‘Everyone can live in unison’, says child of multi-faith household

Bea Baldwin, 17, was raised in a multi-faith household as her father practices Judaism and her mother is Christian.

Bea Baldwin practices Judaism along with her father Joe, while her mother Sarah is a Christian (Sarah Baldwin/PA)

A teenager raised in a multi-faith household says her upbringing shows “everyone can live in unison” if people are willing to educate themselves about different beliefs.

Bea Baldwin practices Judaism along with her father while her mother is a Christian.

The 17-year-old student, from Stratford-upon-Avon, said living in a household of two religions has given her the insight to teach people about her faith while also understanding theirs.

She celebrates Christian and Jewish faith holidays with her family, and has been inspired to “reduce antisemitism” after facing it “a lot in my life”.

She shared her experience after analysis of census data showed there are almost 300,000 multi-person households in England and Wales where two faiths are recorded.

Asked what living in a multi-faith household represents, Bea said: “I think it shows if you are willing to educate yourself, everyone can live in unison without issue.

“I feel the issue is when people are ignorant towards a religion or a group of people, that’s when the issues arise – not because of the religions themselves, purely just because of the lack of education and misunderstanding between the two.”

She said that although she is Jewish, she also follows Christian holidays, describing herself as “literally a mix”.

Asked about growing up in a multi-faith home, she said: “It definitely broadened my view, because I grew up in an area that’s predominantly Christian, and I didn’t know anyone that wasn’t Christian growing up, really.

“I definitely had a bigger insight into the world of everybody surrounding me.

“That was always intriguing because they wouldn’t understand things that I would.”

Bea said she attends a school that is “very mixed faith”, and it has been “interesting” to teach other people about her faith.

“I have that insight into two different religions, one that is known about a lot less.

“It’s interesting teaching other people, from my perspective, my religion, but also being able to understand theirs as they’re Christian.”

Bea, who will be applying to university next year, said she wants to reduce antisemitism, having experienced it first-hand.

She said: “I quite want to go and study Jewish studies; I’m quite interested in reducing antisemitism because that’s something I’ve faced a lot in my life, so I definitely want to pursue that.”

She has also been running lessons on Judaism in her local community and at her old school, saying: “My school didn’t have the education so I did it myself.”

Bea said that when she was growing up, she loved both Christmas and Hanukkah “because that’s nine days of presents, so that was always fun”.

She added that faith celebrations and festivities in her household get “equal weight”, but when Christmas and Hanukkah overlap “that can be pretty interesting”.

Her mother Sarah, 54, who married husband Joe, 56, in a civil wedding 27 years ago, said they have never “pushed” their daughter to follow one religion over the other.

Speaking about her wedding ceremony, Ms Baldwin, an architect, explained: “We had a non-religious (wedding), we had a civil wedding.

“We live both religions, we follow both holidays, which is quite nice.”

Asked about raising their daughter, Ms Baldwin said: “I think, not legally, but the normal thing is that the faith follows the mother, so technically she should be following the Christian faith.

“But we’ve never pushed one way or another and (she) made that decision at quite an early age to identify as Jewish.”