Parenting & Family Quote by Kenneth Rexroth

Rexroth lands the line like a tossed-off parental anecdote, then lets it detonate. The comedy is in the blunt child’s logic: Jesus is appealing as a baby - soft, storybook, safely nonjudgmental - and disappointing as an adult, when the teachings harden into demands, institutions, and moral bookkeeping. It’s a joke, but it’s also a diagnosis of how religions market themselves: the Nativity sells innocence; the grown-up gospel asks for a life.

The “Life write up” matters. Mid-century mass media doesn’t just report on spirituality; it packages it, turns Buddhism into a glossy set of photos and an alternative lifestyle. Mary’s conversion is partly a consumer choice, a kid responding to images, novelty, and the allure of a ceremony that feels less like inherited obligation. Rexroth isn’t sneering at her; he’s quietly indicting the Christian culture that made Jesus feel like a bait-and-switch.

Subtextually, this is Rexroth the anarchist humanist taking aim at Western piety without sermonizing. He gets to critique Christian authority through a child’s unguarded verdict, which is sharper than any adult polemic. Putting “confirmed” in a Buddhist temple is also a sly jab at ritual itself: even when you flee one institution, you often recreate its forms. The line isn’t arguing that Buddhism is purer; it’s revealing how belief, especially in modern America, slips between genuine longing and curated spectacle, between spiritual hunger and the available narratives on the newsstand.