Social Q's: I Can't Keep Going To Church

[minoanmiss]

I am 17. Since I was a baby, my mother has taken me to church with her on Sunday mornings. Recently, I’ve felt less religious and less interested in going than I used to. But when I bring this up with her, it always ends in a screaming match (especially on Sunday mornings). She believes I must go. We get along fairly well otherwise. Is there a better way to broach this subject, or should I simply endure the weekly ritual until I go to college?

SARA

In one of the great understatements in (boxing) history, Floyd Mayweather Jr. once said, “Self-preservation is an important thing to me.” So it should be to all of us. You are probably financially dependent on your mother — and will be, to some extent, when you go to college. Nothing in your letter suggests a dire backdrop, but many young people are cut off by their parents for warring over hot topics such as religion or sexuality. Keep that (and your best interests) in mind.

I applaud your mom for wanting a regular spiritual component in your life. But that needn’t be church (in my irrelevant opinion) for one disinclined and on the cusp of adulthood. Suggest a weekly commitment to serving those in need — at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, maybe — in lieu of church. She may go for a switcheroo with a moral and compassionate flavor. (Or she may want you sitting in the pew next to her.) Bring it up quietly at dinner some Tuesday night and see how it goes.

Comments

[mommy]

I agree with the advice to remember self-preservation, but not the advice to provide alternatives to church. A mother who would accept alternatives is probably not the kind of mother who would enter screaming matches over church attendance.