Telling my parents

[FatAndFaithless]

I..do have a couple of problems with Pete's post though.. While his advise is very warm and fuzzy, I feel that it's a bit naive, concerning the multitudinous stories about people who have had familial relationships irreparably damaged by the reaction to one's lack of belief (or homosexuality, etc). There are certain situations where it's in the best interest of the atheist to keep his/her mouth shut until they are confident they can make it on their own. And the advice to just be super open about it and bring the boyfriend in and yadda yadda...might sound 'nice,' but it can create some real, difficult, and lasting problems.

Every family is different, and it's up to Kiki to gauge how they will react to certain things and what might be the consequences of said things. Instead of advising him/her to just put it all out there and 'everything will work out,' I think it's more responsible to encourage them to consider the possible outcomes of revealing certain things (for example, introducing the boyfriend but not revealing you're an atheist, etc), and what they could gain from revealing these things.

And while yes, Rob, I do wish more folks were as open and relaxed as Pete here, the fact of the matter is that there are many people who are not, many of whom are parents. We don't know a whole lot about Kiki's family outside of their religiosity, so I think Pete's advice is a little...naive? and could lead to more hassle than it's worth.

The unfortunate fact of the matter is, a Min said in the first response to OP, that sometimes it is better to let sleeping dogs lie. I don't mean to be a downer, but I always like people to be careful about this sort of stuff.