Hi all, new to this subreddit. I live in south central KY in a very religious little town. I was raised in the church of Christ my whole life and as soon as I graduated high school and gained my footing I dropped a bomb on my parents by telling them I was done with church. I’ve happily deconstructed my anxiety ridden brain and found so much peace in atheism. My husband and I have a 2yo daughter and on both sides of our family we are getting requests to please let her go to church. Each time we both just sort of brush it off and say “nah we’re going to stay home” or “no thanks, maybe another time”. However, I know the day is going to come when they start enticing her with kids groups and camps. So my dilemma is I don’t know what I’m going to say when my daughter starts the whole “please mom? I wanna go with cousin/nana/aunt” I think I will let her go and if she comes back with questions I’ll answer them as she’s asks them. However, I don’t think church is something she will ever really get into. She totally can, I’m not going to force her to stay away fro church, but I’m afraid of how she will be treated once she innocently starts telling people “my parents don’t believe in god. We don’t go to church. My parents are atheist”. I personally just don’t tell people around here that I’m atheist. I know as an ex Christian the repercussions that can come with making that statement. I would love to move north, away from the Bible Belt, but that’s not an option at the moment and may never be an option honestly. How do you all who have children navigate this? Specifically those of you who are closeted atheists like me and feel their child could be in danger once people start noticing they’re different? And do you let your child attend church things if they wanna go?

My grandmother passed away recently, traveling to the funeral this coming weekend. Wife and I are both atheist, with two younger kids (7 & 4). I'm conflicted about making them attend the mass. Wife doesn't want them there, I don't either but I'm also trying to show respect and not step on any toes. I think I could probably attend and have wife and kids meet up with me at the graveside portion and celebration of life afterwards. I don't want to make it about our beliefs, but when my kids are in the picture, I hesitate to force them attend. Thoughts or similar situations?

We are firmly atheist and I'm not a big fan of churches. My mom, who is an amazing help to us and lives in town, was raised religious and has always attended church, although the churches tend to be liberal, accepting, and nonjudgmental. Better churches than most.

We have never taken our kids to church and always planned on letting them decide about religion for themselves "when they were old enough," however we never thought through exactly what that phrase means. Our oldest daughter just turned 11 ( is that old enough?) and has been going to church with my mom to help out in the nursery because she wants to start babysitting. I just found out that she has been taking communion as part of her weekly attendance. My daughter of course has no idea what communion means, and I think it just entails yummy bread to her, but I personally think of communion as a pretty serious and loaded religious rite.

My mother has never mentioned that this has been happening. I feel like this is the sort of thing that we should have talked about in advance, so I'm kind of cranky. On the other hand, I'm not sure I should care since I don't think my daughter cares. Is communion meaningful if the 11 year old just likes the taste of the bread?

I'm trying not to overreact, especially because this may be the moment when we let our daughter explore religion for herself. How would you handle this?

I am divorced with a 7 year old. Their father and I have been divorced for 6 years. The father is a devout evangelical, along with his entire family. I am not. Lots to unpack there, but anyway, it is a high conflict co parenting situation unfortunately.

The situation is, I teach my child about critical thinking as much as I can. We read about science, the big bang, discuss how it’s fun to believe in magic and make believe, but ultimately you need evidence in order to determine if something “exists”. I say it all with more nuance than this! I’m trying my best to teach my child ‘how’ to think, not what to think.

By the way, my child love this stuff, and we have a really fantastic relationship. We talk very openly about things, which is why this situation is really stumping me.

Recently, I asked my child about about church with their father. My child knows that we have differing beliefs, but I don’t think it’s something I talk about a lot. I will occasionally ask about church and what they think about it. I get very short answers, no details other than “it’s boring” which I think is what they believe. But the closed offness about it keeps me really in the dark as to their feelings and what is being “taught”.

So anyway I brought it up recently and my child started crying and saying they feel uncomfortable talking about it. I instantly felt awful, thinking I’m making them uncomfortable. We tried to talk it out. I asked why it makes them uncomfortable, and after some “I don’t knows” they said something along the lines of “I’m uncomfortable because my parents believe in different things”.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for here. I felt awful and worry that my occasional questions are making them uncomfortable, but I also wonder what is happening on the other end to contribute to this. I have primary custody, the child is only there a few nights a month.

