We live in a society where people continue to disagree wildly about God, human nature, and morality. While many parents oversee the spiritual direction of their children in churches and synagogues, others struggle on their own. Martha Fay directs her book, Do Children Need Religion? How Parents Today Are Thinking about the Big Questions to the latter group. She has talked to hundreds of parents who have no ties to organized religion or are in cross-faith marriages. Most of them, according to Fay, are looking for "a way to avert both religious resentment and spiritual ennui, to give their children what they need but not what will trap or limit them."
The author uses excerpts from these interviews as well as the insights of child psychologists and faith development experts to frame her discussions of issues which concern children including birth and death, images of God, the meaning religious holidays and celebrations, and differences in religious denominations.
All parents want to instill in their offspring moral values which will help them become good persons. The rub for these baby boomers is avoiding the errors made by their own parents who often came off as moral dictators. Fay, herself the mother of a child filled with metaphysical questions, laments the loss of an inhabitable religious mythology with rich rituals, poetry, and passion. The best these boomer parents can do is be good fellow travelers on their children's spiritual journey.