Carnival of Atheist Parenting, Fifth Edition

 
Why a blog carnival for atheist parenting?

There are many parents out there who are new to living a secular life, new to raising children without the traditional ways, sometimes hidden and living in seclusion due to their secular choices, afraid to be open and yet determined to raise their children as skeptics and as happy people. These atheist parents are looking for those few voices out there who can offer them understanding, community, advice, or just a general feeling of being normal. Many first-generation parents are seeking in earnest and I am proud to be available and open and willing to offer my support. Not my advice or my expertise or my definition or my label!
My support, my friendship, my small community. 

This blog carnival contains blog posts by parents who are raising their children in a secular home, without religion, dogma-free.

If you are here for the first time, I warmly WELCOME you!
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and so that you don't forget us!

 When reading blog posts PLEASE leave a comment!
Bloggers love your feedback. 

If you like what you read, please be so good as to
share on your blog, on Facebook, 
in your atheist groups, and with friends!

Debbie at Kids Without Religion blog encourages parents to raise logical, independent thinkers.  Debbie was kind enough to let me include her post Can our Friends Make us Sick?  You must also read her recent Guest Post:  Religious Belief & Legal Protection.  Debbie, your blog is exactly what we are looking for here at CAP!  I hope to see more of your future posts included in the carnival.

Martha at Humanist Mom blog sent this timely post entitled A Tour Around Ye Ol' (Godless) Tannenbaum as this secular momma ponders the reason for putting up a tree in our homes in December.  Martha is a fine art printmaker printmaker, instructor, and secular humanist community leader.  On her Humanist Mom blog she writes about a wide variety of topics that excite, puzzle, or piss her off. She is the mother of two fantastic daughters.  You can see some of her work on her etsy page.  Martha hopes that what she has to say is of interest to other secular parents. Welcome to this blog carnival Martha! I am thrilled to include you this week! 

Kristen at little lodestar blog is an atheist who lives with her husband and school-aged daughter just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. She is a writer and attorney practicing in the area of urban agriculture, zoning and land use law. In her spare time, she blogs at www.littlelodestar.com where she writes essays about navigating life and its various issues anew with her young daughter as her guide (her little lodestar). She also posts book reviews of children's and adult books and shares photographs of the small moments and scenes she stumbles upon in her daughter's wake. You can also find Kristen on Twitter (@littlelodestar) and Instagram (littlelodestar). Her blog post called Tickets to a Show: Being an Atheist Parent is the result of mulling over in her mind about what some of the differences might be between atheist/agnostic parenting (if not approaches to life and living in general) and religiously informed parenting. The biggie, it seems to Kristen, is always death and how we approach and explain it, but also perhaps how we as secular folks emotionally deal with death given our perspective about what does and does not happen after death. You will love Kristen's informed musings as she navigates her way through life with her Little Lodestone as motivation.

Tracy is a young mommy and newbie blogger of  Crazy, Stupid Mommyhood blog and she really hits the holiday nail on the head with this post entitled Why All of the Santa Hate?  I "met" Tracy, mother of three and a very OUT atheist, on Google+ where she had posted the content of this blog post as a status update; I asked her to put it on her blog because I enjoyed it so much.  I think you will too!  Also check out her post called I'll Probably Die from Worrying.  There is not a parent on the planet who can't relate to that one!  Welcome Tracy and thank you for participating in the carnival. I do hope to see you again and I plan on following your blog! 


Mandy from Secular Mom blog reminds us all that It's That Time of Year Again. This inspired atheist mom to five children that she is raising in the Bible Belt USA tells us how she and her family make the holidays extra special.  I hope that all of us find a way to celebrate this holiday with lots of love!  Thanks, Mandy, for bringing your wisdom to this carnival.

Special THANKS to Susi for these submissions from her blog called Susi's Soap Box. Susi's Soap Box came about to give voice to internal frustrations with politics, religion, current events, relationships and just about everything else. Susi Bocks used it as a vehicle to speak out rather than bottling up all those emotions. What has evolved is a platform to articulate more than just those emotions; it's become a labor of love that seeks to not only voice what's wrong with this world, but also be a catalyst to change it.  The following posts are Originally Posted on Susi's Soap Box blog.  In A Letter to my Son, the piece was initially an assignment that her eldest son had in his Senior year. As his parent, Susi was asked to give him advice about beginning his upcoming adulthood. This piece was that advice. She felt that the piece was an opportunity for guidance, reaffirm what they had taught him all along and a chance to show him, once again, the depth of love she and her husband have for him.  In her post Full of Love, But Then Empty Susi reflects the circumstance and emotions of the miscarriage she suffered in 1995. At the time she was newly committed to the man who has now been her husband for the last 18 years. Although a very difficult time, it conveyed to her, deeply, what relationships were really about.  My sincere THANKS to Susi for sharing so intimately with us.

My own blog post offering this week from my blog at Atheist Homeschool Momma is called My Calling. Nobody every said that parenting was going to be easy, and it isn't. But it is the most important thing in my life. 

On my blog I have slowly been working on a series of posts that address the ridiculous claims aimed at atheists in general.  In my blog post Science is Your God I address one of the weirdest and most ironic of these claims.

 That concludes the carnival for this week.

We are still new SO and I appreciate it when you SHARE!  

 The next carnival is due out: December 30th, 2013
Please send in your blog post submissions by December 29, 2013

Send the following information to Karen.loethen@gmail.com

Type CAP SUBMISSION or Carnival of Atheist Parenting in the email subject line.
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