I’m the daughter of a pastor, colloquially known in some Christian circles as a PK. I freakin’ hate that abbreviation. Some people wear it like a badge of honour, some people use it to belittle and box-in. There are plenty of reasons to hate the label and that’s why I’ve never applied it to myself or to anyone else to whom it may apply.

My experience is quite atypical of that of many children of clergy, actually. Growing up in the church is a difficult and precarious thing for any kid, whether her parent is the pastor, the moderator, the women’s ministries coordinator, the pianist, the organist, whatever. When I look back on my childhood, I think the difficult aspects of the church stemmed from that sort of general involvement rather than the fact that my dad was the pastor.

Like I said, my experience is not typical. I lucked out and spent most of my growing-up years in a remarkably functional church, where there was little discord. Whatever there was my parents successfully hid from me. My brother and I were treated well. I’ve heard stories about other clergy kids being told things like, “You’re the pastor’s son/daughter, you have to set an example.” No one ever said that to me. Or if they did, I blocked it out of my memory because it’s complete bullshit.

When I look back on my life, being a pastor’s kid meant mostly one thing: presents.

When I was two, we moved out to a parsonage in the country. The rambling house was right next to the church, in the midst of wheat and barley fields cut into squares by gravel roads. My mom was in the middle of a difficult pregnancy, so on Christmas Eve she didn’t attend the service. But after the service, the doorbell started ringing, various parishoners seeking an audience. Not to chide her for her non-attendance (after all, physician-ordered bedrest is an excuse even the most religious can abide). No, they wanted to drop off the presents, for me. Granted, I was a really adorable (if moody) child, but that Christmas Eve set a precedent for years to come. Basically, being the pastor’s kid meant getting special treatment. More attention, more love. And it really was love — presents are nice, but I always felt that people cared about me, and even as a kid I knew that was more important than trinkets.

I never really had any pastor-kid friends until I went to bible school — there, four of my closest friends were children of clergy, and because the school was a denominational one, two of them had lived in the very same rural parsonage I had. In fact, one still did live there. It was super cool to go there on weekends and eat real food and sleep in the basement where I had watched countless hours of Mr. Dressup and built blanket forts with my brother.

Anyway, I don’t think my experience was much different from that of any kid with very devout parents. Which is good, I guess.

Sometimes I wonder what makes one church-raised kid rebel/resist their religion and others not. What makes one person able to incorporate their history and childhood faith into an adult one? Why is it for some a seamless transition, and others not?

In my case I wonder if it’s just flat-out a personality issue. I’m a cranky bitch, always have been. “Strong-willed” is the term, I believe. Though, I’d like to think my struggle with/against Christianity is about more than some kind of inborn antipathy.

Part of me has always been jealous of the people for whom faith is so easy. For whom religion is easy. The people whose eyes close tight in prayer and you know they really believe, that the structures and the symbols all make sense to them.

As a kid, I was always waiting for, praying for that moment when it would be the same way for me. But now I don’t think that moment will ever come, and I have to be OK with that — I have to accept it. Which is harder than it sounds.

technorati tags: childhood, religion, church, christianity, prayer, faith

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2006 at 2:53 pm and is filed under church, introspection, bible school. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.