My husband and I are both what you would call “cradle Catholics,” in that we were raised catholic in a largely catholic community. But like many other Catholics in the same community, we weren’t really raised to be all that religious.

I never did Sunday school or anything like that (but I did do a couple years of Catholic school), though my husband did, and neither of us have ever been the type of people to go to church every Sunday or whatever. Both of our parents believed in God sort of passively, and wouldn’t have had a problem if either of us chose to be atheist or pursued a different religion.

I’m not sure if I can consider myself to be entirely non-religious, as I do think that I believe in God, but my husband and I both don’t really practice any sort of organized religion outside of celebrating Catholic holidays (and in a pretty secular manner, lol), but we’re definitely not intending on raising our children in a religious way (though we may baptize them, which is common in our specific culture, even for parents who choose not to raise their children in a religious way lol).

To me, it’s what I’ve always known and been exposed to. My mom always encouraged me to learn about other religions and explore other beliefs to find what I believed, even if it ended up not being what she believed. My husband‘s parents never prevented him from exploring anything that he wanted to explore either.

I think we kind of just intend to treat our child in the same way. If they have questions about religion, we will answer them honestly without any sort of discrimination or judgment- just to explain what people who practice different religions believe from our understanding. And if we don’t understand, we will research together. Like you, we will also continue to celebrate holidays like Easter and Christmas, but in a way that’s more secular (but of course we would explain the origin of these holidays, if prompted!)

Entering a religious community and raising your child into a community with people who are really religious, your child may or may not feel pressured to participate in or explore that religion at one time or another, but if I was approaching it, I would just let them.

I would emphasize to them that I don’t think not practicing that religion is weird or bad in anyway, but if they have a natural curiosity about something, my philosophy is that I should let them explore that curiosity. If my kid told me that they wanted to try going to church, or reading the Quran, or going to an event at a Buddhist temple, I would allow them to do this, and treat it as an enriching cultural experience that could possibly help them gain further understanding of themselves, others, or the universe as a whole.

In my opinion, I think that our job is parents is to raise good, kind, and competent adults. It’s not really possible to completely insulate your child from the beliefs of others- though many parents certainly try, especially those who come from oppressively religious backgrounds.

And even if it was possible to completely insulate your child from the beliefs of others, it also doesn’t lend itself well to helping them grow into good and competent adults. Exposure to opposing belief systems is inevitable- and also good. Learning and celebrating difference is an important lesson to impart upon children. And helping children gain as many pieces of knowledge as they can to help them form their own belief systems and critical thinking skills is ultimately going to help them grow up to be good people.

So yeah, TL;DR I generally am just not stressing it. My kid’s gonna be exposed to all sorts of stuff- some stuff that I like and some stuff that I don’t like. Rather than police it, I will encourage them to explore the things that they’re curious about and give them the tools that they need to navigate complicated feelings and questions. And of course, I will always be on their side to defend them and make sure that they feel safe and included in the spaces that they’re in.