Asklemmy

I don't think I can ever let my parents know I'm an atheist and with that seems to go my chance of having kids.

I know at first it sounds difficult because you care for your parents. But this is your life and whether they choose to respect your choices or not is up to them. If you want kids, have kids. If you want to be an atheist, be an atheist. If you want to dye your hair blue, dye your hair blue.

Your parents don't have to agree with your choices (as long as you're not breaking the law or anything like that)... but they should respect you and your choices.

TL;DR: Don't live for your parents, live for you.

I don't have kids (yet, maybe never) but my mom has made it clear she will get them baptized against my wishes one way or another. Then she's surprised when I remind her she won't be allowed to be alone with them. My dad has been wishy washy enough I told him I don't trust him not to fold to mom's wishes so he's under the same rules, and he just nodded and acknowledged that's fair.

A lifetime of setting boundaries makes me jaded but prepared.

Why do you let your parents religious choices for themselves runyour life? Do you want to live that way? What would happen if you lived your own values? Would it really be as bad as you think it will be?

what parents.

wrote them off entirely. life is too short to surround yourself with people you dont like, blood relation is irrelevant.

My mother is fairly religious, and she occasionally offers to take the kids to Sunday school. We decline, but sometimes we go attend her church for Christmas and Easter or if she's singing a solo. Our kids are 9 and 11 and are both familiar with Christianity, and have a general understanding of most other religions. We haven't told them what to believe, but we explained what we believe and that everyone gets to choose what they believe. They know grandma is a Christian, and they know I'm not.

I know my mom is disappointed that we aren't doing more to indoctrinate our kids, but she has enough faith in Jesus to reach them, and I have enough faith in them to make good decisions either way.

I'm not sure why you let your parents be the deciding factor in whether you have kids or not? It's not up to them.

When my grandma found out my parents decided to not get me baptized, she showed up at our place with a jar of holy water, and tried to baptize me (newborn at the time) herself. My dad managed to distract her from me, and eventually she left.

We are not angry at her at all; she was just really scared that I would go to hell if I suddenly died. For us, it's more of a funny story that we tell from time to time.

Not my kid, but someone I was dating had a toddler. She was not religious, but her parents were Catholic. She tried to intercept any religious stuff before it took hold in the kid. Firm words were exchanged when the grandmother was telling the kid that her great-grandmother was in "heaven".

We broke up so I'm not sure how it's going.

They also told the kid that Santa is basically a fun game people play. It's not literally true but don't spoil it for other kids.

Just to add a view from someone living in a progressive-ish country:

Religion and differences of religion have never played a big part in my relations with anyone, nor am I aware it has affected anyone else towards me. There are very few fundamentalists here, so nobody seems to care all that much what you believe or don’t believe.

It’s strange that someone would worry about this. I’m agnostic rather than atheist, but most of my family are very deeply into religion. And my partner is priest by profession. Never has that played a role in our relations, and we do very openly talk about all this occasionally too. They are not trying to convert me, and I’m not trying to convert them. And if nobody wants to convert anyone, there’s very little friction. All it takes is some understanding and empathy, and probably the humility to accept that any of us might be wrong, even one themselves. So nobody’s preaching to anyone, yet we can talk about these things very smoothly and openly if need be, like in regards to children and upbringing etc.

Disagreeing is healthy. Talking is healthy. Getting offended is not. Neither is trying to force anyone into anything, or even worse, unwarrantedly expecting something from someone.

So religion has played exactly zero part in this or anything else at least in my personal relations, or those who I know. I don’t think religion has anything to do with children either. Upbringing can be colorful and include everyone’s opinions and views, and the unique stuff just requires some open conversation and compromises from all parties, which is true for everything in life anyway.

There are a lot of moving parts here.

My parents and grandparents are fully aware of my lack of belief. So my parents won't be shocked that my children don't believe. I don't mind letting e.g. my mother tell them about Jesus because realistically, humans believe what their environment believes and for my children, I am mostly their environment. So I don't think some exposure to christian beliefs will have a bad influence and my counter-influence would be present, so my children can choose.

My so's parents and grandparents don't know about our lack of belief. Her mom is aware of my lack of belief in a religion. Now that makes the whole children thing more complicated but... We are a couple thousand kilometers away... So... I hope they accept that we don't want to provide our children with any religious education until they are ready to understand it. So at an age at which children are able to lie in the worst case.

My parents don’t force their religion on anyone.

I view religion as just an isolationist form of tribalism or in other words social networking. It is generally a miserly overall negative form of conservativism in social networking. It demands exclusive prejudice to various extents. It is a system of shaming. Shaming cannot motivate positive behavior. Shaming is only capable of creating a fear of getting caught. Therefore it is not even a real code of morality but instead only a code of authoritarian obedience and outsourcing of real philosophy, moral thought, and character depth.

