Atheist in Colorado, soon-to-be-dad....

[Jmersh]

Hello all.  Glad to find a place where I can talk with people openly about my findings as a formerly Christian 29 year old.  

Straight to the point as to why I'm here:
I am married (almost 3 yrs) and have a son on the way. Most of my and my (barely religious) wife's family are heavily involved in the church.  My son will be my parent's first grandchild and already there is pressure for a baptism.  I am conflicted about giving in to their need for "oogey boogey" rituals as I could see them taking that as carte blanche to start hauling the kid off to Sunday school and scaring the bejeezus outta my son with hellfire stories.  If any of you have some advice on experience of how to raise a child in an environment where you are expected to indoctrinate your kids into a beleif system before they are old enough to make their own decisions, I would love some advice.  I am of the opinion that having "christian children" is akin to having republican or democrat children. It's all conditioning.

[Kylyssa]

Welcome to Happy Atheist Forum!

I have not personally dealt with this issue but my parents did.

My parents raised me and my siblings "woo-free" despite my father's Catholic parents and my mother's Baptist parents, including a Baptist minister mother.

They made the statement "we're going to let our children choose their own beliefs once they are old enough to decide" many times in my memory.  It was their standard response to pushy religionist family members and acquaintances.  That is not to say it went off without a hitch.  When my brother died in childhood, religious family members were brutal bastards to my parents.  Instead of trying to comfort them, those religious relatives berated my parents for "making their son burn in Hell" and various similar things.  

My parents withdrew from those parts of their families for several years but they stuck to their guns.  They didn't cave in to any family woo hysterics to pacify anyone.  

If such moves drive away family members, I think it might actually be a good thing.  If it's enough to drive them off then they don't actually care about you or your child(ren) so it will save you other grief.  My grandparents were fake about a bunch of other things and showed themselves uncaring in other ways so the times when my parents' absence of religion alienated them were really no big loss.

[elliebean]

Hi Jmersh!

I have no little ones yet and my pets are all atheists, but I was raised in a strictly religious family. So I have no experience to draw from to give you any advice about that. I look forward to one day having to deal with the same problem you are, though.

Welcome to the forum.