After a lovely trip to look at the holiday lights and enjoy some Mexican Village food as a family, V and I found ourselves alone in the TV room with a little "Kung Fu Panda." She had some questions.
V: How did the world begin?
Me: Um, well, some scientist believe in "The Big Bang Theory..."
V: What do humans believe?
Me: Uh, scientists ARE humans.
V: Oh.
Me: ...and some people believe that a God created the whole universe and...
V: Yep, that's what I think. I think he made the whole world.
Me: You think there's a god, and that he's male?
V: Yep.
Me: Oh, crap.
Apparently I've not been doing my job as well as I'd hoped. Sigh. Parenting is harder than it looks.
Edited to add: The point of this post is that despite the fact that we are raising V outside of the church, she soaks it up somewhere anyway. I was raised Lutheran, and Shaun was raised Catholic, and as an anthropologist I am respectful of a wide swath of beliefs. I just hadn't expected my own child to adopt such a mainstream point of view without me teaching it to her. I didn't really say "oh crap" out loud to V, but instead told her she could believe what she liked, and everyone had a right to decide for themselves what they believed. But it's hard when your child believes something you don't. That's all I'm saying.
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