Today I was at the nursery nativity play. It was really nice and well produced. Molly picks things up very quickly, I was surprised a few weeks ago when I heard her reciting a prayer. Although it was cute to hear her,  the second last thing I want in my house is religion. I was brought up an Irish Catholic when I was seven a nun locked me in a cupboard so that I would know what the “Dark Hole” was like before you entered the fires of hell. My experience was based on fear, my children are brought up with love the central theme.

 Another punishment was to serve mass at 6am (I went to boarding school). This particular priest who was punishing me, had a nose which suggested he liked alcohol and I was serving his morning mass. You have to pour wine and water into his chalice for the “consecration”. I particularly felt a sense of injustice this morning and dripped the wine into his chalice as if it were rationed, after a long wait with little wine in the chalice he nodded for the water and I just poured practically filling the chalice. Serving mass was not used again as punishment for me. Last June a Franciscan Priest Ronald Bennett from my school was given a suspended prison sentence for abusing four boys in the mid seventies, his sentence was suspended because he claimed he did not to realise what he was doing was wrong. I believe he abused over a hundred boys but  past pupils from one of the best schools in Ireland would probably rather forget about it.

Anyway I stopped believing in God when I was about 10. My Granny  warned me that God would strike me down if I did not behave. So I fell to the floor, at first she was not sure if she had in fact willed it, after that there was no God or hell to stop me misbehaving.

Molly praying posed a slight problem, I did not want to be seen like some old nut without a sense of humour, on the other hand I did not want some fundamentalist putting religious beliefs into her head behind my back. When they are old enough, if they find God fine but not when they are three. I felt sorry for the nursery teacher who is excellent with the children. I told her that if Molly was learning a prayer in the context of a nursery rhyme that was ok. However if she was expecting to actually hear “Gods word” I was not happy.

I think they have taken it to heart Molly painted a picture of Joseph  Mary and the donkey the other day, when I asked her who was in the picture she told me “A lady and a gentleman”