Today’s Real Talk with Real Moms focuses on religion and spirituality — a topic I haven’t addressed much here but that I’ve been thinking about a lot since becoming a parent. I grew up in a fairly traditional Christian/Presbyterian household: church and Sunday School every week, occasional prayers at dinner, and the big holidays marked on the calendar. My family wasn’t particularly strict about doctrine, and the parts of church life I remember most fondly were community events, service projects, and the Advent craft fair for kids.
Childhood Memories and a Personal Approach
I never loved Sunday School and negotiated with my parents to volunteer in the church nursery instead, which I did through high school. I enjoyed working with kids, got babysitting jobs from it, and liked the social side of church life more than the religious instruction. My parents were supportive of that choice and emphasized kindness and giving back over strict religious practice — values I still appreciate.
As an adult, I’ve never felt a strong pull to join a church or commit to a particular faith. I still mark “Christian” when required on forms, but I’m undecided about many aspects of religion. I’m concerned about some harmful messages I’ve seen from certain people of faith and uneasy about how religion and adoption can sometimes intersect in troubling ways. At the same time, I’m comfortable for now with uncertainty about a single “meaning of life.”
Missing Community
What I do feel is a real longing for the community that often accompanies church life. After eight years in Los Angeles we still haven’t built a circle of close friends we see regularly, and that absence has become more noticeable since having a child. Visiting my childhood church’s Advent festival over Thanksgiving — seeing generations of families together and recognizing familiar faces — highlighted how much I value consistent communal rituals. There’s a warmth to walking into the same room year after year and connecting with people who’ve stayed in each other’s lives.
Questions About Family, Faith and Raising Kids
We’ve discussed baptizing our son, Arlo, and my aunt gave him a blessing as an infant, which felt meaningful for our family. Arlo has been to the church nursery a couple of times, but religion hasn’t played a major role in our household yet. After the recent Advent festival, though, a lot of questions started surfacing about what religion and community might mean for our family. Some of the questions I’m wrestling with:
- If we don’t join a church, can we still find a lasting community? There are many ways to volunteer or attend events in a city like L.A., but those connections often feel more sporadic. I miss the idea of one place to go regularly where relationships deepen over years. Yet it feels wrong to use a religious institution only for the social benefits without investing in its spiritual purpose.
- Are there alternatives to religious communities that provide the same consistency? I’ve heard of groups that function like community centers without a religious foundation and am curious to learn more about these options.
- How do you teach religion to a child if you yourself are unsure? I have familiarity with Christian traditions from my upbringing and believe in some sense of a higher power, while my partner grew up attending Armenian church. How do we present religious ideas in a way that keeps options open for our child, giving him access to knowledge about faith without imposing a single path?
- How do families celebrate “religious” holidays if they don’t identify as religious? Right now we celebrate Easter and Christmas in largely secular, commercial ways. I wonder how we’ll handle questions about the religious significance of those holidays as Arlo gets older, and whether other families observe religious holidays without embracing the faith.
- How do you explain death from a spiritual but non-religious perspective? This feels like a tough subject to navigate without a faith framework, and one I’d prefer to think through before an actual loss happens.
- What does spirituality outside of organized religion look like? Several people close to me are exploring non-religious spiritual paths, and I’m interested in how those practices shape community, values, and parenting.
I don’t have firm answers yet and I’m curious if other parents or adults wrestle with the same questions. If you don’t attend church, where have you found meaningful community? If you do attend, did you start after having children because it felt right? For parents who don’t attend church: do you still discuss religion with your kids or celebrate religious holidays, and if so, how do you explain them?
I’d love to hear your experiences and perspectives. This topic can be sensitive, so I welcome respectful conversation and diverse viewpoints. Hearing how others navigate faith, spirituality, community, and parenting would be really helpful as we continue to figure out what feels authentic for our family.