Godless Mom in the Bible Belt

I think we found a school for Liz!

It is a very small, completely secular private school called The Rainard School.

The thing that impressed me the most about this school was the fact that all of the kids seemed so happy. Every child I encountered made eye contact with me and smiled (even the teenagers.)

They accept kids into their kindergarten program at 4 years 6 months, so Liz will be old enough in September.

I have a couple of objections to the school Liz would attend if we were to go the public route. First, she would have to wait another year and a half before she would be old enough to attend. She is doing really well with reading and writing already and I'm afraid that if we wait until she is old enough to attend public school she will be bored out of her gourd (and that isn't a good way to start out the whole school experience thing.) Cy-Fair school district has all "open" classrooms which means there are only half-walls separating one class from another. Liz learns quickly, you only have to tell her something once, when you start repeating things to her she quickly loses interest and becomes distracted. Obviously not all children have the same learning style, and I'm afraid that while the teacher is repeating things for the benefit of her classmates, Liz will be sailing paper airplanes over the walls.

Last but not least, our state governor Rick Perry signed into law in May of 2003 Senate Bill 83 which requires children in public schools to pledge allegiance to the US and Texas flags and to observe one minute of silence. As a parent I would have to write a letter of objection before my child would be permitted to abstain from said pledges and moment.

My child is 4 years old, how is she to know whether the United States or the state of Texas are worthy of her allegiance? I'm not going to force her to recite by rote a pledge where the meaning and gravity are beyond her capability of understanding. And who am I (and who is the state of Texas for that matter) for telling her that she must give her allegiance to this country? If, after she is old enough to understand the ramifications of such a pledge she decides that this country IS worth her allegiance then she can choose to say the words and they can really come from her heart. I will not force it on her before then.

Plus, as you can probably guess, I have a problem with the whole "under God" thing. How would Governor Perry feel if I made his child say the following....

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, under pink bunnies, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

When are people going to realize that as soon as they added the "under God" phrase to the pledge, the country was no longer indivisible? They had divided it into those who believe in the Christian God and those who do not. Maybe for the sake of inclusion we should rotate the way we say the pledge on a weekly basis. One nation under Allah, one nation under g--, one nation under Siva, one nation under Thor, one nation under Belenus, pick a god any god. Or wait, maybe we should just eliminate the whole "under God" thing all together.....No, that would be too easy and too Constitutional.

Okay, I'll climb down off my soap box now.