Were you forced to practice your parent's religion as a child?

Question

I'm interested to hear from people who were made to worship against their will when they were children or teens.
If so, how did you parents get you to comply? What are your thoughts about it now? Do you still practice the same religion or have your beliefs changed?

Answer 1

I don't think most kids think about it until they're in their teens. Before that you just kind of do what your parents do.

I started to find religion too absurd to believe when I was in my teens. I'm just stating my own opinion so no one bother crying I'm wrong. And yes my parents all but tied me up and drug me to church. My mother and I eventually had extended screaming matches over it.

My mother use a variety of threats to keep me going to church against my will. Including multiple threats to kill herself. It finally culminated in my parents throwing me out of the house at 18 solely because I would not go to church.

I'll never forget my mother saying "If you can't be in god's house you can't be in mine".

Answer 2

I don't know if it was forced as much that's just the way it was... I didn't question it when I was younger because I didn't know any different. They didn't expose me to any other religion so that I could make my own choice though.

I don't still practice the same beliefs. I haven't told them, because I know it would break my mother's heart. So I guess in a way, when I'm around them I kinda feel obligated to go through the same motions.

Answer 3

Mom and Dad were devout Catholics. I only complied until High School.
At that time I refused to attend Catholic High School. I had been in Catholic grade school.
I went to Mass, but felt nothing, after graduation I trained and taught 2nd grade C.C.D, I still felt like a liar.
I then sat at home with my young children and read them the bible for years.
I found the truth, beyond what the Catholic Church teaches.
So for a ten year study, and then now for ten years baptized. I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses. 20 years of thought, as apposed to 16 years of YOU WILL DO AS YOU ARE TOLD, No rhyme or reason! just fear!


Happy day to freedom to believe in the Christ as the bible tells His story, not the perverse Catholic Church!

Answer 4

I was loosely raised Catholic.

Initially, I was quite enthusiastic about it, to the point where I would badger my mom about it, because she didn't attend mass or confession or any of that, but she felt obligated to send the kids to CCD, and have us receive our sacraments.

This also led to problems, because often times I could not attend mass if I couldn't catch a ride with someone else.

After a priest screamed & yelled during confession when I confessed that I had not been to church for a while, I explained that I had no way of getting there. Then he started screaming "YOU TELL YOUR MOTHER TO START TAKING YOU TO CHURCH !!!!" Now I felt really screwed, I had a choice to not keep the sabbath holy, or to dishonor my mother. My mother asked me why I was crying when I came out of the confessional but I wouldn't talk about it.

I started doubting Catholicism a few years later, and when I stopped going to mass & confession, no one in my family pushed it. I was the only practicing Catholic in the family at that point.

Answer 5

Dear ImUURU?,

By the grace of God I was brought up in Dad's church and spared from being forced by Mom to become a Watchtower witness.

It was close and World War 3 got fought every Sunday in our home but the past is the past for a reason.

I no longer belong to the denomination I grew up in but I am a born again Christian.

For His glory,
JOYfilled

Answer 6

it is an exciting question considering many condemn the prepare as infant abuse. i think helpful that if a infant fairly objected and sought help from infant centers that the effect may well be the removing of the infant from the residing house yet seem on the heartache in touch in that! that's so unhappy that as quickly as faith comes till now love that love turns to hatred so at as quickly as! fairly if there's a loving god such mothers and fathers are sure for hell?!

Answer 7

My parents never took me to church except for the rare occasion around Easter time. But they never quit expressing their views on how if I wasn't a good little girl, the devil would take me down to hell and torture me for-ever and ever. Can you imagine what this did to my mind. I was scared to even walk into the next room for fear that Satan would bust through the floor and grab me. Now that I am a adult I have studied the bible and have found out the misconceptions of Hell. What a relief!! Now I only have the fear of displeasing God. So, no I don't believe as my parents did, because that is just a miserable life thinking that God would hand you over to Satan to be tortured, when Satan is the cause of all this evil anyways.

Answer 8

Forced to? No. My mother would have liked it if I had at the time as she was raising me baptist. I've never prayed because as a child it always seemed a very silly thing to do and now as an adult, it is not something I need in order to achieve all that I need to get done.

Answer 9

Forced no.

Brought to church, yes.

I fell in love Jesus and by the time I was 7 years old I wanted to attend more than they did.

One of the last times I attended church with my mother, was when my nephew was being sprinkled, the song being sung had words like this:

Rejoice, Rejoice, Lift up your voice and sing!

And my mother was elbowing me in the ribs and whispering, "Don't sing so loud!"

When I became a Pastor, my parents never came to hear me preach, ever.

Pastor Art

Answer 10

Not really. I went to a private school until I said I didn't want to attend any longer (after my 5th grade year) and I was allowed to attend the public school I wanted to go to.

Going to church wasn't really a choice until I was much older, but actually "believing" it wasn't forced.