Carrie

Here's the situation: I have just become an non-believer after believing for 6 years. But my husband is still a believer, and he's very involved in a fundamentalist church. We are 26 years old, been married for 2.5 years, and we have a strong marriage.

The problem: We want to have kids pretty soon. However, we have not yet discussed how we will raise the kids religiously.
-- I want to tell my husband that if we have kids, I will tell them that the Bible is not true. I don't want my kids to grow up believing that garbage, because I don't want them to be
nerdy religious kids, and I don't want them to have negative attitudes toward homosexuals or other religious groups, and I don't want them to have all that guilt and fear hell! I will
want to sometimes bring the kids to the Unitarian church with me, where they could learn about many beliefs.
-- But my husband is going to want to teach the kids that the Bible is true, and he'll want them to grow up to be Bible thumping evangelists. He'll want them to go to my old fundamentalist church, and he'll let them be brainwashed to never question the Bible. If they don't turn out this way, he'll be afraid they'll go to hell.

Question: Should I just keep my mouth shut and let my husband teach the kids, for the sake of peace? Maybe they'll figure it out on their own later anyway? I just don't want my husband blaming me for our kids going to hell, if they are influenced by me and also end up not believing. But then, I'd be mad at my husband if the kids grow up to be fundamentalists and think their mom is going to hell. So should I suggest that we each teach the kids what we believe, and let the kids decide for themselves? I just feel like I will be a lot more persuasive and influential, and my husband will resent me for it. Even
discussing this will be hard. I don't know, maybe we shouldn't have kids.

What do you think? What would you do? What do you think I should do, or we should do?

Thanks for your help.

scarmig

My advice...

Sit down and have an awfully long heart-to-heart with your SO.

Perhaps you can offer an compromise whereby they are taken to his church two sundays a month, and you get two sundays a month to teach them critical thinking.

Harumi

Carrie,

Your difficulty and problem is one which have occurred again and again here at the forums. I feel for you, and for everyone else who is or may undergo marriage problems with their spouse due to differences in beliefs.

Talk to BlondeGoddess, and if you check out the thread Strumming for Jesus, you may be comforted in the knowledge that you are not alone. Of course, after reading their problems, you might not want to have kids after all!

I'm not an adult...not even eighteen yet, but my advise would be to discuss your beliefs...or lack of one to your husband. It will be painful, I know, but it would be far better to have the pain between the two of you now than to inflict it on your children. If the worst case scenario: your marriage doesn't work out, and you get a divorce--at least you can separate without the guilt or worry of leaving your children behind.

Just out of curiousity: How did you lose your faith?

I hope my advice helps. I'm still new to this kind of thing.

Treacle Worshipper

Disclaimer: I am umarried and have no kids.
Carrie, after reading vicar Philip's and blondegoddess's threads, I think you need to be sure your marriage can survive your unbelief before you have kids. You say your relationship with your husband is strong. What was his reaction to your loss of faith? (If you don't mind me asking.) If he is ok with it, then I second scarmig's advice. How you're going to raise your kids is something you should talk about together in detail before you have them.
Best wishes,
TW

captainpabst

Yes, definitely be completely honest with your husband about what you believe. Talk about all aspects of raising the kids before having them. Maybe you can reach a compromise, but maybe you'll be at an impass...in which case it would be better to end the marriage now than to keep quiet and have it all blow up when kids arrive. I know that sounds dismal, but why bang your head against the wall if you don't have to?

It sounds somewhat bigoted and prejudice, but my litmus test for any possible SO is the religious one...if they're a member of any congregation (excepting Unitarian or Church of Freethought or something similar), I won't be with them for long, unless I can show them the 'light.' Life is too short to live by dogma.

southernhybrid

You certainly are smart to be thinking about these issues before having children. I think you know that you need to have that long talk with your husband.

As a survivor of an evangelical Xian upbringing, I would advise against allowing that for your children. Even if they come around to thinking like you, they will be subjected to a lot of crazy ideas and it's likely to cause them confusion at the very least. The very nature of evangelical Xianity makes it almost impossible to have a compromise.

Actually, I think it would be very difficult for you to just keep your mouth shut after you have children. Every parent wants to teach and expose their children to what they believe are the right ideas so I wouldn't even consider that a realistic option.


Good luck with that discussion. Let us know what happens. We're here to support you.

Jamie_L

I am married to a theist and I do have kids. However, my wife is about as far from fundy as you can get, and our kids are only 3 and 1, so we haven't gotten to this issue yet.

First, if your husband has strong feelings about his religion (unlike my life) then you absolutely MUST resolve this issue before having kids. All my research into raising children suggests kids's self-esteem ties almost directly to the relationship their parents have with each other. If you guys end up fighting over this all the time, having a tug-of-war over the kids' beliefs, it has the potential to really sabotage their self-image.

However, at the same time, it's unfair for one parent to hide their beliefs under the rug (and basically lie by omission to the kids) while the other parent gets to present their beliefs as "true".

Fortunately for me, my wife doesn't go to church, so our kids won't get any kind of regular indoctrination. I just plan to give my kids a polite counter-point to my wife's. "Mommy believes this, and so do many other people. But different people believe different things, and I belive this."

Church, however, is all about indoctrination, especially of the young, so if you have no voice, and your husband has the voice of the Sunday school every week, well...

If nothing else, focus on the less controversial tack of teaching your kids critical thinking. There are books out there about making logic and thinking skills fun for kids. Do lots of fun science experiments with them. And give them lots of mythology to read. When I was young, I used to think, "If we all agree Zues isn't real, why are we so sure God is real?"

Good luck.

Jamie

Ab_Normal

I'm going to add my (characteristically inarticulate) two cents and concur with everybody so far who advocated having a long talk with your husband. In my experience, this is an issue that has to be resolved before you even consider getting pregnant.

And, I hate to complicate matters, but you may also have to worry about your in-laws. My husband, who is not an active Christian, has been very accepting of my atheism. His mother left us alone until we reproduced, and really got active when our daughter hit that mystical "age of reason". I made my husband have the "quit prostelytizing" speech, which he gladly did. It would have sucked if I hadn't had his support in the matter.

Shake

TW gave some very good advice here for a single non-parent. I will echo others sentiments. If you avoid the issue, you will only be setting yourself up for a lot of hurt feelings (all around), and the kids would be trapped in the middle. Marriages have ended over things much less significant than this. Keeping the peace now, will have far-reaching effects and they'll be much worse than any battles you might fight at this stage. Hopefully, you can find some sort of middle ground. Then later if there are problems with other family, you can present a united front to them. Your hubby might say something like, "Well, I don't agree with her views, but I respect her rights to her own opinions. We've discussed our differences and we've decided together to compromise in this way: ... ." Now, family could still get upset at that, but if they can't turn one of you on the other, maybe they'll get the picture and quit bugging you about it.

To sum up, I'd say reach some common ground, and tell any concerned family that you understand their concerns, but that since they're your kids, they should respect your decisions regarding how you raise them. But do have a good long talk with your hubby first to ensure that you can have some sort of compromise!

Good luck!

ohwilleke

Getting pregnant when a huge divide like that is hidden is foolish. Your strong marriage will crumble in no time if your beliefs stay in the dark.

Even the modest religious divide in my house (originally nominal Presbyterian and now Unitarian wife, while I am a true atheist) is the cause of considerable tension at times. Your divide is much wider.

This doesn't mean you have to have the heart to heart talk all at once. I wouldn't even recommend that. A gradual hinting might be more prudent.