Atheists with kids.

In My Humble Opinion
61

I’m an atheist but not a parent (yet). I think how I act will depend largely on if I am raising my kids on my own, with another atheist, or with someone who is religious. I’m open minded and agreeable.

If it ends up being me alone, or with someone else who has no use for religion/belief in a god, then I can imagine we’ll probably be very dismissive of religion and probably make a lot of jokes about religious people and openly mention that I feel sorry for them. But I will also teach my kids to be respectful when they are around other people, to be sensitive of the issue of religion, and I certainly wouldn’t try to force my child to be an atheist.

62

We celebrate Christmas, Easter and so on because that’s part of our culture. We don’t usually go to Church for those occasions, but, for example, when we happened to go to St Paul’s Cathedral on Christmas Day a couple of years ago, I told her to speak quietly. Context-appropriate, like being quiet in a library.

When religion itself comes up, we have an honest age-appropriate talk about it, and I’m clear that I don’t believe in any God but some people do, and it’s up to her what she believes.

She was religious for about a month when she was eight and is now agnostic at 14, although in a recent discussion I pointed out that, since she doesn’t believe in any God, she’s actually an atheist. She’d picked up (probably from the internet, or possibly from her mostly Muslim classmates) on the idea that atheist = hating God rather than simply not believing in one.

63

This topic came up many a time when my kids were young - pre- and grade school. At that point our approach had 2 elements.

First, we said each person/family gets to say what they believe in, and what rules they follow in their houses. While we do not need to agree with them, we should respect their ability to make their own choices, the same way we ought to expect our choices to be respected. The fact that someone may hold religious or other beliefs different than ours, does not in itself make them a better or worse person than us.

We also told them that many of our family members had strong beliefs, and that we respected those individuals and, as part of that respect, did not openly question their religious beliefs.

Second, we said belief was a very important decision, and ought to be made intentionally. So we joined with our kids in brainstorming why people might believe in various things, and clearly expressed our strong reliance on reason. In doing so, we openly told them what we had concluded, and acknowledged that having rejected religious belief, we were likely not the best advocates for those positions.

A couple of anecdotes:

My eldest - now 25, recently told me there was a time that she really wanted to believe. Around age 7 or 8 or so. Tried to pray and I’m not sure what else, but pretty soon concluded it was silly.

When the kids were young, we started attending UU churches, so the kids could benefit from the RE - including comparative religions. It was funny as they got into high school, situations arose where it was apparent my kids knew as much about non-christian beliefs as christian ones.

Our communities were very christian, and we tried - with varying success - to teach our kids that socially it was generally beneficial to keep their lack of belief to themselves. As they aged we commiserated with them how much it sucked that nonbelievers paid a social price for expressing their nobelief as openly as believers expressed their mythologies.

64

Couple more things - we certainly did not try to shelter our kids from religion, as we thought a significant part of them developing into well-rounded adults was figuring out how to deal with people of varying beliefs. Religion is an extremely important aspect of human history, culture, art… I recall them having a picture bible at one point, tho I don’t recall reading it too often.

The incident that spurred our finding the UU church was when our oldest was in kindergarten, and asked if she could go to some summer bible classes in the neighborhood. We said, “Sure.” We did not want to indoctrinate them into our beliefs, and we were pretty confident our lack of belief could hold its own against any belief systems. But on the first day in a neighbor’s house, my kid was told that her mommy and daddy were going to burn in hell because we didn’t believe in God, and that she’d face the same fate if she did not believe. I guess up to that point we had been pretty ignorant, assuming our neighbors and the parents of my kid’s classmates wouldn’t be such assholes.

For us, a UU church was very useful. Not only did it educate our kids in comparative religions and reinforce morals in a manner we found beneficial, but it also gave our kids a feeling of not being completely different from their classmates who mostly went to churches on Sundays. And it helped us socially in the neighborhood, where folk would be reassured at hearing we went to a UU church, ignorantly saying things like, “So long as we all believe in the same God…”

65

When my kids were young, we discussed my beliefs (atheist) as well as the beliefs of others. When classmates discussed their religions, I encouraged them to explore. For a while they attended various churches as a social experience with their friends.