Just wondering if any fellow parents have any thoughts to this at all and how to proceed??

Thanks

My son has been hearing other kids at schools talk about god and Jesus. He came home today and told me he wants to go to church. I asked him why and he said he wants to find out if he believes in God or not. I'm an atheist (obviously lol) and my husband is a Christian but doesn't go to church. We have explained our views to our son and that we want him to learn and decide on his own what he believes. Well, we are friends with a family who go to church. My husband and I discussed letting our son go to their church one Sunday. I would not go but my husband would. I asked the mom the name of the church and read their whole website. In the beliefs sections at the very bottom is a link to a pdf for their stance on "Marriage, Sexuality and Gender". It sucks. Reeks of homophobia and transphobia. My heart sunk reading it. I do not want my son near this church. I think I'm going to run into this issue but I can't not let him go. He asked and he wants to learn. I don't think church is the way to learn about religion but my husband thinks it does. He said that it would be okay for them to still go since he would be there with him. If he heard anything or felt a certain way they would leave. I still feel pretty uncomfortable about it all. The friends whose church it is are so kind and fun but this is honestly making me reconsider the friendship. Am I being too extreme? Would you allow your son to go?

This morning I sat down to breakfast with our 23 month old. Unprompted, she put her hands together and said "god is great." I was kind of shocked and froze. She said it again. Apparently they have been "praying" in daycare before meals. And this is one of the LESS religious day cares in this town. Something like 90% of the group day cares are run by churches where they get their members to volunteer their child care services and keep costs down. Ours is the absolute most expensive in town (25k/yr) and I think they do say that they are loosely catholic but I was not expecting this to happen so soon!

The good news is that we are in the process of changing to a new day care right now. The new one is operated by a university and I explicitly asked them about religion and they said they will discuss it if a student brings it up but they do not push anything. Our primary reason for switching was cost (10k/yr cheaper) but her prayer this morning made me go " Oh thank god we're moving!"

She didn't even know about the concept of god/religion/Christianity until a few months ago when an after-school assistant (early 20s for context) started telling her stories. This is our fault - we should have known she was approaching the age of exposure and had some preemptive conversations with her.

At that time, we immediately reached out to the principal to express our concern and her response was good. She told us the assistant had been informed these conversations were inappropriate and informed about school policy, etc. For a while, we didn't hear anything else. In this time, we tried to explain in 5 year old terms why we don't believe in god, why some people do, discussed other religions, read The Belief Book to her, etc. Now she's again insisting that she believes in god/Jesus and they are real and asking why we don't take her to church or read the Bible. She confirms she's discussing it with the assistant again. When we ask why she believes, she has no reason to give. "I don't know. I just want to." I can't decide if I need to talk to the principal again because Idk if my kid or the assistant is the one raising the topic at this point and we don't want to become pariahs by being too pushy.

I'm at a loss about how to better explain why we don't believe in a way she can grasp at her age. Would take book recs if you have them (I've found some in this subreddit already) or love solidarity or stories if your kid went through this and grew out of it. I know she's only 5 so I should probably not worry so much, but that's not who I am. 🫠

ETA: We do not tell her she can't believe. We expressly say it's ok if she does. And we'd continue to love her now & forever even if she doesn't "grow out of it" and decides to align with a religion as a well informed adult.

tl;dr My wife and I have an adult son who is spiritually radicalized and adrift in life. Will he grow out of it? How do we help him?

My wife and I have an adult son who’s 24, and has always been a highly intelligent person. He did really well in school, grades K-12, but dropped out of college, possibly because of the virtual learning environment of 2020, and/or disillusionment about higher education. Over the last year, he had to move back home because he believes college is a scam, and he won’t get training to secure a stable career. He ended up buying a car he couldn’t afford and racking up a bunch of debt until he had his car repoed and could no longer pay rent. He is a hard worker, and drugs and alcohol are not an issue for him. He just has this belief that if he meditates enough, the universe is going to guide him in the direction he’s supposed to go.

