Attack On Traditions

Recently in Berkeley, CA a 1st grade teacher has come under fire for categorizing Santa and the Easter Bunny as fiction. Unfortunately, the teacher followed the attack on childhood traditions with mention of a word forbidden in public schools! God.

My understanding after reading the local newspaper accounts is that the teacher is being punished not for destroying the right of all children to believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny but for telling them to believe in God.

I understand the anger of parents whose children were upset, I’m a mother of 4 kids!

Santa and the Easter Bunny are traditions in the majority of American families! It is the parents right to determine when to let their kids face the heartbreaking reality that Santa and the Easter bunny are in fact fiction!

What I don’t understand is that according to public school policies if this teacher had been presenting an untraditional “alternative” life style as acceptable, there would be no issue. Isn’t this an attack on family traditions that have been around longer than the Easter Bunny or even Santa? Don’t we as parents have the same right to determine when and in what context we want our children presented with that information?

I think this teacher exercised bad judgement, in taking a childhood rite of passage from these students, it is very disappointing that as a Christian this teacher didn’t pay more attention to Ephesians 4:15 ,

“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”

New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

As a parent it concerns me that more people across this nation aren’t causing as much fuss about the fact that public schools have taken away our right to determine what our children are taught about homosexuality!

I believe our country was founded for religious freedom, not freedom from religion.