If you know Ryan and I personally or have read some of my previous posts, then you probably already know about Ryan and I’s particularly strange relationship. For a lot of people though the part they have the toughest time wrapping their heads around is the fact that I’m Christian, and Ryan’s Muslim. As I’m sure you can imagine now, with the impending arrival of our first child, the questions are starting to flood in. It seems that everyone and their grandma wants to know what religion we will be raising this little one and any future children. The answer is a lot like our relationship, simple to us, but incredibly complicated to outsiders looking in. So, what religion will we be raising out kids? Well both.
Both!? That’s crazy talk right!? Well nope…not really, let me tell you why it’s important to us. Firstly to say that we will be raising them both religions is a bit of a stretch as that seems to imply they would be both Muslim and Christian. What I mean is we will give them the information, time, and respect to explore both for themselves and then THEY will choose which to go with (or who knows, maybe they will throw us all for a loop and pick something completely different, golly gee, imagine that, raising free thinkers!).
It’s important to both of us that they choose their own religion. We both believe that your religious beliefs should not just be “because that’s what my parents thought.” Ryan was baptized and raised Catholic and while his parents were not super religious, he still ended up converting to Islam. I was baptized Christian and I’m confident in those beliefs. There’s something different though about people who choose a religion on their own and Ryan (along with a few other converts to different religions that I have met) seem to have a passion and charisma about them that I don’t often see in those who are not converts. Now, that’s not to say you shouldn’t stick with the religion you were raised, or that you can’t be passionate about it. I’m obviously a Christian by birth and choice but, converts tend to have a certain level of education about their religion consisting of knowledge they had to seek on their own. They didn’t just sit at mass every Sunday because their parents made them, instead their decision and knowledge are very calculated. I know Ryan had to go out of his way to find a mosque where he could get the information he needed, and beyond just gathering data, his opinions and beliefs concerning his religion are not watered down by the opinions of family. Again, they are thought out, personal, and truthful to him.
On a similar note, I think having the ability to choose your religious beliefs makes someone more likely to follow their religion. Ryan feels very strongly about Islam and does a great job of sticking to it. Since converting and leading a generally more religious life, he truly has become a better person. I could literally go on for pages upon pages about how Islam has made Ryan a better person but, I won’t bore you and will get back to the topic. So if it’s not clear, we are planning to give our kids a healthy education, respect, and background in Christianity and Islam so that one day they’re able to make the decision for themselves, but how exactly are we going to do that?
Before going into the logistics of raising religious children, I think it’s important to mention how our relationship works for us now, as a twosome. For us, it’s simple and built on respect. We understand that we do things a bit differently and in order to ensure peace in our relationship it’s important not to argue about specific detials, it’s important that we do not try and convert each other, and it’s important that sometimes we agree to disagree. These things are key to keeping our relationship healthy, and quite frankly come naturally to us at this point.
On a more concrete level there are some very specific things we do too. For example, not only are we respectful of each other’s holidays, but we celebrate them as a couple. We put up the Christmas tree together, we fast for Ramadan together and so on. Celebrating holidays together is an important part of making our relationship work. I get to keep and enjoy the traditions I grew up with and Ryan gets to feel special when we learn to celebrate Muslim holidays as a unit. This ensures no one feels left out, and hey, lets be honest, who doesn’t like celebrating holidays??
This next thing doesn’t apply to Ryan as much as it applies to me, since he already knew a lot about Christianity, but I went out of my way to become educated about Islam. I talked to people, did research online and just generally acquainted myself with the religion. That might not sound like much, but it is really important for me to know what he is talking about so that we are able to still have religion based conversations and I can have an understanding of what the heck he is saying.
One of the last things that we have done in order to still be involved and respectful of each other’s spiritual life is attending services together. Obviously, both of us have been to church, but going with Ryan to a mosque on a few occasions has been really important. Even though we cannot sit together at mosque, I have been there a few times because it is important to him and it makes us feel more joined as a couple if we are able to go together to religious services.
It may be a little unconventional but, unconventional is basically who we are as a couple. For us being in an interfaith relationship means dealing with a lot of questions, compromising a lot, respecting each other, and above all else, just knowing that for the most part people are not going to understand why it is we do what we do. We have to do these things though in order to keep our relationship happy and healthy. When we have kids, it will mean doing all these things and some!
For the most part not much of what we already do will change as much as we will just be adding on to our everyday routines and providing explanations as we see fit. We will be going out of our way to pray with our kids in the different ways that both of us do, some Fridays we might take our kids to mosque and some Sundays we might take them to church. We will be reading them age appropriate Christian and Muslim books (shout out to Ryan’s mom for already having bought us, It’s Ramadan Curious George) amongst a number of other things. Most importantly of all though, we will be fostering an environment of free thinking, education, and respect, which is to us a thousand times more important than raising our kids one certain religion.
In today’s day and age we have become so hostile as a society to those who are different than us that we forget to look at the fundamentals (which, *wink wink* are actually very similar amongst the 3 major Abrahamic religions, one could almost say that at their core they are basically the same thing). Functioning together as a society, TRULY loving your neighbor, and having conversations based in education are infinitely more valuable to our society as a whole than strictly raising our kids one religion. Besides, in the end, our kids WILL think for themselves, they WILL be their own people, they WILL be free thinkers, and so long as they are respectful to those around them, we WILL be proud.
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