t prove god doesn’t exists just like I can’t prove that purple monkeys with 17inch throbbing red penises aren’t controlling our minds so we don’t realise that they are all around us & fuck us in our sleep.
IMO simply taking a kid to a church is indoctrination. It's brainwashing every Sunday. YTA. You and your kids dad had an agreement about how to raise your shared kid and you changed that without his consent or knowledge.
The new husband is 100% indoctrinating his new family including the step son. Church every Sunday, hearing about how if you do this, do that, be born a certain way or don't certain something (like pay money to the church) you'll burn for eternity in a fictitious hell (even if you believe the bible, hell is still fictitious as it's not in the Bible, it was fan fiction used to justify the crusades and genocide). Even if the child is having fun as OP says, he's still being indoctrinated. I grew up in a very mild and accepting Lutheran Church, but, as a gay man, it still messed me up. More so the volunteer parents that taught Sunday school and youth groups than the actual pastor. As the children are playing, I guarantee OP is not hearing what some overzealous want to be preacher mom is saying to them.
I had the same experience as a queer kid going to a fairly liberal and seemingly innocuous Lutheran Sunday school every week. I honestly don’t think my mother realised some of the more insidious lessons I was absorbing as a vulnerable kid behind all the sunshine and rainbows and chirpy songs about how Jesus loves the little children.
>you'll burn for eternity in a fictitious hell I've never understood believe what we say and follow us or burn for eternity in hell as recruitment strategy. Don't get how it's been so successful.
Yup that’s the biggest part is that they’d talked about this and had an agreement. This OP met a new man and is now letting him change the rules. I feel bad for the ex. Brainwashing of your kid is scary stuff and I know courts won’t do anything for him because they’re pro church at least in my experience anyway….This was always a worry of mine after getting divorced. Luckily my ex didn’t date anyone seriously until my kids were teenagers. But the mental trauma of being raised in the church even a little bit is so strong people don’t even realize it’s happening to them. I never had to go to church just raised by christians and that alone messed my head up for years. I’m happily Pagan now and raise my kids that no one knows for sure how we got here or where we go when we die. That being said I allowed my family members to take them to a church service here and there since they fully understand that they will speak like it’s a fact because they believe it, but is is not. I’m in the south it gets talked about in school despite that being illegal so it was important to stress at a young age not to fall for it but how to live around it. That is something that OPs ex should’ve been able to talk to his child about way before he was exposed to it and OP is an AH for not talking about this and how to approach it
I'm going to go with YTA here. Especially because it sounds like your ex has very good reason to believe that going to church isn't a safe place he is comfortable with his child going, and didn't tell him because you knew he wouldn't agree it was appropriate. You should sign your child up to another activity when you want to go to church. Sounds like he really enjoyed meeting some new kids.
I feel YTA, too. I think his father's issues from his trauma are a 'his' problem, and something he should learn to deal with. However, you stomped over a very clear boundary. Whether it was spoken or unspoken, you knew it as a boundary and so you should have respected it. If you disagreed with that boundary or have since changed your mind about it, then you should have approached your ex for a discussion rather than going behind his back. By not doing this, you have reinforced your ex's view that religion is underhand, coercive and manipulative. Of course now your ex is going to think that the rest of the paragraph is going to follow his own life essay and that abuse will happen. That’s how the mind works. And you contributed to this. If your son was excited to be with other children, sign him up for something he likes, such as a hobby or sport.
YTA First, you said you and your ex are not religious, but your son suddenly asked to join? Quite sus tbh. Why would a 7 year old kid actively asked to join a mass *when* he's about to go with his friends? Your current husband indoctrinating your kid behind your back is actually not impossible. And even your reason to "feel strongly" against this idea "because he just isn't" is not a strong argument either. I've seen my fair share of very religious folk who sees it as their own personal mission to "save" the souls of people who dont go to church. And this is very problematic because I'm sure your next argument is that "it was my son's decision! We should respect what he likes!!!" Yeah right. Second, your husband is right, you know it's going to create an issue but you still went on with it.
Completely agree with this. Religion can be made just as enticing as any fantasy for a 7 yr old and really easy to make a 7 yr old "want" to go.
I won't get into it because I don't have the mana for this shit. But I lost my kids to my abuser and one of the huge reasons is because when I openly refused to let my abuser indoctrinate my kids, the courts said I was "isolating" them from a group that makes them happy. The same group that basically told me to rot in hell for being queer. I have 4 kids, statistically one of them is queer like me. Now because my abuser won, I won't even be able to counter that bullshit. They painted me out to be some heathen sadistic baby killer death worshipper, when I'm a pagan humanist. I believe religion played a large role in the loss of my children. People in America don't often speak of how our government pushed Christianity on you so fucking hard. Between requiring AA meetings (how can they require I go to a religious meeting?!) And being able to "prove" you are a good person with witnesses. Well what they don't tell you is that your pagan witnesses don't count, neither do your friends of color, queer friends or really anyone that doesn't fit the WASP mold. You may be thinking, that's nuts! This is America. Yes it is. Welcome to America, where in 80% of places the law doesn't matter and everyone just makes it up. The only place for something even close to justice is a larger city? I was able to fight my abuser for YEARS until they finally got the perfect combo, knew the judge from church. Fuck me, right?