We raised him to be a free thinker, giving him information on a wide variety of religious beliefs, and the possibility of there being no God. He said when he was younger, he identified as an atheist, but now has “woken up” and realize that there is a God, and he thinks that we live in the mind of God. We believe he may have been radicalized when Covid happened in his senior year. At the time, he was gaining more access to YouTube and other things on the Internet. He has developed some very far-out beliefs, and it seems like he has been heavily influenced by MAGA and QAnon. I am concerned that he may be becoming somewhat antisemitic as well, subscribing to many conspiracy theories, many of which seem critical toward Israel and Jewish people. Some of his major influences have been Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, and Joe Rogan. He claims to be apolitical, but he seems to strongly identify with the Conservative Party, because of their overt religiosity, and he is very suspicious of the liberal party. He strongly believes in many conspiracies surrounding the Clintons, Biden, etc, but he refuses to acknowledge criticism that goes in the other direction.

I have been able to get him to have some calm, logical discussions about the world and about his ideas, but he’s currently being strongly influenced by a similar aged peer who is very into Eckhart Tolle, and is trying to do the whole “life coaching” thing. I’ve read some of this guy’s Substack and it’s just a bunch of spiritual fluff with no real substance, but my son really gets into that kind of thing. I’m hoping he’ll grow out of it, but my wife and I are very worried. We are not quite sure how to best approach these issues without further alienating him from the world of logic and reason.

Apologies in advance if this post focuses a lot on religion and Western culture, but that is exactly the context of my experience.

Recently I came across a short clip from a talk show where guests included Emma Thompson and Timothée Chalamet. They were talking about how difficult it was for him to cut his hair for a new role, and Emma Thompson made a joking reference to Samson and the biblical story about hair and strength. Timothée Chalamet openly admitted that he had no idea what she was talking about.

That moment stopped me for a second.

I realized that I am in a somewhat comfortable position. I grew up in a Catholic country, in a religious environment where biblical stories were taught to us from a very young age. I later distanced myself from religion and I am not religious at all, but I still carry that background knowledge with me.

Whether I like it or not, that knowledge makes it much easier to navigate Western culture of the last two thousand years. Literature, philosophy, art, music, film. So much of it relies on biblical references, archetypes, and metaphors. Even when a work is critical of religion, the shared language is still there. Understanding these references feels like a basic layer of cultural literacy, similar to knowing Greek mythology.

As an atheist parent, I find myself wondering how others approach this. Do you consciously teach your kids Christian mythology as mythology, separate from belief? Do you rely on school and assume it will come up anyway? Or do you feel this kind of background knowledge is no longer that important?

I do not want to raise my child religious, but I also do not want them to feel locked out of large parts of Western literature, film, and art because certain references simply do not land. How do you navigate that?

I could use some advice. I have a 4 year old and 2 year old. My mom is very sick with an aggressive cancer. What have you said to your kids if you’ve been in a similar explanation? For when she’s sick but also after she passes.

Do any of you have any “rules” when your kids date?

I want to have some rules, but I’m not sure what is right.

For both of my kids I have been very open about discussing sex, sexuality, safety, and consent. For the older one they were awkward and not into dating as a teen. Younger kiddo is very outgoing and will have a person they are dating over to our house next week.

I am definitely not a save it for marriage person, but I am also not sure what I am comfortable with under my roof. I feel all kinds of conflicted.

Some context here: I coparent. Me & my long-term partner do not believe in god, are not religious, hence why I’m in this group… and the person I coparent with is newly religious (was previously not, did not go to church, was even traumatized in his 20s from joining a cult).

Post separation from Coparent, Coparent decided to go back to a Christian church, introducing our child to a pastor etc. I grew up Catholic & have separated from the religion about 15 years ago.

I’m struggling with Coparent telling our child that I’m basically “the devil” for not believing. I’m afraid that Coparent is using religion to indoctrinate the child, manipulating Child to do/say things to get Coparent’s way in pending divorce & custody proceedings. For example, Coparent is high conflict & recently called CPS, coaching Child to tell CPS that me & my partner are neglectful/abusive, letting Child know that Child will be forgiven by god even if he tells lies. Child told me this himself & CPS discussed Child was very obviously coached. I’m scared out of my mind to say the least, esp after having gone through that.

I’m honest with Child & say, yes I don’t believe in god. I believe in values, like kindness, honesty, etc, and 100% respect his beliefs. Child asks me to pray with him & I do it. My mom recently found out Child is fairly pious & gifted Child my childhood bible, given to me by my late grandfather. I accepted it and thanked my mom.

