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.
Which got me curious: can any irreligious people on here who have kids while having religious parents share what thats like?
Would love to hear your stories or thoughts on this in general.
While I realize that hard boundry setting is the new norm sometimes harm reduction is a better strategy. While a lot of folk have religious trauma to deal with that makes them want to do exactly zero church stuff one aspect of not believing in God is that a lot of the ritual aspects are pretty low stakes once one you strip away the mysticism. One way to handle the worry of your Mom wanting to do something dangerous to essentially just splash water on your kid is to participate in the silly ritual safely so that it’s done with minimum risk.
There definitely are hills to die on but if you give an order you know won’t be obeyed because the stakes from your Mother’s perspective are incredibly high then one way to look at it is baby’s safety comes first. Not because of the possible existence of the soul but because risking kidnapping to perform at end of day a boring nothing ceremony that ultimately means nothing isn’t a good idea. If it is distasteful to participate because of trauma then recognizing that you can deputize somebody you trust to get the hurdle over with is an option but realistically, your kid will never gain that same trauma from this. They will grow up with a completely different belief system as their basic. If them simply being baptized is a personal trigger it is wise to unpack exactly why because whether they are or not isn’t something your kid is likely going to care about. Having grown up in an agnostic environment and having a number of friends in the same situation some of us were baptized for the sake of family peace but for everyone I know it’s a complete non-event. One advantage of these things actually meaning nothing is that there is no change of state. A baptized baby and a non baptized baby are the same.
To my crew anyway a lot of us our parents aversion or reactions to church stuff seems out of proportion due to them having a history. Theirs is a more volitile strongly opinionated atheism as opposed to the more passive naturalized one we developed because we do not feel betrayed by belief. Sometimes their aversion causes them to do things which from the outside display that they are still letting their rejection of religious upbringing effect their judgment in an outsized way because they didn’t ever really heal.
Allowing contact is the compromise position and harm reduction strategy. Hard line would be to cut religious zealot parents out entirely. If you think they would stop at splashing water on a baby, I have a bridge to sell you.
You do you. Everybody’s circumstances are different and if you think that they give no positive value to your family life then that’s the way to go. This would only be a potential strategy if you didn’t want to give them up.
Baptism is also a hard line a lot of Christians get on because they think it’s basic hell proofing moreso than the average rituals. It’s not like they will stop their general pressures if you agree… but on this particular point people have been known to risk it BIG because they believe the mortal soul is imperiled and it comes at a point when the kid is at their most physically vulnerable being practically newborn.
Risk assessment should be holistic. It’s not necessarily compromise and framing it that way risks it becoming more about a battle of egos. it’s about recognizing and having a real situation assessment free from personal emotional triggers about how best to respond to potential dangers that center the baby’s safety first in a way that can stop the police from getting involved because faith is not reasonable.