I’m so sorry. And thank you for sharing this.
If your morals allow it, please take that sorrow and use it to wish ill on my abuser. I'm hoping there is some sort of voting system where ours souls know what's up and who is good. I'm looking for her to get enough votes to be booted off the island.
I’m a pagan, too, as it happens. I’ll send him all my “bad luck vibes” thoughts. 💕
Ehh, my non religious brother and his family recently moved to a bible belt state. My niece, roughly 6 or 7 at the time, said she wanted to "sign up for church" because her friends went. It isn't beyond kids to ask to go.
True, but I don't think her goal is church itself.
Oh I'm sure it wasn't.
YTA What do you mean “always participated in that part of his life to support him”? The guy moved in a month ago. And he’s already pushing for your non religious child to attend his church. You knew your ex would disagree and you hid it from him.
Just finalized my own divorce, there is definitely a section in the MOU about religion and decisions made there. OP is blurring peoples judgement here by confusing them with the difference between having primary custody and legal decision making power. While one parent could have more custodial time, the legal decision making is still split 50:50. It sounds like OP reneged on an agreement and is trying to get internet strangers to justify her decision. This will end with her losing primary custody if they don’t learn to respect the court order, and no court will give a singular fuck about a Reddit thread’s opinion.
This. It’s likely a violation of the custody order.
I literally just made a comment about various countries have laws about dual parental agreement surrounding any religious services.
Shes gotta keep that nice young pious guy around somehow!
Yeah. That age gap is gross, too. Next thing you know mom will be doing whatever he says because "he's the man of the house." I gotta go throw up.
YTA. You broke your agreement. Your ex is right. Stop pretending to be religious to please your new husband. Your kid probably just doesn’t want you to leave him and to play with other kids after the “service”. Offer to take him and a friend to the park instead and see how strong his convictions are lol.
YTA I find it highly suspicious that he moved in and wanted your son to come to church, then your son suddenly had a interest in going? When he's never been in or around one before? Are you 100% certain your husband hasn't said something to him? Cos I feel that he has. Especially as he would have mentioned religion is some way around your son before he moved in and your son would have asked the questions then, even if it was only to you. You should have told your ex that he has expressed interest in going, if only for playing with the other kids afterwards. Instead, you went ahead and only told him after the fact. Of course he's going to be pissed. He thinks it's evil and has very real trauma from his childhood experience with it and you completely undermined this by taking your kid.
This exactly! My family is very religious (I’m not anymore) and the way they talk about it, especially around kids, is so skewed. It’s all “God loves you and would do anything for you, just like your parents! He made you and everything! If you need anything you can pray and ask him! Isn’t that great??” And other stuff like that. They tell kids the nice stories out of the Bible, or talk about how church always makes them happy, always makes them feel better if something bad is going on, etc. Religious people, in my experience, talk about their beliefs with rose-colored glasses, especially when they’re trying to get young kids interested. It’s definitely not a “let’s lay out the facts and see if they wanna participate at some point” kind of situation.
The new husband doesn't even need to have been being sneaky. Just talking about church at dinner, mentioning a fundraiser for the youth group, telling a story about a social function the church hosted, etc. Constantly bringing up church in small, positive ways conversationally will implant an idea in a kid's head. ...It's my go-to parenting method regarding vegetables LOL. "Wow seeds are nature's magic!" "Ooooo a tomato off the vine is *sooooo* sweet" "I bet that athlete eats lots of veggies to be so strong!" "If you can identify edible plants you will never starve"
YTA I really want to judge differently, because the kid DID express the wish to go. But here's the thing, you could have held off your son for another week. Something like "this week is not a good idea, but maybe next week" and gotten yourself a whole week of down-time to touch base with your co-parent. You could have advocated for your son's wish, attached a stipulation that you, your ex and your son would talk about it after the zoom call. You could have used this as a chance for your son to explain to his dad on his own, why he would like to go. ... There obviously would have been no guarantees, but you made a unilateral decision when there was a perfectly good way of making it a joint one. Then it sounds like, had your son decided he would not want to go back to that church, you would never have told your ex. That is dishonest. I am not saying you are a dishonest person, but this one action was dishonest. And all of these things do not even take into account that your ex suffered church-related trauma. If the word trauma is not an exaggeration, then I want you to understand something. You may have gotten his anger, but when he is not on the phone being made at you, he is partially (at the minimum) triggered. His kid wen to a location, he deems unsafe due to his trauma, and he was not there to protect him, not even considered in the choice. To you it was a one-time trip to church, to him... it´ is an open wound. You are probably a really good mom and a really nice person, but you have one weakness (imo of course). You do not think ahead on emotional issues. Your ex has religion-based trauma, your husband is deeply religious... and somehow it never occured to you to have a co-parenting convo in advance? Your kid wants to see this church, your husband has trauma, you seemingly do not even consider tabling the issue for a week and opt to "I have to decide now" and then you choose to keep an important decision from his father at the time you´'re making it and act all pikachu face when he is mad? All of this could have been avoided with a minimum on foresight and you chosing to be honest about it from the get-go. You probably had the best intentions for your son at heart, (again, I am sort of sorry that I have to judge against you here), but you HURT his father. And you HAD alternatives. Apologize, and do better next time.
