How to Deal With a Religious Family

Step 1: Pretend you're religious by smiling and nodding when your family mentions God.

I truly don't have any advice for dealing with family members who insist that your way is wrong and their way is right. Mr. Atheist suggests coming out to someone in your family who feels the same way that you do, and perhaps speaking with the host ahead of time. If you don't feel comfortable hanging out with your family who tends to shove religiosity down your throat, you can bow out and leave.

For the most part, my younger sister and I are in the same boat. We're not all that religious and find life to be satisfying without following the church's doctrine, but we have different ways of confronting the issue. My younger sister prefers to cut off contact and not show up to family gatherings. I show up and just play along. Sure, I'll hold hands and say grace to keep the peace. I'll even pretend to listen and keep my thoughts to myself when my aunts and uncles talk about the ways God has blessed them by not giving them a job promotion. I'll even respond with "okay" when my mom tells me to say my prayers. On the other hand, my younger sister only talks to my mom when she needs something and otherwise avoids contact with her: no phone calls, no visits.

I've never told my family explicitly that I'm an atheist even though I'm pretty sure my mom knows that I don't believe anymore. She told me she's not sure why I think and believe differently from her when she's the one who raised me. It's disappointing to hear something like that coming from your own mom. I know religion is important to my mom, so I keep my opinions to myself. But somehow I feel like I've still disappointed her. I've learned to live with that disappointment, and I think at this point, my mom has too, or perhaps I'm deluding myself.

I keep telling myself I'll come out after my grandparents pass away because after that, it doesn't matter anymore. For the longest time, I was afraid I would be kicked out of the family because I don't believe. I have avoided phone calls and letters from my grandparents out of guilt that I don't think the same way as they do. Out of guilt or perhaps fear that they'll discover a wolf in sheep's clothes and be very disappointment in me. I feel anxious around my family, especially my grandparents, and I hope they never discover my secret (that I am blatantly putting on the Internet, the least secret place in the entire universe). Last year I had a panic attack in my sleep because I was so worried about going to my grandparents' house in my dreams.

It might be easier to deal with if they shared the same values as me, but we don't share the same values and we seem to be on the opposite side of the spectrum. For now, I'll bide my time and keep my opinions to myself. I'm lucky in the fact that I don't have to live near them anymore so I don't have to hide my true self as much. It feels weird when they say things like, "Oh, we miss you since you're so far away." It feels like they're just saying it to say it and that it couldn't possibly be true since they don't even know the real me.

Family is difficult, and I'm afraid I don't have any answers. I've chosen the route with the least conflict but also with the least satisfying outcome for the relationships with my family. I don't hate my family, and I don't think they're terrible people whom I should cut off. I just wish they would talk less about religion so I didn't have to dread going to their houses for holidays.

Identity: Write, Rewrite, Revise, Repeat

I've always had thoughts about identity and place in the world. Who am I? That is the question that I've constantly asked myself since I was a teenager at a residential high school. I used to think that I was no one, just a mediocre little girl, and I still think I'm just a mediocre person. The only difference now is that I've come to accept that mediocre isn't as bad as American culture claims it is. Not all of us can be great, so it's better if we just accept our fate rather than agonize over what we are not.


I've recently finished Revising Herself: The Story of Women's Identity from College to Mid-Life by Ruthelle Josselson (Oxford University Press, 2006), and while reading, I had to recollect my thoughts and prevent myself from zoning out and thinking about myself, which was very difficult. I started this book wanting to find my place, wanting to know how other women handled life after college, if life got any better, but I'm now just more confused. It would be great to be like a Pathfinder, but I'm afraid I'm somewhere between a Pathfinder, Searcher, and Drifter. I don't quite fit into any category, or at least I don't think I fit.

Josselson writes that "Growth is a process of rewriting, revising, and interweaving these narratives," and I hope to the universe that she's right (256). To be stuck with the past that I do have and to be stuck where I am now is just disheartening. I am struggling, and it's exhausting. It gets better the further I get away from high school and college, but the past still haunts me occasionally. I can't wait until I get older and rewrite my past to a hopefully happier narrative.

The most frustrating yet accurate aspect in my opinion about women's identities is that relationships help women to define their identities. I think in this case, I found myself much like a Drifter, needing to define myself by separating who I am from who others are (250). It's exasperating to hear that women's identities are made in relations to others, especially since from day 1 we've been taught that women are "relational creatures" and are defined in terms of others, sometimes lacking their own independence.

Defining oneself in relational terms is inescapable since humans are social creatures, but I would much rather define myself in terms of my work, interests, and hobbies rather than by my relationships. Yeah, I'm a daughter, sister, niece, aunt, girlfriend, friend, assistant but those are not my primary identities. That's just how I happen to relate to others in this world. Perhaps with the invent of social media, we have become more individualistic, or perhaps my anxious-avoidant attachment system is showing. If there is anything that I've learned in my 25 years, it's that people come and go, so it's much better to define yourself independently from others or else you will lose your sense of self.

