My SO and I are agnostic atheists, and we plan on teaching our kids about various religions and allowing them to choose for themselves what religion they would like to be a part of, if any. We don’t really have a timeline set up for this. We figure we will answer their questions about religion when they are younger, as they are bound to hear something about God or Allah or Buddha when they start school.
I grew up in a religious household, and I always felt pressured to believe in God and be as “good” as the people I went to church with. But I just never could be like them, so when I was 17, I branched out and have been a lot happier since then. I don’t want my children to feel like they are required to be a certain kind of person and that they have to believe certain things in order for me to love them.
I know religion is sort of a touchy subject, and I assure you, I mean no offense to anyone. I’m just curious as to what other parents are teaching their kids when it comes to religion these days.
We plan to do things much like you, we’ll wait for his questions and teach him that there is no right or wrong way. We plan to explain that there are many different types of mythology, some that a lot of people still follow and others with very, very few believers. We think this is the most respectful way to describe them. I don’t want to separate ‘theology’ from mythology, they’re the same thing, it’s just a different time. It’s just belief.
We’ll explain extremism as it comes up, but make it clear that most people in our country really only pay attention to one type, and that all of the major mythologies have extremists and that while we will support him in any faith he chooses, he needs to pay close attention to what is being asked of him. Of course, we’ll wait until he’s a little older for that discussion.
I think the most important thing for us to teach him is that he must respect all beliefs equally. I personally believe that each form of mythology is true for the follower, and I hope to instill that sense of respect.
Interesting topic! I don’t have kids yet, but my husband and I are also agnostic/atheist and were both brought up in [name_m]Christian[/name_m] households. I’m sure our kids will be exposed to Christianity since we still go to church on [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] [name_f]Eve[/name_f] and sometimes [name_f]Easter[/name_f] with our families. We plan to be honest about our beliefs (or rather lack of, I guess), but explain that some people find comfort and faith and religion and that they are allowed to decide for themselves what they believe. As far as them adopting a religion, they could attend church with their grandparents at any age, and we would support them in learning about other religions if they were interested. I’m not sure how it would work if they wished to formally convert to a religion other than Christianity, but I guess that the kids themselves could to look into that in their late teens or after they are 18 if they wish.
My DP and I are atheists and will just answer questions and say that ‘some people believe in X’ and this is what we believe. My eldest goes to school and has religion/ethics class, but we have asked that he doesn’t attend church when the school goes (like tomorrow they are going for [name_u]Christmas[/name_u]). Instead he attends a multicultural session where children who are not the state religion go instead of church. We do [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] and [name_f]Easter[/name_f], but from a sense of family and seasonal celebration rather than the religious side. I am happy to talk to them about other religions as I looked into several before deciding that I was indeed an atheist and I am happy for them to make their own decisions in their own time as to what they believe.
pistachio, I agree with you on the theology vs mythology front. It really is all the same, whether its Christianity or [name_m]Roman[/name_m] Mythology. It’s a good idea to encourage your child to be aware of what his religion is asking of him. I would never want my children to be a part of something that pressures them into doing things that they don’t feel comfortable with or believe in.
My husband and I also plan on teaching our children to respect each person’s beliefs equally. People are people, regardless of their religion, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, etc. and we would like to instill the idea that everyone deserves to be respected in our children.
september - We also attend church with my parents and grandparents occasionally, so our children will be exposed to religion at an early age. They will definitely be allowed to attend with their grandparents, or aunts and uncles, whenever they wish.
malk - When our children are young we also plan to say things like, “some people believe that X did this and that, and some believe that X blah blah blah.”
As for holidays, one of my cousins once asked me why I even celebrate [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] if I don’t believe in [name_m]Jesus[/name_m]. I told her that there are other, non-religious aspects of the holiday, such as (like you said,) family, friends, seasonal celebration, and tradition. As a child, my family never had any religious traditions on [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] or [name_f]Easter[/name_f] anyway, so I never associated the holidays with Christianity.
This is a tough subject for me. My husband and I are atheists but we were raised in extremely religious households. We haven’t told our parents about our lack of belief because I see no reason to allow my very kind-hearted and loving parents to go to their graves believing that their baby is going to be in hell for eternity. And they definitely would believe that because they’re literalists. However, there is no way I am going to raise my children in the church I grew up in. I have considered going to a Unitarian Universalist so that they can get an understanding of world religions. I will definitely teach them something about Christianity, along the lines of “this is what some people, including your grandparents, believe.” Beyond that, it’s still a question we’re working on.