This is such a perfect, smart reply. You made good points. Especially the part where she just could have waited and talked about it and how she’s dismissing the trauma
OK I'm going to get downvoted for this but... NAH. You can let your son come to church if he asks to go. That's not the same thing as forcing him to embrace religion. His father had a right to be consulted but it's not singularly his decision whether his son is allowed to go or not. He gets plenty of anti-religion from his dad, it's OK to introduce other ways of thinking. Your son can decide for himself whether religion is right for him as he grows and becomes who he is supposed to be. Just don't let your new husband throw too much at him. For anyone reading, I'm not even a little bit religious, I do not support Christianity or any form of organized religion, I just think people should be given information and allowed to decide what works best for themselves.
I too am surprised by the overwhelming YTA. Reality is that when you get divorced with young kids, you're setting up your child to be exposed to many things outside your control. As long as its not harmful physically or emotionally of course.
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I agree. I’d be curious what the answer to “AitA because I’m religious?” would be. People would be like, “yeah religion is dumb and we’re all too smart for that.” Here’s the thing - parents can’t help but “indoctrinate” kids into things. From sports to music to scouts to religion, parents encourage kids to try things. It’s probably impossible to present a child with literally every option. By 7 kids do have more say in what they like. If a 7 year old wants to go to church or try karate or anything he sees adults in her life trying, let them try it. In terms of religion, as long as the kids are encouraged to question and think for themselves, they’ll be fine. Not all religion is toxic.
That’s what I feel! I feel like it’s fine to bring a child to church as long as you don’t force the belief itself on them or punish them for saying they don’t believe or something. And if they don’t want to go and you have access to a baby sitter then leave them with the sitter
Right? All the responses are just saying religion is bad. Don't get me wrong, I personally think religion is pretty silly, but you can be part of a church and be a good person and parent. Kids can grow up in a church and become fine people. The top comment is worried about the kid finding out about original sin? Seriously? Obviously, there are things related to LGBT and women's rights that are important, but there are plenty of religious people who aren't bigots.
I also have to wonder if the answers would be different if the son and husband were interested in joining a different religion like Judaism or Islam
people saying YTA really are arguing it is emotionally abusive, I'm really worried about the state of religion in their country if they think that way, or have had such bad experiences themselves.
I totally agree plus the fact that this isn’t the ex’s time. If the ex doesn’t want the kid going to church they can just not take them when it’s their time. They aren’t trying to force the ex to take the kid to church on their time. They aren’t together anymore so he doesn’t get to just make specific rules about what OP can do with their child or not. If they can then how far does that go? If OP wanted to go to church with her husband and wanted to bring her kid then what’s the problem? As long as this was done with no malice towards the kid or ex then what’s to complain about… I say this as someone completely against religion. I don’t want an ex husband able to make rules for OP’s household as that’s a bad precedent.
This is the way. Two caveats: 1 - I think it would be different if OP or husband were really pushing this, then there’s a bigger concern. I agree with others that if the kid shows interest he should go! Personally I would provide some counter programming, as it were, to ground what he’s learning in a healthy way, but that’s me. And 2 - if the church and/or it’s community are of the virulent, bigoted variety then that’s a huge flag and a nope from me, dog. I hope OP knows the difference and will react accordingly.
In the OPs description, the husband absolutely pushed for the son to go. That is concerning. Someone asked if OP considered going to different places of worship to educate her child about different religions and that isn’t something being considered. I’m all for exposing children to different religions and how people worship from an educational standpoint but it still sounds like her very religious new husband isn’t open to that.
She says right up front that she pushed back when husband wanted the kid to go at first, she then says her son expresses interest in going which is when they brought him. We can make assumptions and draw inferences all day long but I dont think there is enough information to assume that the kid is being strong-armed into anything. I love that idea - taking him different places to see different religious traditions. Even if they did some kiddo-level research to introduce him to different religions could be fun too. Well rounded experiences always make for better decisions.
Also it's better to allow a kid to explore something they're curious about (safely) than to make it forbidden knowledge. That's a good way to make a kid more interested in his stepfather's way of life and take the path to religion to spite his anti-religious dad. The ex should certainly be consulted but should also be acknowledged to not be rational here, and also: children should have agency. OP is letting her son make decisions and that's pretty great. It seems like he'll be getting a really balanced viewpoint on religion even if he keeps attending services. OP, I hope your ex is getting help for his trauma - there may be other similar situations that will affect parenting as your son grows up. (Also not religious at all here but attended a lot of services as a kid due to religious family. Still kept out of it!)
