One of the great pieces I've read on Easter was here, at the Datejesus.com site. It gives a historical perspective on the holiday, but is more suited to someone who is, perhaps, 20 years old and struggling with ideas of religion.

I've since reconciled my ideas and have abandoned the idea that children are born with original sin and that a cult leader by the name of Jesus is my one true savior. But with a child on the way, knowing that questions - such as: Why does my cousin go to a Catholic school? What does that cross mean? Why aren't I participating in First Communion like many of my classmates? - will come up at some point, how do you know when and how to talk about religion with your "ds" or "dd" (yes, I learned some new acronyms: "darling son" or "darling daughter")? I certainly don't have the answer; we know our child won't be part of the Catholic church, and we don't categorize ourselves as "atheist" either. The name has too many negative connotations, and may even result in our child being a social outcast from an early age - something neither of us want. We want our child to fit in to the point of having friends and having the self esteem to study hard & feel good about his or herself at school, becoming more independent over time.

My wife & I always circle back to the idea that religion can be a touchy subject from a young age, and not taking part in First Communion and other religious rituals may have some social consequences. This is not our first concern, of course, but the idea of religion & spirituality needs to be handled delicately: I'm not going to tell a 5 year old child that there is no god and nothing happens to you after you die, just as I will probably tolerate Santa Claus for at least a few years. The question then becomes: when is it a good time to discuss brutal realism with your child? Ten years old? Twelve?

Please feel free to discuss as I'm still pondering this one - it's an important question and with a newborn that certainly will NOT be baptized into the Catholic Church, I'm open to ideas!