Despite my greatest intention to send my non-christened children to a non-denominational school, the best option available to our family was for a small Catholic school that Jacob will attend, starting this September.
The school is lovely; his class will be made up of only 18 other kids, I have met the principal and secretary who are lovely and the junior infants teacher is reportedly amazing.
For us as a family, it works on other levels too; it is close to our home, the majority of his other pre-school friends will also go there and some of our neighbour's children go there too.
The major downside for us is that it is Catholic-owned. While I know that other non-religious children have happily attended this school, I still feel the need to ensure that my child will not receive any of the religious messages that I so badly want him to live without.
This worry of mine has been further compounded by this recent post on the
AIMS Ireland Facebook page, which shows the text of the latest update to the religious studies curriculum.
According to the post, sixth class students will be taught the usual about chastity and sex within the confines of marriage, as one would expect from the Catholic doctrine.
And while I suppose that I also expected the anti-abortion stance, I am still quite shocked to see the words written down in black and white text, and ready to be presented to twelve year-old boys and girls of our country.
It reads;
"Christians respect life because life comes from God and every person has a right to life. Therefore, abortion is forbidden."
AIMS - a voluntary organisation who campaign for better maternity and childbirth services
in Ireland - are encouraging open discussion between parents and children on the subject prior to their receiving this information in sixth class.
They argue that this kind of message will confuse children on whether or not they get to have their own say when it comes to pregnancy or their bodies in general.
"Our children should be taught that they own their own bodies, without question."
You can read the full post here:
I am inclined to agree with then, but them I am clearly biased as a non-Catholic.
What do you think? Should this part of the overall message within the Catholic faith ultimately be removed for the sake of our children?
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