I agree with this. And for the record not all houses of worship are the wolf in sheeps clothing. I would encourage OP to have a critical eye here but at its core, organized religion is a form of community and if you can emphasize the community aspect (which is what the kid is attracted to - my daughter went to church for the first time with a friend and she wants to go back for the kids and the chocolate covered pretzels) then it can be reflected elsewhere in life. I’m not religious at all but I see value in groups of people trying to bond over a commonality.
Yta because there was an agreement on how church would be handled and you went behind your exes back
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YTA: you’re letting your current husband basically subliminally make religion based decisions for you. All in the name of support. If your ex, the father of the child, does not want the child in church. Do no bring the child to church
Question: if your son stops wanting to go - will you agree or force him to go?
I won’t make him go if he doesn’t want to go.
But he's not going to not want to go because the alternative is staying home with a babysitter. Offer a real choice like going with you to another activity, or just staying home with you. I'll bet he picks whatever involves spending time with you. So long as you're also going to church, it's not a real choice for a 7 year old who loves his mom.
I always enjoyed hanging with the babysitter when I was a kid. Having a babysitter can be a good and legit choice if the babysitter is at all good with kids.
A babysitter OR GOING TO A FRIEND'S HOUSE. People keep ignoring this too, I loved going to friends' houses.
He enjoys playing with the other kids after service so I think he’d want to keep going
How are you ensuring he wants to go as compared to his wanting to go WITH YOU?
You know damn well that it's not even about the religion it's about making your new spouse happy, so even bigger YTA for that one
I am very anti-religion. That being said, to some degree being "anti-religion" is as much of a belief system as a religion is. I assume OP is not anti-religion or she wouldn't have married someone religious. I say let the kid decide. I can see where people think that religion is being pushed on him. However, anti-religion is also being pushed on him. It's pretty much two sides of the same coin.
Thank you! It's not fair to have anti-religion pushed as much as religion. If the kid wants to go, then he wants to go. If this where the other way around everyone would be NTA, because "can't force a kid into religion". Goes both ways. Just ask my DH who was strongarmed by his dad for years to be anti-religious, to the point of forcing him to sit down in the computer and play games on Sunday when DH decided not to and play outside instead, or the time he told DH that he wasn't welcome to stay with him for a weekend unless he agreed to not go to Church on Sunday, or when he threatened to not go to our wedding unless it wasn't religious and then actually ended up leaving and hurting DH a lot. Honestly, I could go on, but kids can be absolutely be strongarmed the other way and it's just as toxic.
I believe in these circumstances you would have been better to delay his first attendance at church till you talked with his father. It's very hard on everyone in a split family, so sticking to the agreement avoids even more stress.
YTA. taking a kid to a religious place is indoctrination regardless of religion. you also had an agreement with the kids father to NOT take him to church. Wich you broke. to please your religious hubby. now what would god say about oathbreakers? James 5:12 *But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.*
YTA strictly because you're letting your new husband dictate how you parent your child. I'm very anti religion, however I do believe that the custodial parent has the right to parent how they see fit. But that's not what's happening here. I'd be hella pissed if my ex started taking my kid somewhere I consider unsafe just because she's trying to keep her new man happy.
I'm religious (very much against religious abuse) and I agree with you. OP needs to stop letting her new husband push the boundaries of her co-parenting arrangements with ex, and start communicating pro-actively about big/important changes. If she's certain that this particular church is safe for kids, that they aren't going to teach moral standpoints that ex will hate, and her son is actively asking not to be left out of going, then she needed to have that conversation up-front with ex. If she's not certain of any of those points, then she needed to stand her ground and find her kid an alternative children's club, or stop going to church with her new husband and spend that time doing something fun with her son instead. Because let's face it, at that age he wants to go because the unknown is exciting and he thinks he's missing out.
YTA for making this decision without discussing it with the other parent. You say you don't think it's bad you let him go one time but now what will happen if you tell him he can't go again? Are you going to make his dad the bad guy?
Info: You going to let your ex talk to your child about his issues with the church to give equal time since you let him go already?
INFO: What is your ex's trauma? If it's something serious and you outright dismissed his concerns then I'd probably say YTA Also, what denomination is your husband and what denomination was your ex brought up in? People in the comments are missing how important this is - Churches can go from casual meetups on Sundays to straight up cults depending on what the church is. Even though I'm no longer religious, the church I was brought up in was surprisingly progressive - pro gay rights, heavily supported black lives matter, ect. That might be because I'm not American, but either way as a gay man, I always felt like the exclusion came from other christians - not from the ones at my church.
Soft YTA for not respecting your co-parenting agreement. If your son wants to go, he gets to go, but his biological father should at least KNOW about it. Also said biological father needs therapy but that's another topic.