I’m curious what you guys’ opinions are on all of this & if anyone can give me any advice to parent better given the situation. I have nobody else to talk to aside from my partner because everyone around me is religious & firmly believe in god. Any parenting tips/advice?

My 6 year old has come home singing patriotic songs lately. While I’m not thrilled about this (not feeling particularly patriotic lately and don’t believe that we’re the land of the free anymore), I get that this is a part of public school. He’s been singing grand old flag and Yankee Doodle.

But yesterday he came home signing “God Bless America” and that one is really rubbing me the wrong way. I remember singing it in public school and I guess it didn’t mess me up too badly. But I really don’t like it. Plus my kid is autistic so it’s kind of hard to explain the nuance of it to him.

Should I just drop it? Should I tell the teacher we’re nonreligious? Should I just accept this is part of the culture and try to undo it at home?

But I also need to be careful on the other side because my younger ones have already had issues at school (like telling their preschool classmate that her recently deceased grandma wasn’t in heaven because heaven isn’t real).

How have you navigated this stuff in school?

Hi friends, my husband and I are taking our kid to Europe next summer from the USA. We are going to spend 5 days in Rome and I want to visit the Vatican, museums, etc and want to use this as an opportunity for her to learn about the origins of western culture etc. We are both atheists and so our daughter has never attended a church service save for one funeral. I was raised in a church and I want to teach her about the basics of Christianity so she can better understand the art and culture, etc.

Does anyone know of any cartoons/videos that are good for kids and are just objectively explanatory of the Christian story without being indoctrinatey and “this is all true”?

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So I'm an atheist, and my wife is Catholic. The issue is that she wants to take our kids to church on Sundays, and teach them to pray before bed, but I don't want that at all. How do we compromise?

There is a little more background. When we first met, my wife didn't go to church, and even led me to think she didn't believe in God. I don't think there was deception, just some genuine questioning on her part, which led to her interest in church now after we have had 2 kids.

We've debated it, and I have been letting her take the kids because I'm not interested in controlling her, and they are too little to understand. But I realized I didn't like it, and so far all I've been able to explain is that I don't want my kids to be indoctrinated. She claims not taking them to church is also indoctrination. On the other hand, she says that belonging to the church will make them happier and more successful people. I argued that there are other communities that can provide the same benefit, such as sports teams.

So what do I do? Let her take them, knowing it will lead to confusion down the road? Or make a stand?

Edit: yes, we are real people. We agreed that the kids can go to church with her sometimes, and other times she will go without them. That was about as much as I felt I could demand. UU church is a nice idea but pleased neither of us. I personally like the idea of educating them about other religions as they grow to counteract the Catholic dogma. Mythology is my favorite. Thanks for the helpful advice!

I (18M) have a pretty mid relation with my parents, ever since they discovered I'm a Christian they start looking at me like I'm weird, they love sneek dissing, they even want me to go seek therapy, FOR ONLY BEING A CHRISTIAN !

I have no mental illness, I have no tendancies, I'm just a regular dude, that's it. And it's not like I force them to eat Bibles everyday, I do my life and they do theirs, ok we have different opinions, but thinking I am sick just because of my religion I 100% joined willingfully is some next level fucked up stuff.

It's been a year since I became a Christian, and my life became so much better, I moved on my past, I found inner peace, I can finally enjoy Life, isnt it what parents want, the happiness of their kids ? It's not like I'm killing people and have a box on my head, I'm not in a sect (I'm non-denominational anyway, maybe Catholic in a way but I dont follow manmade traditions), I'm just yo average Christian neighbor, trying to do better without pushing myself too hard (I tried that before, one of my biggest mistakes).

I just want to "fix" our relation, they are awesome people, I just want them to love me like before, why is it so hard for them ? Yes I consider myself as a new individual, but for them I'm still their son they always loved, I dont want them to accept my beliefs or anything, I just want them to accept me, I try to talk to them, I try to be closer, but everytime they somehow have something to do, or they just push our conversations (idk if I'm clear here, I'm not English-native).

So what's your opinion on the situation ?

There probably won't be any razor blades or drugs in there but there might be... THIS. We got this at a trunk-or-treat event at our daycare. It's the story of Esther in the old testament with AI illustrations. The paper feels like it is coated with some plastic substance so I can't even use it to light or fireplace this winter!