I used to be young too.

I am the third of four brothers. My parents and my brothers all belong to a religion called Jehovah's Witnesses. I too was raised in that faith from an early age. We didn't celebrate Christmas or birthdays. We weren't encouraged to have friendships outside of the JW's. I don't remember ever having a sleep over or inviting friends to my house, except for my best buddy at the time who was a JW.
We would sit out of school assembly and not participate in anything to do with Christmas or Easter or any other religious holiday. As if the world isn't tough enough for a young boy growing up, I was made to feel like an outsider and yet didn't at that age really understand the purpose of religion and the label I had been given through no choice of my own.
When I was about 9, my parents sat us all down and asked each of us if we would like to move to Spain as this had been a dream of theirs for a few years. Well at the thought of sunshine and swimming pools they didn't need to ask twice.
So we upped sticks and off we went.
So now I had to face starting a new school in a foreign country. Of course I didn't speak any Spanish, so that made it a bit of a challenge making friends. I only had one real friend at school and we are still connected now on Facebook which is nice. I didn't have an unhappy childhood, far from it really. I had my brothers for friendship, and we also had friends from the new congregation we had joined in Spain too.

I look at my little lad now who is 9 and sometimes worry if he has enough friends and does he fit in at school and football. He is a real loving and caring young lad though, I don't think we need to worry about him. But day in and day out we discuss things as parents on what is best for the kids and how our decisions could impact on our children's future. We don't really know for sure what perfect parenting is, but we want what is best for them and if that puts us out or costs us a bob or two then so be it. Everyone has their own way of doing things, especially when it comes to parenting. We might make mistakes at times and get things wrong, but all in all we want our kids to feel safe and loved. Which I'm pretty sure they do.