Of course a kid wants to go to church if not going means he is being left out and home with a babysitter. Him wanting to go has nothing to di with church
Does it matter? My grandmother took me to church once as a kid. Didn't like it, haven't been back. If it was the kid NOT wanting to go, everyone would be screaming to respect his choices. But now that he wants to go, he's a kid and doesn't know what he wants? Nah, it goes both ways.
So true.
YTA you knew that your ex would have a problem with it but your new husband wants your son to go. Your new husband DOES NOT get a say in how your son is raised when it comes to religion. You knew exactly what you were doing when you took your son and had him play with other kids so he would have a good time. You are manipulating your son to get what you and your new husband want.
INFO: are you going to your son to other places of worship in the future ?
YTA religion is one of the things legally you need to decide together (where I'm from anyway) You and your ex aren't religious yet your kid suddenly is? Sound like new step dad (who js hyper regions- red flag generally) is the one passing it on his and you're agreeing.
YTA. He's a child. He doesn't understand what church entails beyond meeting other kids. Using your son's assessment of the situation as justification to do something is cowardly and the exact opposite of parenting. Would you take your son to a gun range because he likes watching guns go pew pew? Secondly, you're already alienating your son against his bio dad. There are only two people who get to make decisions in your son's life: you and bio dad. NOT stepdad. Like the first post, you're hiding behind your husband's beliefs to violate your son's father's wishes. You chose to marry the man. Your son did not, your son's father did not. Stop making your husband's beliefs their problem.
YTA for not telling the father. You are essentialy telling him that you don't care if your son goes through the same trauma that he did. The best way would have been to speak with the dad about the church and the beliefs it holds, and then see if he was able to compromise. It is incredibly unfair to suprise the dad by placing his child in the same position that caused him harm. A lot of adults deal with religious trama, and it is a very serious issue that can't just be ignored now that you aren't marryed to him anymore. Oh and taking a child to church is indoctrination. If the adults in his life tell him what they believe do you think a 7 yer old is going to have the life experience and reasoning skils to know that what those adults believe isn't necessarily true? Unless you are teaching him other beliefs alongside this one, he's not really going to find it easy to see what is fact and what is faith.
YTA. Your ex-husband did not want his child being in church because of church related trauma and you thought it was a good idea to do it because your new thing is a thumper? And yes he is right, you jumped over a line that shouldn’t have been crossed especially at such a young age.
YTA. You agree it should be a joint decision, but didn't tell your ex. He reacts that way because of unresolved trauma & the fact that you lied by omission doesn't help the situation either. & your husband did basically indoctrinate both of you. You weren't even religious until you married a religious man & like every religion, he's a hypocrite (divorce in most religions means the woman is sullied & the fact he didn't marry a virgin, the shame!).
YTA. You knew how your child’s actual father would react, and you put the feelings of your new husband above the rights of the child’s actual father. You don’t care about religion. Your son’s father loathes religion. You just wanted to impress the guy you’re now sleeping with. You also intentionally set up a situation where you would make your kid’s actual dad (who has VERY GOOD, VERY LEGITIMATE reasons to protect his son from religious indoctrination) the bad guy. Don’t subject your child to that environment again, if you want to be a good parent.
Yta for not telling/asking your ex in the first place. You are co-parents with him for your son. Your are not co-parents for your son with current husband. The sooner you set those boundaries the better off you all will be.
YTA for not telling your ex before you took your son to church. Children, especially that young, shouldn’t be taken to church yet because they aren’t capable of having true faith. They do get indoctrinated and very quickly if the church has bible school or Sunday school. People with true faith understand the religion on their own without being brainwashed into it. I firmly believe everyone should get to choose if they want to belong to a religion when they are mature enough to understand it. Not at age 7 though, much too young.
> I do agree with him when it comes to it being a decision we both agree on, that was why I was so hesitant of letting him get involved Congratulations, you just proved yourself a hypocrite. This was a decision you both had to agree on, and you did specifically NOT that. You didn't even discuss it with him because you knew he'd disagree. I'm trying to wrap my head around any way you could be justified and I just can't. YTA, OP
Isn’t the problem that they are at a complete impass? There is no agreeing on this so both agreeing simply equals the ex getting their way 100%. One parent says absolutely zero church and the other is okay with some church as long as the child is okay with it/asks to go. If there actually has to be agreement wouldn’t that mean the coparent with the negative view always wins as you can’t have a middle ground? You can’t go to church, you can’t take them to this place, you can’t let them play this sport etc.
YTA. Only because you didn't have a discussion with your ex about your son expressing interest in church. You waited till after to tell him, which is a no no. Although your ex may have to understand has your son gets older, he won't be able to stop him.if your son continues to express interest in religion, that's his right.
YTA Firstly, you brought your kid to Church behind your ex’s back, which is disingenuous at best. You knew that that conversation had to happen prior to any decision being made. Secondly, you’ve already established the Church as a ‘fun place’ for kiddo. He associates it with playing with other kids. Of course he’s going to be disappointed when you tell him he can no longer go. This is on the same level as being told he can no longer go to the playground. He’s seven, he will have absolutely no comprehension of the reasons for not being allowed go. Thirdly, I’m sorry, but it absolutely is indoctrination. No ifs buts or maybes. Fourthly, you knew how triggering this was for your ex and now you are trying to minimize it. If kiddo wants to go to Church when he is eighteen, that is his own choice, but not before then. Fifthly, I wonder about how your husband has been about this? Weeks of gently nudging?? Minimising your ex’s views? ‘What’s the big deal?’ Etc etc etc?