My husband and I are still figuring this out. We are both Christians, and I am also studying to be a Druid. (ETA: I don’t consider myself Pagan because of the defining difference - who we worship.) Blending my nature-based spirituality with my religious beliefs has always been interesting, and my husband is more traditional than I. We want to raise our children with Christian values, but there are major points on which we disagree with the organized church’s interpretation of the Bible, and we also want to emphasize respect for all life, harmony with nature, and our responsibility to the earth. We will celebrate the Christian holidays and the Wheel of the Year (there is some overlap, in the cases of Christmas/Yule/Alban Arthan, Halloween/Samhain, and Easter/Ostara/Alban Eilir).
Something that is helping us (and might be useful for interfaith families) is the process of each partner writing their statement of faith - what they believe in, what they think are the most important aspects of that belief, what values they want to teach the kids, and what parts of their belief system inform those values. We are in the process of writing these now. After we are finished, we plan to go over the statements together, highlight all the areas where we are the same, and discuss the points where we disagree, coming to a compromise or a consensus so that we’re not sending our future children conflicting messages.
Disclaimer: This is what we think is best for us, obviously I am not suggesting anyone should do it this way. To each their own.
I am a [name_m]Christian[/name_m], my husband is not. We decided to raise our daughter [name_m]Christian[/name_m]. She goes to church with me. When she’s old enough to understand the doctrine she can decide if she agrees with it or not. If not she is free to seek something else or nothing at all. According to my beliefs, because I am her mother I am called by God to instruct her in His teachings, but only the Holy [name_f]Spirit[/name_f] can call her to believe. I would be sad if she didn’t choose my faith because it is a legacy I want to pass on to my children, but I would still love and support her no matter what.
[name_u]Christmas[/name_u] was nationalized some time ago. It is a national holiday (Like the 4th, Thanksgiving, or Presidents’ [name_u]Day[/name_u]), and anyone an celebrate it any way they want or not all.
We’re also agnostic and plan on doing the same–telling our children about all different sorts of religions and allowing them to choose. Actually, my husband’s brother has two young children now and is doing that successfully, so it’s nice to see it in practice. (For instance, they’ve got different picture books about different religions, that sort of thing).
My husband was raised without any religion at all; I was baptized when I was 4 to satisfy my great-grandparents who were super religious. My mom and dad were raised in somewhat-religious households but decided not to raise us that way, so we never went to church with them (save for the baptism). However, in elementary school I had a friend who often invited me to church and I would go with her. Well, at least until they talked about being “Saved” (which I didn’t know was pretty much synonymous with “baptized”) and I told my mom I thought I was going to Hell because I wasn’t Saved… she didn’t like that, and decided I shouldn’t go anymore.
That said, if my kids decide they want to go to a church (or mosque or synagogue or other) while they’re still young enough that they can’t go by themselves, I think I’ll let them. I’ll probably go with them rather than let a friend’s parent take them, though, so that we can have a talk about what was said so that I can try to make sure they understand everything. And hey, I don’t mind learning about other religions myself.
I will teach my children basics about all religions, but they will not be brought up in a religious household. My husband was raised Catholic and I was raised Lutheran, but we are both atheists. I will be very blunt with my children regarding religions, explaining why people follow religions, and why we do not.
My husband and I are atheists, and my family is but his is not (except his sister, but none of them go to church). We celebrate [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] with presents and easter with family, but we do not do the religious aspects of any holiday. [name_f]Maeby[/name_f] is 3 and we have never brought up God or [name_m]Jesus[/name_m] with her, and we don’t plan to. I never got a religious education, but I lived in a very religious and Catholic town so I knew what was what. We would prefer that she share our beliefs and don’t plan to educate her about religion as well. If she decides later to be religious, it would be hard for me because I see it very cult like and often times hypocritical, but that would be her choice. We will see what she starts asking in the future when she gets more exposed. So far it has been fine and people generally respect our feelings, even our very religious preschool teacher who is praying for us!
My DH & I identify as being agnostic atheists as well and are approaching it the same way. We’ll answer any questions he has but ultimately it’s up to him if he decides to follow a religion and which one.
