Parishti Project

My kid attended a Catholic school for a short time because it was the closest to our home, and having access to two sources of funding, it was disproportionally better funded than the public schools in our area. The teachers there also seemed to treat teaching as a calling, rather than a career. I have nothing bad to say about that school, or the teachers who worked there. They were kind to my kid when public schools were not.

Around this time of year, they sent letters home to parents that this would be a good time to talk to our children about Advent, and "what we are all awaiting at this time of year".

I wrote a letter back to the teacher, pleading with her not to waste her credibility trying to persuade my kid of a virgin birth, for several reasons:

• As the only child of a single parent, my kid was at higher risk of being approached by a pedophile, and it would have been irresponsible not to harden him against the obvious ploys an abuser might use. That meant ensuring that he understood the basics of human biology. Some kids are not allowed to learn it until high school, but my kid has always known that he came from an egg and a sperm. I even had him label body parts on a diagram so he would have the vocabulary to defend himself.
• My kid's razor-sharp intelligence also liked to sharpen itself on everything. So, my kid also knows about parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction produces clones of the mother). Therefore, IF Mary was a virgin; AND since canonical Jesus lived as a man, Jesus was an AFAB trans-male.
• Because it is best to feed the fire of curiosity while it burns, my kid also knows that 0.5% of teen mothers in the US claim to have been virgins when they became mothers [1]. The majority of these had taken virginity pledges. Some had admitted to having sex earlier in the study and later retracted their admissions. So my kid knows that if Mary claimed to be a pregnant virgin, she either knew so little about human biology as to believe she was a virgin; or she was ashamed, afraid and of covering for someone who abused her.
• As part of hardening my kid against pedophiles, I also ensured that my kid is aware of the potential for abuses of power by those in positions of authority. For example, in Australia, where 38.9% adhere to no religion, 1 in 250 adults was abused as a child by “a leader, or another adult in a religious organization”. Grossing up to exclude non-adherents, that means 1.6 in 250 adult religious adherents was abused as a child by “a leader, or another adult in a religious organization”. This number is dwarfed by the number who were abused by friends and family.
• I can only lend a teacher MY credibility to get her started in establishing her own credibility with my kid. Beyond that, teachers need to establish their own credibility (and 4yos are notoriously quick and final in their judgments). If this teacher wasted her borrowed credibility on such obvious falsehoods as a virgin birth, he would dismiss her as less informed than him, and she would then be able to teach him nothing. Two plus two would require substantial proofs once her credibility was impeached.

Thankfully, that teacher accepted my advice and never attempted to introduce religion to my kid again.