Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so today we’re diving into the archives of Care and Feeding to share classic parenting letters with our readers. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I are atheist. We were both raised in households in which participation in religious activities was mandatory, and we both rejected blind faith and organized religion as soon as we left the house. Now we have two little girls (age 3 and almost 6) we are raising without any religious affiliation at all. We are raising our girls to ask questions and look for evidence to support their claims. We share our sense of wonder of the natural world and why it’s important to be a good person.

All of this is great, but as they get older, we are at a loss for how to talk with them about religion, specifically Christianity, as it is everywhere. We can do Santa, we can do death, we can do race, culture, sex, police brutality, you name it. But Jesus? How do we talk to them about it without sounding like people who believe in it are blooming idiots? Not that we would ever disparage someone for their beliefs, but when you say it like, “Some people believe that there is a God you can’t see that can control things on Earth.” Whaaaat? It sounds ridiculous, and my girls will also think it’s ridiculous. But their friends, teachers, neighbors, everyone believes this! How do we talk to them about this while still maintaining that it is important to treat everyone with respect?

—Our Kids Watched Sound of Music but Didn’t Know What Nuns Are

Dear Sound, 

As with most “how do I explain so-and-so to my kids” questions, what you think is a gap in the world’s understanding is really a gap in your own. It is actually not difficult to explain the idea of faith to children without scorn if you don’t, in fact, hold scorn for faith. The problem for you is that you do. But you know you shouldn’t. So you are having trouble admitting this truth about yourself. This is how you can execute the mental gymnastics required to place “blooming idiots” and “not that we would disparage” right next to each other without blinking.

You say you want to teach your kids to treat everyone with respect, but how can you do that if you don’t actually respect people? You can’t. What you instead teach is smugness, judgment, and a false sense of superiority.

Here’s what you might do instead: Assume that there are better thinkers than you who believe in a God. Literally, say that sentence out loud to yourself. I’m not kidding. Right now. Say it. “There are better thinkers than me out there who believe in a God.” And if there are better thinkers than you who understand the concept of a God and you don’t, then surely you can learn something here.

Good. Now you’ve mixed a little humility into the situation, really just another way of saying you now are beginning to have an accurate sense of where you fit into the world. Next you can start to wonder what it is that some people see in a God that you don’t. It’s possible, don’t you think, that for a lot of intelligent people their definition of God is a lot more expansive than a guy “you can’t see that can control things on Earth”? A lot of thinking people—who are not blooming idiots—have wrestled and studied and thought deeply about this question of God and have arrived at their conclusions with great care and intelligence.

Instead of making God out to be an imaginary ghost, for example, you might find yourself saying things to your daughters like: “You know that sense of wonder and amazement we feel when we look at flowers, or think about the moon or how big the universe is? Or how cute dogs and kittens are? Some people call that sense of wonder and amazement God. And it brings them good feelings and so it’s important to them.”

Notice that none of this requires you to believe in God yourself. It is simply not necessary. What I’m asking you to do is simply stop behaving like you’re God, the all-knowing, all-seeing, and always right.

—Carvell Wallace

From: Please Stop Judging Me, Helicopter Parents. (January 31th, 2018).

Dear Care and Feeding,

I am a 28-year-old black queer woman who’s not hunting a romantic relationship down and doesn’t feel like my life will be lacking if I never have one. For years I’ve accepted that this means that I probably won’t have children, as single motherhood just seemed too daunting for me to be interested. But a few weeks ago I had a myomectomy, removing uterine fibroids, and that’s made me start to think about kids again. I think the urge has a lot to do with fear that I’ll be alone when I’m old. I mean, no kid should be beholden to their parents for raising them, right? No kid should be born just because they are a living elder-care insurance policy for their parents, right? Is there really any unselfish reason to have children?

—Childless for Now

Dear Childless for Now, 

As it happens, there is a nonselfish reason to have children. It is this: The world needs good people. And the world needs you to help make them. You are thoughtful, and seemingly kind and loving. Should you decide to parent children, then you have the opportunity to help grow thoughtful, kind, and loving humans. And I think you’ll agree that all of us can use more of those.