I’m not a parent, but just to toss my two cents in. The household I’ve grown up in is not religious. [name_m]Both[/name_m] of my parents have had pasts with the church and personal and family tragedies that kept them from taking my two sisters and I to church, except occasionally on [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] [name_f]Eve[/name_f] with my grandmother. Through incredible friends I came to know [name_m]Christ[/name_m] on my own at 15 and officially became a [name_m]Christian[/name_m] between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I’m now a 17-year-old senior, and my family is still supportive non-believers. I’ve finally found an incredible church and church family who guide me spiritually, and was baptized this summer. [name_m]Just[/name_m] as it’s somewhat common for children to turn away from the faith of their parents, it’s fully possible for kids to turn away from their family’s lack of faith! Something to think about…
I think I’d just explain to them what I believe and then show them other types of religion/atheism and explain the different belief systems that go with them. They’ll probably be baptised into some sort of [name_m]Christian[/name_m] faith like I was but my family aren’t church goers and we have an easy going approach to religion, so whatever my kids decided to believe in the future (provided it wasn’t something extremist! lol) would be fine by me.
My husband and I are also non-believers but we’re raising the children to be Catholic mainly because if we didn’t my [name_f]MIL[/name_f] would probably stop talking to us and we want her to be part of our children’s lives. I figure when our children are older then we’ll be honest with them but for now we just go along with things and occasionally attend church. We don’t really fill their heads with stuff about Christianity but we don’t correct them if they talk about God either. My [name_f]MIL[/name_f] has her heart set on my son being a priest so we’ll see what he ends up choosing when he’s old enough to really think about all the information.
My husband was raised Jewish, but is an atheist. I was raised Catholic, am non-practicing, but consider myself culturally Catholic, spiritually confused, with [name_m]Christian[/name_m] leanings and a strong connection to nature, which I weave into all of our celebrations.
Our daughter is not even 2 and has pointed to a picture in a book of a girl with her hands together and said, “praying”.
I don’t intend to keep these ideas away from her, but I don’t feel nearly ready for these conversations!
I think this is a great topic for the season because I am strongly against (for my family) celebrating “[name_u]Christmas[/name_u]” as a materialistic present grabbing party, but I also am not ready to teach the Nativity. I want to teach her about solstice, but I also worry about forcing it and dividing her from her cousin’s belief systems.
My husband was raised Jewish as well, and still currently is. I was raised as Lutheran and still am. We celebrate both religions right now. We go to the synagogue on Friday night and church on [name_f]Sunday[/name_f] morning. In our living room we have a [name_u]Christmas[/name_u] tree and a Menorah. Our daughter is not old enough to go to [name_f]Sunday[/name_f] School, or any other religious classes but once she does it’s going to get a little bit rocky. Once she gets old enough, and has learned about both religions and others we will let her choose and will stress the fact that choosing one religion over the other won’t change our view upon her and that she will be loved either way. Most specifically that she’s not choosing between her parents. Once the twins get old enough they will also have all of the same choices.
Mega-short answer: We are teaching our children the Bible.
The bible is the basis for our religious beliefs. Our faith stretches to every area of our lives. We don’t force our kids to pray or confess their faith. We do require them to participate in our daily bible lessons, attend church services with the family, and obey mom and dad (as the bible says they should). During our daily Bible study, we read small passages and Proverbs most of the time. Sometimes we sing a hymn or psalm too. We focus on Proverbs because it discusses character and offers guidelines/rules to live by for us all. We have alot of little ones and obviously the preschool and younger crowd is not in the state of mind to be confessing their beliefs or accepting [name_m]Jesus[/name_m] as their savior. For our two older girls, they have both made verbal statements about their faith and consider themselves Christians.
So that is the religious overview in our family. It’s hard to really separate religion from “life in general” for us because we’ve made it part of how we live. It is not something that is forced, fake, or difficult to discuss.
My husband and I are both Christians, both converted (reverted?) as adults. We are raising our two year old son in the Church. As crunchymama said above, our faith is not separate from our lives in general. We talk about God a lot, both with each other and with friends and neighbors. We go to church and take our son to church. We pray with our son and read the Bible together. Right now we keep these things short, frequent, and close to his level. My husband plays guitar and most of the songs he plays are worship music so we do a lot of singing at home.
Neither of us were raised this way, so we are making things up as we go along. We both grew up going to church, but religion always felt very peripheral to our lives. His parents and my parents were both embarrassed to talk about their faith. This was a big reason that we both stopped going to church when we left home- it just seemed unnecessary and uncomfortable.
I’m Wiccan and my husband is agnostic, so we’re raising our kids within the Wiccan belief system at home. That’s just what they will be exposed to most. As they ask questions, we will do our best to answer them.
My family is Catholic, and his family strict Christians, so they will be exposed to that through extended family and school. We won’t be allowing them to go to church/[name_f]Sunday[/name_f] school/[name_m]Christian[/name_m] scouts or any of that however, at least until they are old enough to understand the conceptual aspect of religion and cultural relativity. (ie, when they are teenagers.)
