"And you shall teach them to your children"

From Thoracic Outlet

Its wonderful to see my baby growing up. Seeing her learn to do new things and develop into a happy and excitable infant has been tremendously satisfying. At the back of my mind, I know that one day i'll have to make a decision that is slowly creeping up.
Years ago, a consideration for us was the standard of religious education our children would be able to recieve. Were there any schools which fitted our philosophy? If there weren't, what would we be willing to compromise on? Would we move somewhere to give them a better Jewish education? Now our question is : "exactly how do we want to raise our children?". We have ideas of the values and lifestyle that we want her to have. We think its important for her to play sport and we will encourage her to do so. I would like her to gain an appreciation for the music of Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd (who I started her on at the age of 2 weeks). A lot of what we want her to become is independant of Judaism per se. (We certainly dont want to raise her to be a housewife and have 15 children...unless she wants to. We just dont want her self worth to hinge on that.) Im not going to force her into anything, but I would like to show her that some things are fun and worthwhile.
Early on in my skepticisation process, I felt a certain guilty shame. I hoped that my skepticism would be a generational abberation, that would begin and end with me before my progeny continued on the path. But what would I tell my daughter? When she asked me questions Could I lie to her? Would she understand if she started to question things later in her life? Would she understand that I let her develop one way and left her to find the same things I did on her own?
Ideally I would like my children to make up their own minds about religion. But practically this is really difficult. Religions seem to rely heavily on the teaching of certain basic concepts in early childhood in the crucial period of neural development from 0-4. I certainly want her to get a good Jewish education. Its an important part of her culture and history, though I worry a lot about sending mixed messages to a child. It seems that Jewish education is rarely confined to history and culture but is usually bound up with practice and belief. Is it harmless to let her believe what she is taught then teach her something else later on? Im thinking about dinosuars, evolution, bible stories and aspects of Jewish practice. When she asks me why god didnt answer her prayers. When she asks how Noah really managed to collect so many specimens. If I was entirely honest with her ,how would her teachers respond? Are there Jewish educators that are open minded to cope with it? Probably not. But then I dont want to be furtive about anything either. Since she wont be going to a Jewish school, we have more freedom to teach her the things we want to and not have to undermine what shes learning elsewhere. I think we will have to make sure we guide her to think and challenge things(hopefully not things like how unfair it is she has to go to bed when we say so)until she is old enough to make her own decisions. We will love her regardless.