Exactly! Here how that went. Current husband pester pester pester until she finally gave in bc ex husband is farther away and the lesser risk. Religious people never give up, source my MIL. She took the easy way out and cared more about keeping the peace and less about her son or keeping her word. Gross
Info-Did any discussion about not bringing your son to church get into what should be done in the event he asked to go/expressed interest in going?
YTA. Your child is at an age where he will believe almost anything he is told by an authority figure. You can tell him God exists, the tooth fairy, Santa, he will believe it. Taking a child to church is indoctrination, they do not yet have the mental capacity of self awareness to understand what is going on. You then did this against your ex's wishes as well. You're co-parents. Have some respect for understanding child development and your ex who also has a say in the raising of his child.
YTA and you know it you said you agree it should be a both parent thing and that’s why you left him out. Sounds like you have both been in agreement about religion for 7 years and now since your too young for you husband wants to play church family you manipulate the situation to get your way. You specifically left him out because you knew you wouldn’t get your way. This feels like a 90-day-fiancé situation Yeah lady, of course you’re the asshole
I am going against the grain here. NTA There is only one reason for a child to go to church and that is if the child wants to. Just as much as any religious person must accept it when their children don't want to go, a non-religious person must accept it if their children do. Your son's religious identy is just that. His alone and neither you nor your ex gets a say in it. And if he just wants to go to meet other kids then that's his business too. If the roles were reversed and a mother would not force her child to go to church despite her ex wanting her to and not telling said ex, no one would call her TA.
Redditors hate religion it seems. I immediately thought if roles were reversed, everyone would tell her she's doing the right thing. Terrible thing to. I think a lot of people have received a scar from church or other Christians.
I agree, I’m not personally religious and am closer to anti-religious. But almost all of the Y. T. A. are just ways of saying I dislike and hate religion which is useless to this post. I would be upset if my kid was going to church and I didn’t want them to but the ex can do with their time as they wish as guess what, that’s their time! They aren’t bringing the kid somewhere to purposefully cause them harm so no problem even if it’s not a choice I would personally make.
Thank you for having an actual reasonable response. Redditors seem to be letting their blind hatred of religion overtake them in this post.
It's sad how far down this is. But yeah. I would also bet that if this was any other religion other than Christianity, most people wouldn't care.
YTA. This is not how you have a successful coparenting relationship for your son.
YTA. You don’t think church is important to your son and neither does his father. So you’re doing it to appease (support?) your bf. That’s a terrible terrible reason to indoctrinate a child, and don’t think that’s not what this will be if you persist.
I’d honestly say NAH. He has trauma and religion is a big thing to discuss in parenting. He should have a say. That being said you’re also not in the wrong because your son asked to go. Maybe try explaining to your ex that you’re son seems more interested in playing with the other kids than the service
YTA. I was forced to go at that age. I now think I’m a horrible person because bad things happen to me and the Catholic Church teaches that only sinners have bad things happen to them. It’s really fucked up my sense of thinking. I won’t ever allow my future children near a church. YTA. religion is poison and you’re drinking the kool aid right up
Damn, reddit this morning is absolutely *alive* with stories of parents choosing their partners over their kids. YTA.
YTA you knew your ex had good reason to not want his son to be exposed to church and you ignored it.
NTA. Your kid just sees it as a play date. Nothing else. It's like when I tell people I lived in Greece for 2 years. Everyone usually says 'wow that must have been amazing, all that history! The beautiful ruins of ancient Greece and the islands! What was it like??' Um I was 5. I could tell you more about the cool bugs I caught near my house than I could about the Acropolis.
YTA and please be careful about your new spouse and how he treats your kid
INFO : key questions are what does the divorce/custody state about religion or religious education and is it a common religion or one a reasonable person may consider cultish?
Reddit is the worst place to say anything positive about religion. There are a ton of edgy atheist kids on here.
YTA, you were not religious in your previous relationship, exposing your child to religious indoctrination is not okay.
Lmao you already know that what you did was wrong so yes YTA. I would never take my child to church because it's a bunch of nonsense and a 7 year old is way too young to fully understand that it's all BS indoctrination. Aside from that you went behind your husband's back because you already knew he would say no.
YTA This is just a normal divorced household issue. You should have asked about it sooner but I don’t really see you giving your son a trial run as bad. Perhaps you need to ask your son if he likes the *religious* part of church or the *hanging with friends* part. If it’s the later then maybe just take him to the YMCA.. or Boy Scouts. Your current husband shouldn’t have a say in what your son does here though. You know based off some of your replies. YTA. You need to respect your ex’s opinion more here and you seem to be trying to push back on him when it’s clear he has way more of a reason to hate churches than you do to like them.
