Mom and Dad would stay in bed on Sunday morning, but the kids

In the quietly humorous yet deeply reflective words of Lynn Johnston, the beloved creator of For Better or For Worse, there lies more than a simple recollection of childhood routine: “Mom and Dad would stay in bed on Sunday morning, but the kids would have to go to church.” At first, it seems a light jest, the kind of nostalgic irony one might share over coffee. Yet within this gentle memory is a subtle parable — a commentary on faith, tradition, and the contradictions of human nature. For Johnston, as for many who came of age in families of duty and decorum, this memory reveals how the customs of belief often persist even when the spirit of belief has begun to fade.

Born of her own life experiences and her eye for the everyday truths of family life, Lynn Johnston often captured the small hypocrisies and quiet tendernesses that bind people together. In this quote, she recalls how her parents, like many of their generation, honored religion through ritual — ensuring their children went to church, even when they themselves remained behind. It is a scene both ordinary and profound: the children dutifully walking to worship while their parents rest at home, a symbol of both continuity and distance — the desire to pass down values even when those values have lost their immediacy.

The ancients would have seen in this story a reflection of the eternal human struggle between form and spirit. For what are rituals without conviction but shells of meaning — beautiful, perhaps, but empty? In Greece, Socrates spoke of those who repeated the prayers of tradition without understanding their purpose, warning that “virtue cannot be inherited like property.” Likewise, the prophets of old rebuked those who honored the divine with their lips but not their hearts. Yet Johnston’s recollection does not condemn; it simply observes, with tenderness, the imperfect grace of human beings who still wish to do good — who, even in their inconsistency, seek to keep alive what they once believed in.

In this image — parents in bed, children at church — we see the bittersweet inheritance of belief. The elders, weary perhaps of doctrine, still send their young into the halls of faith, hoping that something sacred might yet take root. They may no longer kneel, yet they remember enough to teach reverence. This, too, is an act of love. It is as if they say, “Even if we no longer feel what we once did, may you find what we have lost.” And so the children go, puzzled perhaps, but obedient — carrying forward not only the family’s tradition, but its yearning for meaning. Faith, in such moments, becomes less about theology and more about continuity — the attempt to hand down a moral compass, even when the map has blurred.

History offers many echoes of this pattern. Consider the philosopher Voltaire, who, though skeptical of organized religion, insisted that faith had social and moral value. “If God did not exist,” he wrote, “it would be necessary to invent him.” He understood, as Johnston’s parents did, that belief shapes character, and that even in doubt, there is wisdom in teaching reverence. The church, for them, was not only a place of worship but of formation — a sanctuary where children might learn humility, gratitude, and reflection. Whether or not the parents themselves walked through those doors, they still pointed toward them, hoping the next generation might step inside with clearer eyes and lighter hearts.

Yet Johnston’s words also carry a hint of irony — a reminder that authenticity must one day replace imitation. The children who go to church on their parents’ command will one day choose whether to go on their own. The faith that begins as obedience must, to endure, become conviction. As in all things, what is taught externally must take root internally. The child who prays by habit must, at some point, encounter the divine — not in the sermons or songs, but in the quiet truth of life itself. Only then does faith cease to be ritual and become revelation.

Thus, the lesson is timeless: teach values, but live them; pass down belief, but with honesty. Let your children see not perfection, but sincerity. It is better to show them what it means to seek meaning than to pretend certainty you do not possess. If you no longer walk to the church, walk instead with compassion, with integrity, with love — for these, too, are prayers. And if you send others to seek what you cannot yet find, do so not from guilt, but from hope. For even the faintest gesture toward the sacred — even a parent whispering “Go” — can plant the seed of truth in another’s soul.

In the end, Lynn Johnston’s simple memory is not only a snapshot of a family Sunday; it is a mirror held to the generations. It shows us that faith, in all its forms, is never perfect — but it persists, reborn through the longing of those who still believe in believing. And perhaps that is enough. For the divine does not demand flawless worship; it asks only that we keep the chain unbroken — that we hand forward, even with trembling hands, the torch of wonder, so that it might burn brighter in those who come after us.