“It’s OK to believe in what you believe and to express that”
I grew up in a community where being Jewish wasn’t prevalent. It was a heavily Christian environment where it was well represented in elementary schools and middle schools. The holidays were celebrated as being a standard America holiday and not being a religious one.
And that’s incredibly ostracizing when you’re not part of that main stream religious force. We tried to make it special by trying to educate people about what Judaism was, trying to introduce what Hanukkah was, even Kwanzaa for the kids who celebrate that and that wasn’t easily received by the community, because “what’s the problem everyone celebrates Christmas, everyone celebrates Easter”. And you go “no we don’t”. We did have a high population of Jehovah’s Witnesses students who had to leave the classrooms for Christmas parties. And that was hard for them too.
This helps me in raising of our nieces and nephews and they’re every different religious paths you could think of. They are incredibly educated on having sensitivity and compassion towards others on their own religious pathway. We teach them nothing is mainstream or the norm and it’s OK to believe in what you believe and to express that.
When I was young I had a blanket in particular. It was my dads pajama shirt and I refused to let it go one night. It was a burgundy silk men’s nightshirt and I carried it around for years. My mom was not enthusiastic about this but I would not let this thing go. It represented a fantasy I had of my father. I was placing my own impression of what I thought a dad would be and that wasn’t something my father could fulfill.