Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion

Thank you, thank you, thank you!,

Finally, SOMETHING! My wife and I are about to bring our first child into the world and were happy when we found a book that discusses ways to deal with the issue of holidays, belief in Santa/Easter Bunny, moral development in children without the threat of eternal punishment, how to tackle the questions kids are bound to ask about life/death, and so much more. Overall, it is a great resource for humanist or atheist parents 'or wannabe parents' who wish to raise rational, freethinking children with the skills to make up their own minds as adults. The essays are from a wide variety of people with viewpoints, backgrounds, and ideas not always similar. It was the contrast of ideas that helped my wife and I form a game plan on how we can raise children who will never stop asking 'why?' for the right reasons. Our favorite sections are Does God Exist, which is written in a wonderfully and easy to understand conversational style by Stephen Law, and Dealing with Death in a Secular family by Kendyl Gibbons. Although the piece that I'm sure we'll go back to over and over is the list famous freethinkers. Ahhh resources, magnificent, beautiful resources... My only complaint, and it is to be unavoidable, is that this book didn't come sooner. It was my hope to find a solid community to immediately fall into, but it was not meant to be. And even though there are over 20 million of us in the US, it IS hard to rally secular people around that single ideal. So I send my heartfelt thanks to Dale McGowan for helping to foster our community. Read the book, raise intelligent, freethinking children, and the next generation will not have to work so hard to find a common identity. Edit: I also wish that more of the books suggested were still in print.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Fantastic!

I highly recommend this book to any non believing-or even very liberally believing-parents. A wonderful resource for handling the job of raising children in a very religious society. From specific thoughts on teaching ethics, to dealing respectfully with the religious children (and their parents) that your kids will come in contact with. I'll be giving this book as a baby shower gift to every free thinking parent to be I know!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Finally a guide for the rest of us!

My husband and I are recovering Catholics who have been looking for a parenting book for secular families for years. Needless to say, there wasn¿t one. Until now! Thank you Dale McGowan!!!

This is a wonderful and helpful parenting book

I was a bit apprehensive when I saw this at my local Barnes & Noble on the shelf next to the other hundreds of parenting books, but after reading a few chapters I decided to purchase it. My wife and I are Secular Humanists and we've been having some issues raising our two girls in the religious south, so this book was really a great find. Its combination of stories, essays, poems, and research was exactly what we needed for our inspiration and for direction in raising our children. I echo the thoughts of the other reviewers in saying Thank you Dale McGowan. I hope this is the first in a long line of parenting books.

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