How to Raise Little Agnostics/Atheists

I am a parent of a curious little two year old and I am sure in a couple of more months he is going to get more inquisitive and probing.
Obviously, being an atheist (and slightly inclining towards anti-theism) there
would be no obligatory religious or supernatural teaching of any sort at least
from my side. Even though, I am sure the schools he would be able to attend would
have him study it nevertheless.

As a father there is one thing I would like my child to learn early on and that is to question everything, something which I started doing
very late in life. In my opinion if I can teach him this then I would consider
to have done well in that role. Of course I do not absolve myself of other
parental responsibilities, but the previous mentioned could be defined as a
basic philosophy as a father.

However, I do lack any real life role models to follow when it comes to raising little agnostics. I myself was raised in a religious family
and grew up around people who were submerged in dogmatic views in which
children were told be believe things because they were being told by elders or
other authority figures. So I am a bit clueless as to how to actually go about
with this. Also, when I was growing up many of the taboo subjects were avoided
in different ways for example, death and sex. Religious people tell their children
that when a person dies they go to a ‘better place called heaven’ and sex is
always out of bound because it is such ‘filthy thing’. Such questions, I am not
sure how they should be handled with little kids.

I would really like to hear opinion, views and experiences of others regarding this and also your comments regarding if I am on the right
track or not.

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Permalink Reply by sukhdeep on May 9, 2010 at 10:36am

the best thing is probably which u are already doing; is not taking ur child to a church or a religious institution at a young age, which will help him analyze and see religious texts as just another fairy tales; read RAISING FREE THINKERS which has great ideas with websites and activities and has great answers for almost all the questions we had when we were contemplating the same thing. Wish u all the best.

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Permalink Reply by QM on May 9, 2010 at 3:31pm

Thanks sukhdeep, he is definitely not going to any religious institution on my watch :-) I will look up the book you have mentioned, it sure will be helpful!

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Permalink Reply by Carolanne on May 9, 2010 at 11:45am

I grew up with an atheist mother. When I was a little girl my godmother died after being sick for a long while. Instead of talking about how she's going to some "better place," my mother talked about how her life was over. And she explained to me that it wasn't a terrible or sad thing, although sometimes we wish that someone could still be around because we miss them. As I got older this idea continued to be presented, and because it was, I wasn't afraid of death and I didn't need an idea of "heaven" to make my life worth-while. I only have one, so I should enjoy it and make it worth while.
As for sex, it was the same as most everything else- You shouldn't fear what other people think or fear the judgment of others, because all that matters at night is respecting yourself; When I'm on my deathbed I am not facing the judgment of some holy figure, but the judgment of myself. So there is no right and wrong when it comes to things that are objective or which depend on opinion. I need to figure that out myself and then follow my own guidelines. So for sex, for example, just be healthy. There is nothing wrong with sex. It is part of life.

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Permalink Reply by QM on May 9, 2010 at 3:40pm

Hi Carolanne,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts..I guess for people like me who were raised with supernatural concepts, getting used to rational reality is a bit tricky :-) And also, thanks for sharing the story about your godmother. For some reason, it made me feel a bit sad, maybe because I know that sooner or later I too will have to explain something like this to my son.

I love this idea that we are only going to judge ourselves! Thanks again.