One of the biggest sources of conflict between atheists and their religious families may be their relationships to religious holidays. Atheists who can no longer treat religious holidays like they once did can feel like outsiders; religious family members can feel like they have been betrayed. Within this nexus of conflicts, the biggest conflicts are probably over what to do with children, especially on holidays like Christmas.
A forum member writes:
How do children turn out when raised by atheist parents? My daughter has just told me she was atheist .she has a 3 year old son that is my heart. and she informed me that I can't give my grandson xmas present on the 25th I can on the 26th but not the 25th. Needless to say I am very upset. My daughter was not raised in a very religous home she was not made to go to church nor did I preach to her.
Does anybody have any advise!!!!!
Asking whether kids "turn out" OK when raised in an atheist home is rather like asking if kids turn out OK when raised by Jews, Catholics, or blacks. It really is that offensive, though I'm sure the questioner here had no intention of being offensive and had no idea just how bigoted that first question really is. It's a sign of how far atheists have to go in America: we don't just need to combat the open bigotry of people who know they are bigots and are unapologetic about their bigotry, but also the unconscious bigotry of people who have no idea of the bigoted attitudes and assumptions they hold.
Beyond that, though, this questioner raises a very interesting and important issue. Many atheists celebrate Christmas as a cultural holiday and so have no problem with gifts and other festivities on December 25th -- at least when they aren't religious in nature. Other atheists, though, are turning their back on Christmas and treating it as an exclusively Christian holiday, an attitude which many Christians would probably appreciate. In such a context, gifts and celebrations on the 25th simply wouldn't be appropriate.
Of course, this situation is faced by people who convert from Christianity to some other religion. If the questioner's daughter were a convert to Judaism and so no longer celebrated Christmas, would it still be so upsetting? If the daughter were a convert to Buddhism or some other religion which doesn't even celebrate any holiday at that time of year, would it still be so upsetting? I suspect that there is still a degree of unconscious anti-atheist bigotry involved, but setting that aside this is still a matter which a growing number of atheists have to face.
If you have given up Christmas, or at least would consider doing so, how would you handle family members who still wanted to share Christmas with your children in the traditional American manner? How would you deal with gifts, trees, Santa Claus, etc? Add your thoughts to the comments here or join the ongoing discussion in the forum.
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