Question for religious parents

Would you have a problem with your child being friends with an atheist,
or being friends with a child who's parents are atheists?

The reason I ask is that I am an atheist and I have a daughter who is
almost two and I live in a very religious area. Now that my daughter is
not really a baby anymore I am starting to think about these issues and
wondering if she is going to have trouble having friends.

In article .com,
wrote:

Would you have a problem with your child being friends with an atheist,
or being friends with a child who's parents are atheists?

The reason I ask is that I am an atheist and I have a daughter who is
almost two and I live in a very religious area. Now that my daughter is
not really a baby anymore I am starting to think about these issues and
wondering if she is going to have trouble having friends.


My experience has been that having a minority theological point of view
hasn't been a problem very often.

Once in a while, my kids would make a new friend who would try to
convince them that they had the One True Way, and I always encouraged
them to respect their friends' religious beliefs. I almost never ran
into families that would try to keep their kids away from my kids
because of our religious beliefs (or lack thereof) (with the exception
of one brother, but he's an extreme case.) Most people who feel very
strongly about protecting their children from us pagans (or heathens or
whatever) will keep their kids pretty isolated -- home- or private-
schooling, etc.

I find that I can even discuss my own beliefs with MOST folks, provided
I am respectful of theirs; though I don't think I'm horribly pushy about
it, I also make no attempt to hide my own beliefs.

As Unitarian Universalists, my kids are exposed to LOTS of theological
perspectives (including quite a number of athiests in our
congregations.) I find that having a minority theological POV, it helps
to have the kids spend at least part of their time in this community.
(Here in California it isn't as big a deal -- but where we lived in
Massachusetts the VAST majority of kids in their school were Catholic,
so having friends who were not, and a place to go where being something
else was normal, was important.)

(I don't use the term "athiest" for my own beliefs -- but given my view
of Divinity, mos people would certainly consider me atheist.)

--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care