Megan and Dave Holbrook may look like totally normal parents of a sweet 7-year-old, but looks can be deceiving. Bubbling below the surface of this idyllic scene lies every parent’s biggest nightmare: Megan and Dave’s son really wants to go to church on Sundays.
Truly devastating. Anyone who has ever had a child can understand their pain.
It began on what seemed like a regular weekend morning—Megan and Dave were eating a leisurely breakfast at their home when their 7-year-old son, Hunter, bounded downstairs, fully dressed in a blazer and khakis, and begged them to take him to church so he could learn about the Bible. “He started crying because he was scared that God was going to be mad that our family doesn’t go to services on Sundays—I mean, what the fuck,” Megan said. “I don’t know what we did that gave him this obnoxious of a faith in Christianity, but whatever it was, I would do anything to take it back.”
But it didn’t stop at just Sundays. What Dave and Megan hoped was just a scary phase has turned into several harrowing months of Hunter begging his parents to chaperone the church’s volunteer trip to Guatemala, and trying to drag his parents to the church’s weekly family game night.
“The worst part is that we’ll look like terrible people if we don’t take him, but I don’t want to spend the one day of the week I have to myself listening to my son go on and on about how much he got out of the sermon,” Dave said. “We’ve been really hoping his classmates would make fun of him for all this Jesus shit, but he actually has gotten a couple of them hooked and now we gotta pick up his friend Kyle every Sunday, too.”
Oof. It’s tough to even read about this kind of thing. If you’ve never endured a horrifying parenting situation like this one, now’s the time to count your lucky stars.
Megan and Dave are attempting to get Hunter interested in other activities, but so far he has rejected karate, football, and video games due to their violent and un-Christian nature. The Holbrooks hope that the cruelty of life will eventually break Hunter of his faith, but as of now, his desire to take part in all things church-related is unshakeable.
Heartbreaking. This truly is every parents’ worst nightmare. When we hear about people going through issues like this, all we can do is keep them in our thoughts, and feel grateful that this unfortunate situation isn’t happening in our own lives.