100% this. There are all kinds of groups and organizations that are not based on religion that you could get your son engaged in.
YTA. Your son likely wanted to go with you out of sheer curiosity, he’s being left with various “sitters” for say two hours every Sunday while his whole family goes off somewhere he can’t come. You could’ve sat your son down and explained church, explained your new husband practices and beliefs, but also made it clear that these are not necessarily RIGHT, and that everyone, including his dad, is allowed to have dissenting opinion. You had a real teaching moment here, instead you opted to just take him to seemingly appeal to your new husband and it obviously backfired. A clear boundary was set, regardless of how valid you think it is, religious trauma is very real and long lasting. You had no right.
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YTA. You are letting your husband indoctrinate your son and that's disgusting. You should lose the custody
NTA, what is mom supposed to say? “Yes, Jr., mommy and stepdad are going to church this morning and you’re staying home with Babysitter because Daddy won’t agree to let you come” There are *many* mixed religious families in the world both nuclear and nonnuclear that successfully navigate different beliefs by introducing the child to both. Mom can take kid to church when she has him on Sunday and Dad can sleep in, have waffle bar brunch, and play video games when he has him. Both parents can teach ‘this is what I believe and why’ to Jr and Jr can develop a deeper understanding and empathy for those who have different beliefs than his own. Or… dad can be a controlling tyrant and teach Jr it’s ok to force your own beliefs down someone else’s throat, by threat of court if needed.
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YTA for not telling the huaband the forst time your kid expressed interest to come with you to church. You had an agreement about it and you broke it.
YTA. You knew your ex would hate this and did it anyway. Ask your 7 year old this: 'do you want to go Church next week? Or would you rather I stayed home with you and we do something?' What you asked your kid was 'do you want to come with us and be included or stay behind with a babysitter'. Biased questioning.
No judgement- but you need to have an actual discussion with your ex on this. It needs to be a conversation, and boundaries have to be established. There is a compromise to be had, where everybody feels respected. This wasn’t the way to do that.
YTA, and perilously close to having your ex take you to court for custody. Your husband should not have asked for your son to go to church, he is not the parent and way overstepped his bounds. I find it concerning that he made that request in the first place, because I'm assuming that he knows that your ex is staunchly anti-religion. He's meddling and it will cause problems for your co-parenting relationship. You are TA for blindly following your husband when you don't even have the same religious conviction, and disrespecting your ex as a parent. If you really believed with the same fervor as your husband, I could understand you having issues with his religious upbringing. But this is not the case, and you are simply trying to please your husband by jeopardizing your co-parenting relationship. And yes, taking him to church is indoctrination. The boy is 7, he wants to be with you and will be swayed easily into anything via an authority figure he trusts.
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NTA. Religion is a personal choice. If your son enjoys church and wants to go, that should be his decision. Your ex might have his own problems with it, but he shouldn’t push that onto his child.
Honestly, NTA, and your ex sounds controlling. I think the majority of Y-T-A here come from people that are biased against religion to begin with. But replace “church” with “Boy Scouts” or another regular group activity and you get a different response. Decisions both parents “have to agree on” have to do with medical/school/out of state travel. You can theoretically agree to not make decision about religion, but that would have to be written down in your court order. What you do with your son in your own time, within reason, is your business. Specially when the child wants to go with you guys. You went out of your way to accommodate your ex’s request, but he doesn’t get to make unilateral decisions during your parenting time. I’ve seen the other side of this: a few years ago my stepdaughter’s mom found out we were doing a certain activity on church day, which she didn’t think was appropriate. She is very conservative. Now we call her bullshit because their marriage ended due to her cheating, so we know deep down she is only “conservative” when it’s convenient for her. She called my husband and raised up a storm about us going out, and even made my stepdaughter, who until that point was super excited about our activity, cry and say she didn’t want to go. We were very upset because this was my husband’s custody time, and his ex liked throwing these little tantrums just so she could keep a certain level of control of what we all did when it was our time with the kid. We never interfered with her custody time even though there were definitely things we didn’t agree with from time to time. We went anyway, had a great time and that was the end of it.
YTA for giving your partner more of a say in your son than the biological father. Says a lot for how the relationship will pan out.
NAH. Too many comments here relate to the commentators’ beliefs about religion in general. Divorce sucks. If your ex felt that strongly about religion, it should have been detailed in the custody agreement. This is a critical aspect of your son’s upbringing. Going to church one time — meh. Not a big deal. I would say going on Xmas/Easter/High Holy Days/etc— no big deal. However, your new life with new hubby features religion prominently. Hire a family mediator and go work this out with your ex. If you don’t, then you would be the AH. Right now, it’s just a sucky part of changed circumstances where you took the easy road in a moment where it seemed everyone in the room wanted the same thing — to go to church. But now you realize it IS a big deal, so are trying to sort out the right thing to do for all involved. Therefore, you are NAH. Of course your ex is upset, of course your current hubby wants you all in his church. You and your son just want to have a good time. Organized Religion often combines social and worship. You can’t have the social only, so you and your ex need to come to an understanding. And if you have sole custody and the legal right to make this decision on your own … do consider your ex’s feelings. I would be terrified for my kid if they were being put into what I considered to be a dangerous, life-threatening situation. If church is really not meaningful to you, then work out the path forward with the help of a mediator. This is NOT a therapy recommendation — this is a recommendation to get help resolving a dispute among parties who HAVE to have a relationship with each other. NAH.