It is natural for your folks to want their extended family to be a part of their tribe. In this vein, you need to reassure your family that they have a place in your life in meaningful ways. The trick is to never try to change your family through logic about their beliefs. These are the primary barriers that will only make your life harder.

Beliefs have no logical basis and arguing logic will only alienate you from their tribe. Humans struggle to reassess things they accepted as gullible children. Even those that are capable within their self awareness are often unwilling to disadvantage themselves substantially in life by abandoning their exclusively prejudiced social network that they were raised with as this defies the tribal survivalist instinct. It is important to understand that it is only possible to inspire curiosity, self awareness, and learning. No one can force someone else to learn, understand, or seek out accurate information. You can only change yourself and no one else. So break down the fundamental elements behind their complex social behaviors and use that understanding to address the issues and conflicts that they are not self aware of and where they create problems.

I'm atheist, used to be a very active Jehovah's Witness, am now physically disabled and stuck living with my Witness family. It is very challenging for me to tip toe around their prejudice. I'm confident that, if I was not disabled, I could live an independent and happy life, but I wouldn't really involve my family a whole lot. Heck I moved 2k miles away from them the first chance I had quite a long time ago. Back then I didn't have the self awareness of the underlying psychology. Now I view all of my family's interactions in this light of tribalism. I know they will be more prejudice when they are around certain people or after various religious events, and I don't let their prejudice bother me. It is just tribalism and complex human social hierarchy manifesting in primitive behaviors. I don't take offense at those behaviors any more than my cats fighting to be beside me for a little lunch food scrap. I also have my own ethics and character depth that is wholely independent of pressures from others. That independence makes it easy to turn conversations around and steer them when confronted by people that have no real moral depth and only parrot and shame.

I’ve been openly criticizing religion since I was a kid. My mother and I have learned to avoid the topic. My father was also an atheist.

I get to sleep in on Sundays. Otherwise it's basically the same as how I was brought up.

You count on them for support, I’m guessing. The only way cleanly getting out is to be able to accept the consequence they may set of cutting you off if you fail to uphold their beliefs. This is a people problem, not a religious problem, and religious people are as bad as the next person.

my parents are too religious for me to have children. i will not bring a child into this world while religion is forced on anyone. i will not be having children (married; 40 years old)

I was lucky that, despite being somewhat religious, my parents were fine with me being an atheist. We would even debate the merits of religion and they did not have any issues with my questioning of their beliefs. Both were Lutheran and they had raised me in that tradition. I went to Sunday school, attended the Lutheran Catechism and reached the point of Confirmation. And that was right about the time I realized that the whole thing seemed to be based on a bunch of old stories with no more evidence than elves or faeries. And that was always the crux of my issue with their religion, and one they could never argue past.

When it came to my kids, they have been raised with my complete lack of belief and my wife being agnostic. We spend our Sunday mornings sleeping in and not going to any sort of church/temple/forest altar. Though, that last might happen, if it's ruins at the end of a nice hike. My parents never expressed any disapproval and the lack of religion was never an issue. Technically, my mother is still kicking about and could suddenly go off the deep end, though I strongly doubt that's in the cards.

At the same time, my wife and I had discussed religion before we had kids and what we might do in the event it became an issue. The simple answer was, "fuck 'em". I love my parents, but my kids come first. If my parents had decided to get stupid over us not indoctrinating our kids in their fairy tales, then I would have just removed them from my life a few years before death did it anyway. Sure, it would have meant the kids never knowing their grandparents. But, there are lots of assholes in this world, I don't see the need to personally inflict them all upon my children.

The best thing you can do is talk to your partner and have a plan. I would say that, if you expect it to be a point of contention with your parents, you might want to talk with them about your views on religion before it gets to that point. It doesn't need to be anything confrontational, just be up front and say, "I don't believe what you do". You don't need to go on a Dawkins style, "your religion sucks and you are morons for believing it." Just make it clear that you don't believe. It's still entirely possible to have a warm, loving relationship with folks who don't believe as you do. It just requires that each side treats the other with basic human decency and respect.

Both of my parents, as I grew up in the 80s, were not religious. I did go to Sunday school at the behest of my grandparents who were all quite religious, but I never believed in any of the beliefs they were peddling. I can completely understand the need to believe in something, as the alternative is existential dread. As I wind down my life, heading to a void, I don't find that discomforting. I don't find all of history before I was born discomforting, so why would I find all of history after I die discomforting?

I don't know, because my parents were irreligious too. My dad was an atheist, and my mum is agnostic. She has some spiritual beliefs, but has no religious beliefs or belief in deities.

I don't think I can ever let my parents know I'm an atheist and with that seems to go my chance of having kids.

I agree, but probably not for the reason you think. If you’re still so caught up in your parents’ bosom that you can’t notify them that you disagree with them, you’re not ready to be a parent yourself.

If it comes up, we're just going to let them decide. Though my parents know I don't care, so that helps.