This is not to say you must have children. There are dozens of ways to impact the future and your community while remaining child-free. You can volunteer in schools, a church, a community center. You can spend time with the friends of your kids, giving them and their beleaguered parents the space from one another that is occasionally needed. The important part about our interactions with children, whether they are ours or someone else’s, is that in each encounter we are passing down and reinforcing the values we believe are needed for the love and safety of our shared world.

There are plenty of selfish reasons to have kids too, other than free elder care. You can teach them your favorite high-school jam and video them while they butcher the lyrics. And you can read the rudimentary poems on their messy, glittery gifts and hide your face so they don’t see your tears. But you asked for an unselfish reason—so yeah, the world is it.

—C.W.

From: What Do I Say to a 13-Year-Old Friend of the Family Who’s Madly in Love … With Me? (January 16th, 2018).

Dear Care & Feeding,

I’m engaged to a wonderful woman who has two kids, 13 and 9. They’re good kids, and my fiancée is a great mom, but the kids have shockingly bad table manners. The 13-year-old boy will come to the dinner table when he chooses, often in nothing but his underwear, and sometimes he won’t even sit down. He’ll shovel in his food with maximum speed and volume. When he is entreated to sit down, it’s straight to the iPad and earplugs. With a final belch or fart, he’s off again as he masticates his final bite.

The 9-year-old will at least sit down, but she eats everything with her hands, sticks her hands in her water glass to get ice cubes, and uses a cloth placemat for a plate. Again, the omnipresent iPad.

I’m not expecting Downton Abbey or anything—these are just kids. But how can I approach some level of basic humanoid civilization without alienating the new stepkids or having my fiancée take it as a criticism of her parenting?

—Giving Up on the Salad Fork

Dear Giving Up, 

Ha. You can’t.

You can’t wade into step-parenting without somehow alienating the kids and your new partner, I can assure you. From these kids’ point of view, you are at best someone to be regarded with suspicion, and quite possibly someone to actively resist. I’m sure you’re a great guy and I’m sure they like you fine, but even if you’re the most awesome guy in the world—crafting startlingly life-like balloon animals with one hand and teaching them how to capture Starkiller Base in Star Wars Battlefront II with the other—they will still bristle the first time you try to lay down some kind of law. Step-parenting is all fun and games until you actually have to parent.

If it is important to you that the kids get their table manners together, then you must work slowly and patiently. Pick one thing, just one, to work on. I might suggest getting the youngest to use a plate, since this is probably the most value-neutral and easily justifiable proposition. (You’ll have to justify because you don’t have the parenting credits banked up to cash in a “because I said so.” You may never have them!) So you explain that it’s better to use a plate because the placemat is hard to clean. You may not get there right away, but you will eventually. And in the process, you will learn about your soon-to-be stepdaughter. And you’ll build trust.

Work on it slowly, dinner by dinner, until you’re there. Then take a breather. Then start working on the next item. If this process seems too slow, just remember you’re marrying into a family. Families are for the long haul. Get used to it.

One quick note about the iPad: I personally think that electronics at the table are abhorrent, though not everyone agrees. But a good technique to pry the screens away from their grubby hands—honestly, it’s a miracle those iPads still work, with all the food and ice water that gets smeared on them—is to supplement iPads with a story time in which they tell you stories.
They can even tell you stories about things they saw on the iPad before dinner. You get to ask questions, they get to answer them, and before you know it, you’re engaged in the dark and ancient art of Dinner Conversation. This is important because when you finally start floating a no-electronics-at-the-table rule, and they say “But whyyyyyy” and you say “Because I want to be able to hear you talk,” they’ll have an actual idea of why that could be a good thing.

But whatever you do, do not rush, do not lay down the law, and do not criticize your fiancée’s parenting. Try any of those things and you’ll get to see exactly how uncomfortable a dinner table can really be.

—C.W.

From: What Race Should My Sperm Donor Be? (January 26th, 2018).

More Parenting Advice From Slate

My husband and I have a 20-month-old girl, and she rocks our socks off. She’s also—since her 6-week checkup—been in the 99th percentile in weight for height. We’re doing our best to join our pediatricians in not being concerned about her weight. I know intellectually that we’re offering healthy foods, that it’s perfectly fine for her to have the body she has, and that the best we can do is teach her how much fun it is to challenge her palate and how good it feels to eat healthy, nourishing foods. My emotions are way more complicated.