Reply to If you are a non religious household, how do you handle religious holidays or Santa, etc?

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "If you are a non religious household, how do you handle religious holidays or Santa, etc?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My husband and I are not religious. I was raised in a household to believe that Santa and heaven are real, but I seriously doubted it as a kid.

I don’t know if I want to keep up the Santa facade with my son. It seems cruel to lead him on about a non-existent being. My husband and I don’t believe in heaven or any concept of Christian. I have complicated feelings about Judeo-Christian holidays, especially with the history of Christian missionaries destroying cultures and original religions, witch trials, etc.

If you don’t believe in God, or fantasies, what do you teach your children? My husband and I believe in science and nature, that energy can’t be destroyed. But the reality is none of us know for sure. I don’t want to create some kind of existential crisis in my son. He’s only 2, so he has no concept of religion right now at all. [/quote]

As someone who grew up like your son - with atheist parents - and who is raising my child in an atheist household, don’t worry, he’ll be fine. He’s not going to have an existential crisis if he enjoys Santa and the Easter bunny. We celebrated these things to mark the changing seasons and the time of year and to enjoy the mysticism, which children with vivid imaginations love. He will be absolutely fine if he thinks for a couple of years that elves make these great toys and Santa delivers them on a magic sleigh. He will grow out of it like all children do - atheist or not. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics