1) My family is not Jewish, but I've always found a lot to respect in the culture and faith. I think the sabbath is potentially a really useful bit of practice, but so far I haven't had the guts to give it a try. Zvi Mowshowitz is a member of the Less Wrong-derived "Rationalist" community, and therefore a pretty hardcore materialist, but he's a smart guy and I've found much of his writing useful. He talks about keeping the sabbath and why it's been beneficial to his family (as non-believers) here: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/10/07/bring-back-the-sabbath/ . He makes a pretty good case!
2) I've got a three year old daughter, and as she's been getting older and actually able to understand things, I've been grappling with this a bit. My wife is mostly "spiritual, but not religious", with some vague Christian leanings (raised Episcopalian), and being seriously polytheistic is pretty new to me (I gave "soft polytheism" a try a few years back, thinking that the Gods and Goddesses were just archetypes, but my convincing religious experience was just last year, when my daughter was not quite two and a half). So far, I've shared a few stories with her (we have the D'Aulaires' book of Norse Mythology), and she likes to ask me about my Thunor's Hammer necklace with beads for different Gods/Goddesses, but I'm pretty sure that "Thor" mostly means the character in "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" (a cartoon version of Marvel's Avengers). One thing that's appealing about Heathenry to me is that it is rather family and community focused (at least notionally), but so far, it is a fairly esoteric/personal practice for me. I'm pretty sure that my approach will be something like "well, lots of folks have lots of different beliefs about the Gods, here's what daddy does, but you can find whatever works best for you."
3) On Krasskova, yikes. I hadn't encountered either her encouragement to folks to make babies nor her own personal lack thereof or creepy discussion of fetuses as "parasites". I've found some of her books helpful, but her tone in her blog posts is often off-puttingly strident.
4) On a more general note - kids are pretty great. They're a lot of work and a huge pain in the ass, and they will often be terrible little shits. But it's also amazing watching a totally new, different person slowly come online and wake up to the world around them, and their emotions are so intense, it's pretty affecting to see and be around. Generally speaking, for anyone who finds themself in a good relationship and is wondering "should I have kids?", if they're not a terrible person, I give a pretty enthusiastic yes.
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1) My family is not Jewish, but I've always found a lot to respect in the culture and faith. I think the sabbath is potentially a really useful bit of practice, but so far I haven't had the guts to give it a try. Zvi Mowshowitz is a member of the Less Wrong-derived "Rationalist" community, and therefore a pretty hardcore materialist, but he's a smart guy and I've found much of his writing useful. He talks about keeping the sabbath and why it's been beneficial to his family (as non-believers) here: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/10/07/bring-back-the-sabbath/ . He makes a pretty good case!
2) I've got a three year old daughter, and as she's been getting older and actually able to understand things, I've been grappling with this a bit. My wife is mostly "spiritual, but not religious", with some vague Christian leanings (raised Episcopalian), and being seriously polytheistic is pretty new to me (I gave "soft polytheism" a try a few years back, thinking that the Gods and Goddesses were just archetypes, but my convincing religious experience was just last year, when my daughter was not quite two and a half). So far, I've shared a few stories with her (we have the D'Aulaires' book of Norse Mythology), and she likes to ask me about my Thunor's Hammer necklace with beads for different Gods/Goddesses, but I'm pretty sure that "Thor" mostly means the character in "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" (a cartoon version of Marvel's Avengers). One thing that's appealing about Heathenry to me is that it is rather family and community focused (at least notionally), but so far, it is a fairly esoteric/personal practice for me. I'm pretty sure that my approach will be something like "well, lots of folks have lots of different beliefs about the Gods, here's what daddy does, but you can find whatever works best for you."
3) On Krasskova, yikes. I hadn't encountered either her encouragement to folks to make babies nor her own personal lack thereof or creepy discussion of fetuses as "parasites". I've found some of her books helpful, but her tone in her blog posts is often off-puttingly strident.
4) On a more general note - kids are pretty great. They're a lot of work and a huge pain in the ass, and they will often be terrible little shits. But it's also amazing watching a totally new, different person slowly come online and wake up to the world around them, and their emotions are so intense, it's pretty affecting to see and be around. Generally speaking, for anyone who finds themself in a good relationship and is wondering "should I have kids?", if they're not a terrible person, I give a pretty enthusiastic yes.