As Josselson mentions, relationships are a constant balancing act, "a balance between the needs of the people involved" (249), and women define their identities by how they locate themselves within relationships. I'm a little upset that I have to define myself in terms of other people. But maybe I'm still in the young rebellious stage, in which I'm still trying to fight for independence from parents who refuse to give it to me. I had to take what I saw was rightfully mine because if it was up to my mother, I'd still be living in her house, taking a job close to home, and marrying the guy she picked out. Funnily enough, here I am defining myself as what I am not in relations to my parents. I am not the person who is going to submit to or even fulfill their expectations, but I don't want to completely cut my ties with them.

Sometimes, it's really hard not to define yourself in relation to others, especially when you have a different heritage from them. I grew up Cajun, immersed in a French-English world, but up here, they grew up in a German-Polish-British world. There are occasional differences, but for the most of it, I am able to blend in as an American. It's only occasionally when someone discusses something particular to Pennsylvania Dutch that I feel like a stranger in this land. There are a few times when I have to ask someone to explain what they mean because I have no what a pierogi is and I barely grasp the idea of rumspringa. I don't even quite understand the definition of a foodie; people who love food are just called people where I'm from. But for the most part I am able to blend or pretend to blend in Pennsylvania culture. Being a middle-class white person helps a lot. Occasionally, a "y'all" will slip out, though I try not to say it since my coworkers make fun of that word.

Who am I? That kid. You know, the quiet one who people barely remember, who they call a dork, nerd, or shy, smart kid. The assistant who authors go to for questions, but who is always behind, partly because of procrastination, like usual. The one whose heart nearly explodes out of her chest out of anxiety every time the phone rings and sighs with relief when my coworker answers it. That person reading books and who really doesn't want to make much talk at all. I am that person. The one who slips in a "y'all," and quietly kicks herself for giving away her southern heritage. The one who says "quater" and frequently unconsciously converts the "ai" sound to an "e" sound. That kid who tries to blend and be unnoticed, who has adopted modesty because at least with it, I can blend into the crowds and attract little to no attention. The one with hopes for grad school yet wants to continue with my current job track, even if it's not a very large industry. The one writing a "secret" blog, who hopes the blog goes unnoticed yet wishes someone would care. Cajun. Introvert. Reader. Writer. Thinker. Dreamer. The one drawn into many different directions, still searching, reflecting, and creating a place to be.

Mourning Easter

I've read somewhere that once you've been a part of a religious community and then decide to leave the church, you're more likely to mourn the loss of your religion. I like to think that you're not just losing your community, but your faith, belief, and rituals.

I stopped going to church in my first or second year of college. The breaking point was the day the priest decided to preach about loving the sinner, but hating the sin, and he literally said that we should not be tolerate of gay lifestyles. And I could not understand how he reconciled those two points. We had to hate the lifestyle and be intolerant of their actions, but we had to love the person? Someone's actions are a part of who they are. To me, it also seems that someone's lifestyle is a part of who they are, so rejecting their actions and lifestyle is essentially rejecting that person. I refuse to reject someone just because they like the same-sex instead of the opposite-sex. It was that day when I walked out of the church and never looked back. I don't regret it either, and I find myself much happier without church and religion. I am much happier without the cognitive dissonance between what the church tells us to value and the church's actual actions.

I recently read a piece about Mary Magdalene, which led to subsequent Wikipedia searches about the Gospel and Mary Magdalene's background. Honestly, the stories that I read about Christ's resurrection and the Gospels just seem like nonsense. Ever since I was a kid, I had an extremely hard time believing in Christ, and once I finally believed, I constantly questioned why he died for our sins when he was such a good person. Why wasn't it me, the lowly sinner, who was punished? The answer to that question now seems irrelevant since I no longer believe. Jesus just seems like some crazy guy, and maybe he was made up in the first place by people who wanted the obedience of others. I don't know. Nothing can be proven.

Easter doesn't seem to be as big a deal up North than it is down South. I always knew when Easter was coming when I lived in Louisiana because Spring Break for schools aligned with Easter. We were always either off on Good Friday and through the next week or we were off the week of Holy Week and went back to school the Monday after Easter. Here in Pennsylvania, they don't even get Good Friday off. Easter just seemed a blip on my radar, and I sometimes forgot Easter was coming up this Sunday.

I don't miss going to church for Easter, and I had a particularly large disdain for Easter Mass since the incense they used made it difficult for me to breathe. But I do miss the feast. I bought a small slice of ham, some potatoes, and green beans. I'm going to make the usual potato salad and green bean casserole, but I wonder if I even deserve it since I no longer believe. Do I have the right to celebrate with food even though I'm celebrating something that doesn't matter to me? Holidays feel empty now, and they also feel like a drag. Spending time with family used to be fun, but now I can't wait to get away. Spending time with family isn't so bad when they don't focus on religion, but avoiding religion is nearly impossible when on one side, my grandpaw was a deacon, and on the other side, my grandmaw is always volunteering with the church in one way or another.

I guess I wish that holidays had some significance to me, but now most holidays feel empty. Perhaps it's because I no longer have faith or maybe it's because I no longer share the same beliefs as my family. I'm longing for the ritual of feast (but not the rituals of church), but it's hard to feel into it, like I was when I was a kid.