I have done the same with my children. Their mother turned to all sorts of magical beliefs after our split. And we mutually agreed not to influence their beliefs. And while I don't necessarily believe she hasn't kept this bargain to not influenced them, they can clearly see her interest in the occult. But general society has a certain influence in general that bends towards Christianity. And my mother comes from a generation that doesn't understand the force of its own influence. And they act as if God needs them to use their own credibility in order to sell Jesus to kids. And I like Jesus, but... I don't believe he was who Christianity says and I don't like the baggage he comes with. So, at least twice I've had to counteract my mother's influence, even giving them bibles, by influencing them to some extent. But I would say it's hard to avoid this if they have strong influential people in their lives who are trying to "save" them. They don't understand that you're also trying to save them... from religious people.

These people simply assume, because its what they think they know, that people need God to be good/moral people. They are afraid of humanity absent of divine consequences. But children shouldn't be scared to do bad things because they're afraid of how some imaginary friend is going to react, and if he's going to kill them or torture them in hell fire forever. That's called terrorism. Instead, children should simply choose to be good because they see the inherent value in it. And that's what I show them.

You did right. The problem here in reactions you get when the truth of raising comes out is that those reactions are coming from people who have read in their holy book that you should "raise up a child in the way he should go and in the end he will not depart from it." The difference is that you did this without religion and they believe their holy book was saying it about their god and religion. This is why so many children are indoctrinated.

I never encouraged my children to perform common religious rituals but many of our parents and relatives said grace at meals. I have always tried to be respectful when those things happened and when my children ask questions I told them I was not a believer but that many good people were. When my children became older and even more rambucious, I did initiate a centering before each meal consisting of holding hands and silently thinking about the good things that had happened that day.

When they went to school, naturally some of their friends in this Bible belt invited them to church and I allowed them to go. When questions came up about why I didn't go I explained to them I did not believe but they needed to decide on their own. My daughter says she still believes but she is not a fundamentalist. A Baptist minister actually helped my son on his path to atheism when he told him my inquisitive son he could not read the Agnostic Gospels in the preacher's library at age 11 because he was too young to understand them. I immediately ordered the books for my son and he never went back to church.

I'm sure there are people in this community that have told their children to stay away from me and my children but we haven't had time to worry about it.

I have not gotten any comments. Kind of unexpected actually. But we/ they keep a low profile. Stay home, stay out of trouble, don't play sports

I have had similar experiences raising my kids. I allow them to follow whatever path they want to take . Actually, I have seen both sides of this. I have had situations where the neighbor kids com over, see the decor (my partner is a witch) and then never come back. only assuming the kids report back, “Mom, I like the neighbors. And they like stars and they have a decorated stag’s head.” Etc. And my family (very conservative Catholic) constantly try to convince me that he kids “need to belong to a parish”. Then there are the.atheist friends who are appalled that I am raising my kids with “religion” (which I do not. I do not belong to a religious group...I identify as an agnostic pantheist). I merely give them the spiritual freedom I think ever child deserves (because I did not and that is the source of most of my childhood trauma). I am personally against the idea of convincing my children “Santa Claus doesn’t exist” (which is the atheist analogy). However, I believe I shouldn’t try to convince them that he does exist — let them figure it out themselves.

Believe me...you’re doing the right thing.

I have similarly raised a child without religious beliefs (not without religious influence, exactly, but I'll get to that later.)

Like yours, she does well in school. Unlike yours, she did get in trouble once for skipping class - so that she could join an environmentalist protest! (The school got seriously worked up over it! They even had a cop there to talk to her about it. It was ridiculous.)

I have not faced much backlash for raising her irreligiously. Though most of the folks in our area are at least vaguely religious, hardcore believers are not common. I got more flak, really, for my decision to raise her without Santa Claus.

About religious beliefs: we discussed them in the same way that we talked about Goldilocks and the Three Bears, or any other silly story. But the religious stories (and the Santa stories!) came with the warning that some of the other kids still believe in Santa, and their parents would be very angry if we told them otherwise.

why worry about what others think and why is it their business

You are 100% correct. Give him the tools for both and let him choose. It is a personal choice for everyone. And... Be sure to point out that as a good kid... He gets into Heaven anyway if it exists....

I am in complete agreement with you, I've been trying to raise my daughter the same way. It hasn't been an issue yet where we live, but I worry about people finding out I'm an atheist and ostracizing her for it.

Thank you for your contribution to social sanity in our USA (american) community

My sons went to Catholic school ( public schools in the city were horrible ) neither is religious one is atheist.