Raising Interfaith Kids When Hindu Meets Catholic Advice Quandary Considered Every Friday, we pose a parental quandary to the Motherlode community. The next week, we pull together the best responses. P. is Hindu and her husband was raised Catholic. Both, though, went their own way with religion as young adults - which is scarcely surprising, since they married each another. P. and her husband planned to share both religions with their children. They would celebrate Diwali, Janmashtami, Easter and Christmas. They would grow up knowing all that we knew, and decide as they grew what path suited them best," P. said. Last week I wrote that P. was finding that plan easier in conception than in practice. Some religious rituals are more inclusive than others. Some, like baptism, at least purport (in some cases, depending on the ceremony) to require an embracing of one faith over another. Grandparents were dismayed by failures to follow tradition, and P. herself had begun to wonder if she was perhaps more attached to her religion than she'd thought. She wanted her children to have faith - but how, and in what? Many readers, some more kindly than others, questioned that last one. "I have never understood why parents feel compelled to indoctrinate their children into believing in supernatural beings," wrote Mouse. As half of what our parents, at least, regard as an "interfaith" marriage (my husband was raised Jewish; I was raised confused), I question it too, but for entirely different reasons. It strikes me that to convey faith to children, you must have faith, and once you have more than one faith in the mix, conveying more than a cultural connection to either is difficult at best. That doesn't preclude children finding a faith later in life, of course - it just makes the simple adoption of their parents" beliefs difficult, if not impossible. You can argue, as Ellen did, that this is a good thing: The couple's ambivalence about religion is a gift for their children, because it will encourage them to ask their own questions and develop their own beliefs. Even if you wish a child to follow one single religion, allowing them to explore it, ask questions, and come to it on their own respects their autonomy as people. You can also see it as unfortunate: really "belonging" (with or without belief) to a single religious tradition does offer a community, and a one-foot-in, one-foot-out role can be tough. But that ship has sailed, unless either P. or her husband chooses to embrace the other's faith, or at least its cultural aspects (and perhaps even then). Otherwise, embracing life as an interfaith family, as opposed to two parents with interfaith kids, is the best way to help children feel as comfortable as possible with where they are until they're old enough to make their own choice. Remember, too, that even children raised solidly in one faith find doubt and imbalance (as P. and her husband did). As Erika A. wrote: I was raised to believe in one religion. But I still felt confused and unbalanced fairly often. So did my friends, some of whom were raised in one religion, some two. ... We all still questioned it. If I may be so bold as to offer this piece of advice: Keep doing what you have been. That is to say, going to temple and church. Celebrating major holidays from both religions. Encouraging your child (ren) to ask questions. Telling them the stories. "Celebrate everything, respect everything, believe what feels right," wrote BB. The children will see and make up their own minds.