Great subject, Shannon. It brings up so many memories for me. My late husband and I brought up our daughter without religion because we were not religious. We did take advantage of a mother’s day out program at a church and she went to a pre-school at a close by Methodist Church because I knew someone who taught there.

All through her childhood she at least brushed up against Christianity. My mother was a devout Catholic, her other grandparents Protestant church goers. She spent a lot of time with them over her life and they all took her to church.

We were always honest with her about how we felt about religion and always pointed out that we believed this was something that a person had to decide for themselves.

In high school she dated a guy who was Lutheran. We drove her to meet him at his church every Sunday and for a short while she seemed to be really into the whole thing. She even joined their choir (she is a talented singer). The guy broke up with her and she quit going to church.

Later she confessed that she lost her virginity to him in one of his church’s Sunday School classrooms during services. (!)

After high school she has had no problem telling anyone who asked that she is an atheist. I’d never used the word around her. I would always talk about my spirituality as being “different than main stream” and left it at that. I never wanted to indoctrinate her. I did however answer any questions she had. Always predicated with…this is what I think. I’m practical and logical.

Now, when I meet her adult friends (she is 34) a lot of them ask me about how we managed to parent her with such an open minded point of view. A lot of her friends have even said they wished their parents were like my daughter’s parents. That’s pretty nice.

Nobody in our families has ever judged us to our faces. Just like with politics I think they don’t want to be rude or start anything unpleasant. I’m the only one of my siblings that is liberal…they just don’t ask. Phew!

I’m sure Sophie will be able to formulate her own ideas by the time she is an adult. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a very refreshingly open minded approach to all of it. When a kid isn’t indoctrinated they can work out their own feelings.

I always feel very grateful that my father didn’t go to church. He would not entertain any discussion about it — -out of deference to my Mom but when he did go to church with us on Easter and at Christmas and I saw the blank look on his face it got me to thinking.

My mother was so adamant that her kids go to church. I started resisting it early. She decided I was lazy and I don’t think I ever changed her mind. She never asked me about my thoughts about religion but sometimes I told her even when she didn’t want to hear it. Before she died I found out that she really questioned her faith’s point of view. She wasn’t absolutely certain about God. She even told me that my faith in my beliefs was stronger than her own. I still don’t know how to wrap my head around that but maybe it was just too far outside of the regular box to do anything but go to church and recite the litany…

and here is my favorite anecdote from my daughter’s childhood. She was shopping with my Mom and my Mom wanted to buy her a cross necklace. My Mom very solemnly asked her if she knew what it was.

My daughter’s answer- “Yes, that’s that thing that killed Jesus.”

Indeed.