
Spanish: 
¿Cómo le dices a tus padres
que eres ateo?
Esa es difícil. Fue difícil
para mí cuando crecía,
y es difícil para muchos estudiantes
con los que me relaciono.
No le dije a mis padres que era ateo
cuando estaba en la secundaria.
Se los dije cuando ya era
un ateo muy activo en la universidad.
Por varias razones.
Una es
que, al fin y al cabo,
tus padres pueden pensar
que hicieron algo mal,
y sea todo lo contrario.
Hay una chica sobre
la que escribo
en mi libro,
que desafió a su escuela porque la obligaron a
ponerse de pie durante el juramento a la bandera.
No quiso hacerlo porque no creía
que éramos una nación bajo Dios.
Ella los desafió y ganó. Y la escuela
tuvo que cambiar su política.
Y pensarás: "Qué cosa tan maravillosa
hizo esta estudiante. Desafió a su escuela".
"Ella hizo lo correcto.
La escuela actuó mal."
"La gente debería vitorearla."
Pero sus padres la echaron
de la casa
como resultado.

English: 
How do you tell your parents
you're an atheist?
This is a tough one. It's a tough one
for me, when I was growing up,
and it's a tough one for a lot of students
I come into contact with.
I didn't tell my parents I was an atheist
when I was in high school.
And I only kind of told them when I had been
kind of a very active atheist in college.
Because, I mean, there's
a few reasons. One is...
I mean,
at the very serious end,
your parents may think
they've done something wrong
and it's the complete opposite of that.
There's one girl I write about
in my book, where
she challenged her school because they forced her
to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance which
she didn't want to,
because she didn't believe
we're a nation under God.
And she challenged it, and she won,
like the school had to change their policy.
And you would think, "What a wonderful thing
this student did. She challenged her school."
"She did the right thing.
The school was wrong."
You know, "people should be
celebrating her."
And her parents
kicked her out of the house
as a result.

Spanish: 
Con 18 años y desamparada, porque
sus padres ya no iban a mantenerla.
Sucede más a menudo
de lo que uno se imagina.
Entiendo que muchos estudiantes, muchos jóvenes,
no quieran decírselo a sus padres.
Lo que pueden hacer,
lo que a veces ayuda,
y que varía según el caso,
es dejar caer algunas pistas
dirigidas a los padres.
Por ejemplo, cuando van a la iglesia,
en lugar de aceptar todo lo que dice el pastor,
haz esas preguntas que tienes. Como:
"¿Cómo sabe que es verdad?"
"¿Por qué sabemos que es verdad?"
Y un contraejemplo:
"Mamá y papá, ¿qué hago con eso?"
Pon tus padres a la defensiva.
Haz que defiendan estas creencias,
porque si sigues haciendo
suficientes preguntas,
sé que los pastores
le temen a eso,
y muchos padres también.
No siempre tienen respuestas para esas preguntas.
Así que, puedes lanzarle cosas
de esa manera,
como desafiando las creencias religiosas,
encontrándole brechas, poco a poco.

English: 
I mean, she was 18 and on her own, because
their parents weren't going to support her anymore.
And that happens, I think,
a lot more often than we think.
So, I understand that a lot of students, a lot of
kids don't want to come out to their parents at all.
What they could do,
what sometimes helps,
and it changes in every situation,
is just kind of throwing some hints
in their parents' direction.
Maybe when you go to church, instead of
just accepting everything the pastor says,
raise the questions that you have, like,
"How do you know that's true?"
"Why do we know that's true?"
Here's a counterexample:
"So, Mom, Dad, what do I do with that?"
You know, put your parents on the defensive.
Make them defend what these beliefs are,
because if you keep asking
enough questions,
I know pastors are afraid of that,
and certainly a lot of parents would be, too.
They don't have answers for those questions all the time.
So, you can always throw things
at them in that way,
just kind of challenging the religious beliefs,
poking holes in it, little by little.