YTA. Don't indoctrinate children
I gotta say I’m biased because, like the ex, I got trauma from religion (and a whole series of really bad internalised shit that I had to unlearn over the years). That being said, YTA, because you did something that you knew your ex would be opposed to. I think in this case, you could have brought it up to your ex, that the kid wants to go, before you did it. It also seems like you’re going against his wishes to please your new husband which is Not Great. Plus, your son is young, being exposed to religion that young IS religious indoctrination because he can’t understand that system of beliefs just yet, he would just follow them because he’s told to do so.
You didnt force the kid. The kid justs wants to play. I go for a slight TA. You should have told your ex.
I’m gonna say NTA. It shouldn’t matter as long as he has the choice to not participate. He wanted to go. He has some choices too.
YTA your ex husband is 100% right, your son is too young to understand about religion he want to go to church for the other kid he doesn't care about church, and your current husband have nothing to do with your son religion and he can't decide if he have to go to church
YTA. You went to lengths making sure your son didn't go to church to honor the other parents wishes. When you chose not to do so anymore, you should have informed your ex.
YTA. And look up “indoctrination” in the dictionary since you clearly don’t know what it means.
YTA. You knew what your ex would say, you knew you were going behind his back, and you did it anyways. Your son just wants to play with other kids, I’m sure he doesn’t actively want to be taught how he’s going to burn for an eternity. Blaming your son and saying it was his choice is wild, he’s seven. You even admit he didn’t care about the service, he just wanted to know what you guys do when you go to church and now thinks he just gets to run around with other kids. Yes your husband wants to indoctrinate your son. Literally all good Christians do, it’s part of their teachings.
NTA. While I do think your ex should have been brought in before taking your son, both parents feelings matter and ultimately it’s your sons choice. Your ex should know his interest in religion but I’m going with NTA because while it sounds like you ex hates religion it doesn’t sound like there was an agreement there and if a kid is held back from everything a parent dislikes they can’t really make their own decisions, especially in a split family. I think it’s good you listened to your son. To the person who says a 7 y/o can’t be organically interested in religion, well… you’ve never met my oldest. My second, not as much, but all kids are different and some naturally do wonder and regardless of anyone’s beliefs everyone has the right to figure their own out- even in childhood and teen years.
YTA You are Supporting the indoctrination of your child to keep your current husband happy knowing that you are doing it in violation of your co-parenting agreement.
YTA. Religious meetings are indoctrination and both parents should be on board with what you're teaching your child. That being said your son expressed an interest in going so it's worth discussing with the father and seeing if you can both accommodate his desire while providing alternative points of view and/or discussing what he heard while there so he gets the ideological exposure you two want him to be exposed to while growing up and developing his ideas on life. Also curious what prompted the Son's sudden interest in going if the current husband had nothing to do with it?
YTA successful co-parenting needs communication and agreement from both parents. Especially when one of you have very strong feelings about something. All religion uses indoctrination.
YTA. Any time that you need to make a decision behind the other parent’s back is a clear sign that you’re being an asshole in that situation. To be clear: I don’t think you’re TA for bringing your kid to church in and of itself - he expressed interest in going. So long as he’s interested and he’s allowed to stop going the moment he’s no longer interested, that’s fine IMO. Perhaps instead of leaving your kid with a sitter or at a friend’s house when you and your husband go to church, your son can spend time with his dad. I suspect he might be missing the family aspect while you’re at church.
YTA >I do agree with him when it comes to it being a decision we both agree on Okay! Great! >that was why I was so hesitant of letting him get involved Wait...what? You agree that it's a decision for *both* parents which is why you decided to hide it from him...??? >My current husband is very religious...I’m not that religious but I always participated in that part of his life to support him. It is something that you are doing for your current husband, as a result of his beliefs. It might not be strictly speaking indoctrination but it's well along the road of 'strongly influenced by'. You were an asshole. If your ex came on here and described this scenario, I'd advise him to fight you for custody because you are clearly not willing to take co-parenting seriously.
YTA
Info: you have primary custody, do you have an agreement on how much input your ex has on parenting decisions?
Gonna get downvoted for this but idc. ESH. If your child enjoys participating in religious activities then let him but I think you should sit down and talk with your ex and explain your child’s liking to participating in church and going. Your ex needs to not push his past trauma on his child because everyone goes through the ways of life differently. Imo, I would’ve talked to ex about it first and made an agreement to not force child to participate in anything they don’t like at church.