I’m proud to say they’ve grown out of it and are now well-rounded atheist adults.:smiley:

66

I’ve always told my kids the truth and if I don’t know what’s true, I let them know that too. My oldest, at 23, is a very liberal sort of questioning theist and that’s fine by me. My youngest though (she’s eight) is battling children in her classroom telling her she’ll go to hell if she doesn’t believe in their god. This really bothers her because they give details about what this hell is like. It’s very scary for a child, and very convincing. I feel like I have to be more vocal in response to what I believe is a cruel lie, not just a mild belief that other people have. I don’t mock them, but I do make it plain that hell is a myth that only some people believe in. When she’s a little bit older I might go into details about other myths if she’s curious. I homeschooled my oldest and she had a full year of mythology, Biblical included.

I was brought up Christian, and I don’t see my way as any different from my grandparents teaching me about their god for my own good. I just have no hell-threats to go along with mine.

67

I gave up any interest in religion a long time ago so, when we had kids, we just didn’t bother with it. My wife didn’t have any strong feelings about it so the kids just didn’t get any indoctrination at all. We are no different form the family down the street that calls themselves Christians but never goes to church. I call our family religion ‘soccer’ because most Sunday mornings, that was what the kids were doing.

That said, religion, particularly Christianity, is an elephant in the middle of the living room of America. The mythology of Christianity pervades our lives. Of course my kids asked about church and I would like them to get common references (for example, the ‘Ten Commandments’ or ‘loaves and fishes’.) So we went to church a few times, to give the kids a chance to see if they liked it. We had a plan to work our way through the almost 20 churches that line our main street. By the third Sunday I was the only one willing to make the effort. Thus ended my kid’s religious training. They are adults now and I don’t see that they have missed anything important.

68

I’m Atheist and my wife is Catholic (although a particularly lapsed Catholic). It is very important to her and her family that our kids get baptized and go to Catholic school. At first I was opposed to the concept, until my wife pointed out how integral Catholicism is in her family. Her family is not particularly religious, but being Mexican-American, Baptisms and stuff are a big deal. Since my wife and I aren’t religious, its easier for our kids to learn much of her family’s culturally Catholic practices in school.

I guess because my in-laws are very accepting of the fact that I’m not religious (when the priest who married us asked my religion/the religion of my family ahead of time I told him my family wasn’t religious at all, and that we didn’t follow a particular faith. He was fine with it). I hear stories about Atheists getting harassed for their beliefs and how hard it is to live as an Atheist and all this stuff but maybe because we live in the Bay Area, we don’t have to really deal with people telling us we are going to burn in hell.

As for what I’ll tell my kids, like other people I’ll tell them that people have many different beliefs for many different reasons, and we should evaluate them based on their actions and character, not favorite myths. I really want to encourage my kids to learn about religions beyond the one they teach them in school, too, to understand that the world is a big place full of lots of different beliefs.

69

I honestly don’t even know what you mean by ‘teach your children to be Atheists’. My kids are 2 and 5 and I plan on teaching them to be critical thinkers and to have some handle on logic. I do not plan to put any theological views into their heads. I will discuss it with them and be accepting with whatever their opinions on various religions are.

Yes and no. If a particular brand of religion is encroaching somewhere it ought not to, like a science class, then I will be passionate in my fight against that sort of thing. I’m not passionate about ‘In God We Trust’.

I say that some people, such as Mommy, believe in God while other do not. When they get older I will probably go over a few dominant views on God.

70

I think Critical1 was pointing out that certain religions haven’t exactly behaved in the open and honest manner you might expect when dealing with internal accusations of child abuse.

71

When my daughter was tiny, I intended to take her to the worship places of all the major religions we were allowed to visit. This was scuppered by her dragging her feet like a vampire and refusing to go. :smiley:

Her primary school was CofE though, with regular church visits, and they went to a Mosque once, plus we acknowledge many major festivals in our household, school and local area. She loves any major Eid because it means a day off school and a big meal beforehand.

