Is it politically correct to teach my children about God?

I'm going to tackle what can be a controversial subject: teaching children about the existence of God. I am a person of faith and my beliefs play an enormous role in my day to day choices, my outlook in life, and the activities I do. I was raised to believe in God and to respect people of all faiths and of none.

Yet I found myself struggling with the idea of sharing my beliefs with my first child. Is this the right thing to do? Can I adequately convey the concept of God and the role of spirituality in life? I concluded that even to teach my daughter nothing about religion would be a choice, since God is an important concept in the world whether you believe in God or not. Letting her decide for herself later in life is fine, but she would be hugely influenced by whatever I had taught her as a child.

After some soul searching (yes, I believe in the concept of a soul!) I decided that if I believe firmly in a loving Creator then I should have no hesitation in sharing my beliefs and my understanding with my children. I wouldn't want to deny them the comfort I find in prayer, or the fellowship I find in my community (of Baha'is).

Maybe I have been influenced by Western secular thought which is in itself an ideology. There is always that notion that if you have faith it means perhaps you are an idiot, or weak. I consider myself to be a rational human being, to have a strong belief in science, and in my worldview science and religion can exist in harmony with one another.

So, I'm overcoming my fear of being politically incorrect and am teaching my children to say their prayers daily. They love to participate in prayers and find them soothing when they are sad. Thinking back on my own upbringing I can't remember questioning the existence of God until my late childhood or early teens. Maybe I didn't understand what God is (and still don't!) but I always felt God's presence in my life.

I hope to teach my children that everybody is important and deserves respect whatever their beliefs. I hope that they will be open-minded and ready to question the world. That they will understand that we are all on a journey in life whatever our belief system.  I hope they will at least believe that there is more to life than what we see here on earth, and I hope I'll have the courage to be happy for them whatever choices they make about their own beliefs.

Below is a prayer from the Baha'i Writings which my two eldest are learning to say: "O God, guide me. Protect me. Make of me a shining lamp and a brilliant star. Thou art the Mighty and the Powerful."