Big Brothers Interview

As I mentioned here, I had an interview with Big Brothers this past Monday. It took more than an hour and a half to complete. They had a co-op student there, presumably from an ECE program since my interviewer was an ECE graduate.

The questions dealt with a lot of background things. Where did I grow up? What was/is my family like? Which of my parents were the disciplinarians? What traits do I share with my parents? What would I change about my parents? What is the most traumatic thing that I've ever gone through? What are my symptoms when I'm frustrated or angry? They also asked me to describe my relationship with each of my family members. And finally, there were various simple questions regarding things like my hobbies and career.

I first mentioned Big Brothers back in September in this post and one of the questions that I raised in the comments section was about how my faith in God mixed with a secular organization like this. I said that I hoped and presumed that it wasn't a big deal one way or the other and I was proven correct during my interview today. I actually posed that question directly but my interviewer basically let me answer it myself based on what I had already learned about Big Brothers.

The main principle is that we "Bigs" should use our best judgement. They don't create policies about every little thing and presumably the single mothers will not do that either, although the mothers have final say on what they want their child taught. In terms of my Christian morals, most of those are directly translatable to secular life regardless of the Bible. Being forgiving, not losing your temper, not lying, being kind...these are good things whether or not you're a Christian. So in that respect, I can teach and model exactly who I am. Further, the interviewer specified that I shouldn't feel like I'm compromising my own standards by being in a relationship with a "Little."

Outside of that, they mentioned that do ask the mothers if they have a religious preference concerning a potential Big. My interviewer said that the issue of religion has never really come up in all of her experience. That was curious. I wonder if that means that Christian mothers are more likely to seek mentoring or whatever from a church community rather than Big Brothers. That's merely anecdotal data, of course, but it's interesting.

So what happens now? They're going to create a summary about me based on my interview. They will call my four character references sometime in the next week or three, depending on how busy they are. After that I'll be called again to have a brief interview with the director to welcome me to Big Brothers, and then I'll start the process of choosing a potential Little.