CX

Help me out here folks, because I'm honestly very perplexed. Recently there was a small controversy between me and my mother related to religious gifts for our children. For those of you who read the original thread I posted in FL some of this will be a repeat. Bascially my mom gave my kids some religious type gifts for easter (a bible stories sticker book, some tacky crucifix stickers and a little pillow thing that said, "God Bless this Little One", for my baby girl). My original email went like this:

She reponded with:
Needless to say I thought she took the whole thing awfully badly so I wrote back:
So, anyway, we hadn't spoken since this exchange took place and I called her today to talk about a completely unrelated thing. Before we got off the phone she got this tense sound in her voice and said she wanted to talk about something. Basically she asked me not talk about this kind of stuff via email because when I write emails I have a tendancy to be "arrogant and cruel". I honestly have no idea what she's talking about. What was arrogant and cruel? I thought I was pretty diplomatic (except for the crack about her being maudlin, but I say that in real life because she often is). Anybody with religious family members (or any believers with atheist family members) have any insight to share?

eldar1011

Well, I think you were tactful and understanding, but being an atheist, I'm probably biased.

I think that this thread touches on some reasons for the reaction you received. If someone feels that your atheism is threatening, even though you don't intend it to be, they might perceive you as being arrogant or condescending.

HelenM

I think it's good your Mom told you what was upsetting her. You don't have to agree necessarily that your e-mail was arrogant and cruel but, I suggest you honor her request not to discuss such things by e-mail in future and do it by phone or in person instead.

I'm encouraged that she told you what's wrong rather than refusing to ever speak to you again. Hopefully you'll be able to get beyond this. I do think that e-mail interaction is risky in that things can often be more easily and quickly dealt with - and with less risk of hurt feelings - if you do it by phone or in person, when you have tone of voice and the immediate feedback cues so you can back off if you sense the other person is not taking something how you intended. If your Mom says phone/in person is best then - I think it would be wise to go with that, as far as possible.

And then maybe stay off the topic for a while until you need to address it because something has come up, or until the hurt feelings have subsided.

Anyway, I wish you the best in smoothing things over with your Mom

Helen

scarmig

Insight.

Email is a notorious forum for misunderstanding. People "hear" tones in email that simply do not exist in person or even on the telephone. My suggestion would be to avoid email as a communication tool for such sensitive subjects.

beth

I think you should respect your mother's request not to discuss such matters over email. I cannot even imagine the reaction I'd receive if I requested that there would be no more religious interaction between my family and my kids. So your mother's reaction was very tame to me. But I do sypathize. It is good that your mother didn't refuse to speak to you. That has often been the reaction of mine.

CX

Obviously I intend to honor my mom's request about the email thing. She and I have a good relationship despite our religious differences and have never had any major problems. The no relgious gifts/instruction for the kids thing was mostly a reiteration of a discussion we had awhile ago. My only reason for raising the issue here was trying to figure out what the hell I said that was cruel or arrogant. Mainly because I pretty much talk the same in person as I do via email. If anything I'm less apt to be overly emotional and inflammatory via email where I have a chance to really think about what I'm saying and as such I don't want to say something in person that's going to hurt my mom's feelings.

HelenM

She probably read some 'tone' into it that wasn't there. It's a good reason to not e-mail her about sensitive topics even if it's only in her imagination that your e-mail tone is 'cruel and arrogant'.

Helen

southernhybrid

I don't think what you said was arrogant or cruel but if your mother gets her feelings hurt easily I can see how she might be offended because your email suggested that she was trying to indoctrinate your children. If in fact she doesn't see it this way then she may have found those words to be cruel and/or arrogant. I'd give her some time to get over it, and keep telling her how important she is in your life. We mothers always love to hear that our adult children value us. This is true for atheist mothers as well as Xian mothers. The older we get, the more we like to hear those nice things. I'm sure your mother is no different from myself in that respect.

I agree that email can be a very difficult way to communicate about sensitive issues. It can sound very cold and impersonal. I think it was courageous of your mother to mention how she felt. It must have been hard for her to tell you that. If I were you, I'd let this go and move on as quickly as possible.

She sure used those question marks in creative ways didn't she

CX

The thing is my family is really weird in that no member of my family on either my mother's or my father's side has ever been divorced or had a permamnent falling out with any other familiy member. We all get along extremely well, see eachother regularly etc. so the idea that my mom would stop talking to me never even occured to me. Plus my wife and I are both atheists. We have not been to church since the day we got married more than 11 years ago (actually I've been a couple times alone for various family related thigns). We have never been to church with our children. Neither of our children was christened. My views are well known including my moderation of BC&A here at II as well as my own critical thinking website and fora. I first split from Xianity when I was around 13 and I outed myself to my parents as a "full-fledged" atheist (though they already pretty much knew) maybe 4 or 5 years ago. We simply don't dicuss religion etc. They respect my position by not evangelizing me and I respect theirs by not discussing atheism etc. with or around them. (which is no mean feat around the holidays when the inevitable round table discussions of this or that theological or apolgoetical point occur). I guess all of this makes my mom's apparent distress the more confusing.

CX

AHHHHHH! <light bulb> I think I get it now. When I said, "Whatever you might think, books like "J is for Jesus" and the little bible stories sticker book you gave Jaz for Easter ARE religious indoctrination aimed at manipulating children's thoughts... "

She thought I was accusing her of intentionally indoctrinating my kids against my wishes when what I meant was that even though she was totally unaware of it, those kinds of things are, IMO, indoctrination. Well fuck a duck. I knew someone here would help me out. Thanks.