72

I had an advantage in this area. Being Jewish, and growing up in an area where 90% of my friends were Jewish, we had parents and trusted authority figures act as if Christianity was just wrong and could be ignored as much as possible. Thus I had sanctioned practice in resisting that religion, at least. And my move to atheism came for strictly logical reasons - my religious education and my teachers were both great.

73

I think this kind of approach is the healthiest and makes the most sense. If the whole point is thatmyou want your kids to end up with sincerely held beliefs, the only real way to do it is to show respect for other schools of thought, for other belies and allow the kids the autonomy to explore and come to their OWN conclusion. Otherwise, their beliefs are merely parroting your own. This applies the same way to kids in a religious home. If they are hit over the head with the belief that all others are idiots, and not allowed to explore their own questions or beliefs, its really not their sincere beliefs, so what good does that do? They are more likely to just let go of those indoctrinated ideas than a kid who was allowed to question and explore

74

My kids, 14 and 16, are both aware that I’m not a believer, and we’ve never gone to church. I have, I hope, raised them to be respectful, we’ve been to seders, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, and my son went with a buddy to a Christian summer program based upon volunteering to help others in need a few summers ago.
Last summer we visited the Bigfoot museum in Santa Cruz, but we don’t believe in Bigfoot, either. We were respectful to the owner, however.

75

I recently asked my 9 year old granddaughter if she believes in god. She said she wasn’t sure. I asked if she knew the term for that (agnostic) and she looked at me and said, “yes…too young to make a decision”

76

There’s a Bigfoot museum in Santa Cruz? How have I missed that?!

I’m agnostic after having been raised Roman Catholic. My husband is atheist. Baby smaje is only 2, but I had suuuuch weird feelings when my aunt gave her a pop-up book on the story of Jesus’ birth and Christmas. Baby only sees it as an awesome pop-up book with donkeys and such, but it reminded me that we’ll have to deal with this someday.

My parents sent us to Catholic school, but don’t seem to be true believers themselves. We never discussed religion, except for my dad to point out contrarian passages in the Bible during church (but he wasn’t doing it to teach us that our religion might be wrong – he just did it 'cause he’s a contrarian jerk). I was 12 years old before I even understood that there were religions other than Roman Catholicism out there! (A friend told me she was Jewish, and I was all, “What’s Jewish?”)

So my parents sucked at teaching me about religion, and I hope to do better by baby smaje. But I plan to teach her to respect other people’s religious choices, and encourage her to make her own.

77

I’m not a parent yet, although that is currently pending. My wife and I are both atheists.

I will teach my child to be rational and judge things based on evidence. Hopefully that will give her the tools to realize what utter nonsense religion is.

Will I mock religion? Probably, but only to the extent that I mock bigfoot or ghosts.

78

My wife and I are both atheists. Our approach was to teach our kids about all different religions, but put them all on the same level. God and Allah and Shiva and Zeus all got talked about the same way.

Both kids are teenaged atheists now. Religions look particularly silly when compared side to side.

79

My father turned out to be an atheist, my mother tried to get my older brother and me into religion.

My older brother might have severely influenced how fast I became an Atheist. My father kept his mouth shut about being an atheist while we were kids. We talk about it now though. I know my grandmother on my father’s side was an atheist… I found out by asking her about how I’m related Clarence Darrow. “Darrow” is her maiden name.

Definitely some different opinions and approaches to parenting in here.

80

There has been a lot of discussion of “respect” here. There is respect and respect. If one goes into a house of worship you should definitely be respectful; if you can’t be, don’t enter. And you can be respectful of the beliefs of another to their face. But if you are with your kid and you get exposed to twaddle, it is okay to call it twaddle when you get home - and explain why. And if someone tries to sell religion, you can be politely disrespectful. No JW lady at my doorstep - I will not pretend you have a point - I will politely ask you to defend your beliefs. If you can’t, you might reconsider what you are doing. And you can challenge mine - that is fine also.