During the holiday season, explaining God is much less of a problem than explaining why Granny O'Reilly has a Christmas tree and a creche while Granny Bernstein has a menorah and is less than thrilled when she hears her grandchildren talk about the baby Jesus lying in the manger.

I have a very different problem: how to explain why I don't believe in a supernatural being in whom most Americans (as children know very well) do believe. Some years ago, my niece
Alex--then age seven--and I were walking through a holiday fair on the Mall in Washington, and she saw a child, about her own age, who had a badly deformed upper body. Alex asked why the child looked like that and I gave her a very simplified explanation of how "mistakes" in genes and chromosomes can cause our bodies to depart from the standard blueprint before we are born. She understood quite well but then asked, "Why does God let something like that happen?"

The theodicy problem! At age seven! I told Alex that not everyone believes in God, that children born sick have been hurt by a cruel accident of nature, and that doctors are working very hard to figure out how to make these children better. The "doctors working hard" statement seemed to reassure her, but she circled back to God and asked, "Do you believe in God, Aunt Susan? "

I told her that I didn't believe in God, that I believed in good people working together to make life better. My mother tells me that I asked the same question when the older brother of a childhood friend was stricken with polio, and we visited him in his terrifying iron lung. My mom, who was a practicing Catholic, simply replied "I don't know" when I asked why God would put a child in an iron lung. She was honest--and more power to her. When children are old enough to ask a question, they deserve an honest answer. The priests and nuns of my childhood would certainly not have agreed, but I believe that doubt is one of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child. Thanks, Mom.