Dear Collin,
My wife and I just had our second child and I’ve started to have concerns about raising them without religion. My first son is just about to go into kindergarten and he’s started to ask about death. This came about when we watched the Lion King and Mufasa dies after being murdered by Scar. My son asked why Mufasa wasn’t waking up after he was thrown off a cliff and run over by wildebeests. After I explained that he had died and that everyone eventually dies, my son asked where we go when we die, and I told him I’m not really sure.
This lack of an answer appears to have had a distressing effect on my son. He now asks about death a lot. He always points out cemeteries he sees as we pass them in the car. Sometimes he’ll start to pout in the back seat and tell me he doesn’t want me to die.
My wife and I grew up Catholic, but neither of us really believe in God, and yet I still feel as if telling him he will go to heaven will get rid of the anxiety he is currently experiencing. My wife thinks it’s just a phase and he will outgrow it, but I am not so sure. Should we lie to him about an afterlife so he can stop worrying? Or should we just hope he will get over it?
Sincerely,
Doubting Thomas
Dear Doubting Thomas,
Thanks for spoiling the Lion King for me. I’ve never seen it. Dick.
As far as your kid’s fixation on death goes, you seem to have nailed down why religion exists in the first place. We can either believe that life has an otherworldly purpose and continues forever even after we die, or we can suppose that we’re temporarily circling the drain of meaningless nonexistence. One of those options is far less troublesome to kindergartners.
I’m not saying it’s right to lie to your child, but it is your duty as a parent to make them feel safe and secure, and since you’ve already completely bungled the death talk and scared the shit out of your kid, you sort of have to lie at this point and do whatever you can to stop them from thinking about graveyards all day.
You could saddle your child with the shame and guilt of the Catholicism you grew up with, or you could use this as an opportunity to come up with your own religion since they’re all made up anyway. You could say the universe was laid like an egg by a giant chicken who loves us and when we die we all go live on a giant farm with our whole family, and that would still make about as much sense as any of the other religions already out there. All your son really wants to know is if he and everyone he loves is going to disappear forever one day. If you can convince him otherwise, then he can go back to focusing on real kid stuff like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
Dear Collin,
My fiancé and I are finalizing our wedding party. There’s only one problem. His brother, who I hooked up with once, is currently included as one of his groomsmen.
That we hooked up is no secret per se, but I’m not sure my fiancé is aware of it. It happened before my fiancé and I started dating so it wasn’t like we cheated or anything, but I always just assumed he knew and now I’m not so sure. It seems too late to bring it up in case he doesn’t know.
Any advice on how to get my fiancé to drop his brother from his groomsmen list?
Sincerely,
Wedding Worrier
Dear Wedding Worrier,
Unfortunately, brothers have a guaranteed reserved spot in a wedding party. Your fiancé couldn’t remove his brother out of the rotation even if he wanted to. Even if the brother was a convicted serial killer on death row, he would still somehow be there on your wedding day standing up at the altar next to your fiancé, and not a single person would question it.
Your only option here is to balance the scales. You’ll need to find someone your fiancé has hooked up with and make them a bridesmaid. You’re probably not going to find someone with as high of stature as a sibling, because if we’re being completely honest that’s pretty weird and will probably hang over your entire marriage, but maybe you’ll get lucky once you start asking around.
Maybe you’ll find out someone in your wedding party has already hooked up with your fiancé so you won’t have to change a thing. As long as you have someone on your side that he’s awkwardly avoiding eye contact with during the ceremony, the drama will cancel each other out, at least for your wedding; I’m sure there will be plenty more drama down the road for you two.
Send me your unsolvable problem at badadvice@citybeat.com. What’s the worst thing that could happen? I’ll be sure to let you know.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s Jan. 8 print edition.
This article appears in Dec 11-24, 2024.
