Time of Year

I heard my seven year old inform tonight that we are BOTH...Jewish and Christian. I said, "oh? who told you that?" And he replied well, your family's Jewish and Dad's is Catholic, so we're both. And I said, "We're Jewish; your dad gave up religion." His dad chimed in, "I'm agnostic."

The combination of sharing my husband's family's holidays (grandmother likes to hide Easter eggs and have us over for dinner) and a suburban school with a smattering of Jews, my kid now tells me we're "both." Why does this statement bother me? The subtlety isn't lost on him, I'm sure. He's the only Jew in his class, and because he can relate to a shared experience with his classmates..."I can't wait 'til Easter..." he doesn't even think to say "and Passover!"

Whom am I fooling? I didn't marry a Jew. My kids are going to be affected by their environment. I can continue to take them to religious school and try and inculcate a love of their ancient heritage, but there will always be a pull of the mainstream culture--the secular, sugarized, messiah-cult that is normative in suburban America.

What to do?

Tolerating people instead of acknowledging and embracing them for their distinctiveness smacks of condescension. But does inculcating a broader view of inclusiveness naively set up my kids to assimilate, no questions asked?

Of course, as they grow, maybe they'll bother to understand the complex yet simple idea of humanistic Judaism and ask LOTS of questions. One can hope.