The story starts out with Ricky introducing you to himself, his family, and his home. He lives outside of Chicago, and you meet his mom, Celeste, and his two-year-old sister, Dawn. He brings you to his room, shows you his closet, and tells you that he likes dinosaurs and comics. He then shows you his radio, and flips through the stations, until it comes to rest on ‘One of Us’, which he tells us is, ironically, one of his favorite songs. This is where you learn that Ricky’s dad is an atheist – his license plate says atheist, he’s been on talk shows, and he’s even tried to get ‘Under God’ taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance. Other than that, Ricky says, their life is pretty normal, even though the kids at school think that being an atheist means that he worships the devil. He then goes to interview his family members, starting with Dawn. When he asks her what dad told her that God was, she recites ‘Make Believe’. He then moves on to his mother, who tells us that she is agnostic. Lastly, he goes to his father, who tells him everyone is born an atheist, but some are taught to be superstitious, and that God does not exist. When asked if he cares what his son was, he says that of course he does, but that Ricky has free will to decide (but then goes on to say that he tries to sell his son on the merits of atheism, and feels that he has succeeded). The story ends with Ricky saying that he doesn’t think that kids should just automatically have their parents’ religion, and that he’s not really an atheist, he’s mostly just confused. As ‘One of Us’ comes back to play, Ricky says that he’ll probably just end up being whatever religion his wife was.
I really liked how real this audio story felt. You can tell that it’s not recorded professionally, but is obviously done by a kid – there’s a lot of ambient background noises, and sometimes the sounds are too quiet, or too loud. I thought that including the song, ‘One of Us’, really added to the story, and helped tie all of the ideas and feelings together. By interviewing multiple people, and gaining multiple perspectives, the story got a depth and character that it wouldn’t have otherwise. I was surprised at how set Ricky’s father was on his ideals, even going so far as to say (when asked, what happens when you die?) that you rot, and become food for the maggots. It really doesn’t seem to be a positive environment for your kid to be that adamant about anything. Even though the father says that he’s not trying to force atheism on his kids, he obviously is – what else would you call teaching a two-year-old to say that God is make-believe? All-in-all, I thought this story was really interesting, and well-made.
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