English: 
Sometimes you may just want to start a group on
your own and really explore your own faith, because
the last thing you want to do is
come out to your parents as an atheist
only to realize: "Maybe that's not where I am."
So, sometimes it helps to just
kind of have a different outlet.
I'm jealous of people today
because they have so many
internet forums and ways
to come out as an atheist.
And get answers to their questions,
because I know when I grew up,
I didn't have any of that.
I couldn't tell my parents.
I didn't have any friends
who were atheists.
So, I would have to like go on AOL dial up late at night
and wait an hour for the page to load.
And then get my answers
that way.
And even then the answers came from these, like,
crazy people online with their crazy websites and
only after a while I begin to think: "Oh, that person
has a point," even though they're totally crazy.
And now they have these forums
where you could
ask questions on Reddit or you can
find blogs and websites, and really
feel that identity
and embrace it, because
it's not a big deal.
So, I think, you know, I--
When it comes to coming out
to your parents,

Spanish: 
O simplemente puedes comenzar un grupo tuyo
y explorar tu propia fe, porque
lo último que querrías hacer es
decirle a tus padres que eres ateo, y luego
darte cuenta que: "Quizás no estoy tan seguro".
A veces ayuda el tener
una salida diferente.
Siento envidia de la gente
de hoy que tiene tantos
foros de internet y maneras
de mostrarse como ateos.
Y conseguir respuestas a sus preguntas,
porque en mis tiempos,
no teníamos nada de eso.
No podía decírselo a mis padres.
No tenía amigos
que fueran ateos.
Tenía que ir a AOL usando "dial up", tarde en la noche,
y esperar una hora a que la página cargara.
Y así obtenía mis respuestas.
Incluso entonces, las respuestas venían de locos
en línea, con sus locos sitios web, y
un tiempo después empecé a pensar: "Esta
gente tiene razón", a pesar de estar totalmente locos.
Y ahora existen estos foros
donde puedes
hacer preguntas en Reddit o encontrar
blogs y sitios web, y
sentir esa identidad
y abrazarla, porque
no es nada del otro mundo.
Creo que...
Cuando se trata de decírselo
a tus padres,

Spanish: 
tal vez no sea
lo primero que haría,
pero ellos estaban en la lista
de personas a las que les dije
que era ateo.
Estaban al fondo de esa lista.
Cuando estás en la universidad,
cuando estás por tu cuenta, cuando
tus padres quieren que tengas
una boda religiosa o,
ya sabes,
pasar por algún ritual religioso,
le dices algo como:
"No quiero pasar por eso."
"No es para mí".
Ojalá te respeten eso.
Conozco a muchos adultos que
aún no se lo han dicho a sus padres,
y pasaron por los rituales.
Dejaron que sus hijos fueran bautizados,
tuvieron una boda religiosa
sólo para complacer
a sus padres,
a pesar de que no creían
en nada de eso en aquel tiempo.
Me dan pena, pero solo querían
mantener la paz, por eso lo hicieron.
Yo casi...
Quiero criticar a esos padres cuyos hijos no
pudieron ser honestos con ellos sobre quiénes eran,
e hicieron todo lo requerido
para hacer felices a sus padres, aunque
ellos mismos
no creían en ello.
Espero nunca ser
un padre así, aunque

English: 
it's probably not the first thing
I would do,
but, you know, they were
down the list of people I told
I was an atheist.
They were lower on that list.
But, you know, when you're in college,
when you're off on your own, when your
parents want you to, like,
have a religious wedding ceremony or,
you know,
go through some religious ritual,
you can kind of tell them, you know,
"I don't want to go through that."
"It's not for me".
And hopefully they'll respect you.
And if they don't, I mean, I know a lot of adults
who still haven't come out to their parents,
and they went through the rituals,
they went--
They allowed their kids to get baptized,
they went through a religious wedding ceremony
just to appease their parents,
even though they didn't believe
any of it at the time.
I feel bad for them, but it's just they wanted
to keep the peace, so it's what they did.
I almost--
I want to criticize those parents that their kids
couldn't be honest with them about who they are,
and so they're doing whatever it takes
to make their parents happy, even though
they don't believe it themselves.
I hope I never turned into a parent
like that, you know, even if

Spanish: 
mi hijo termine siendo religioso,
o algo así.
Es una pregunta difícil la de
 cómo decírselo a tus padres, pero
empieza por hacer
algunas preguntas,
empieza con retarlos
en sus puntos de vista.
Y, en el mejor de los casos,
lo que podrías descubrir
es que tus padres
te llevaban a la iglesia,
y te leían la Biblia,
porque pensaban
que es lo que tenían
que hacer,
pero tampoco creían
en nada de eso.
He conocido a muchos
estudiantes que
finalmente le dijeron a sus padres:
"No creo nada de esto."
Y sus padres respondieron:
"Ni nosotros tampoco."
"También somos ateos."
Eso sucede a veces,
es el mejor de los casos.
En la mayoría de las veces,
yo no
lo haría de inmediato. Yo tantearía
su receptividad. Definiría mi posición.
Y, lentamente, facilitaría el camino para el proceso,
y sólo si pienso abrirme completamente.
Algunos argumentan
que tal vez es mejor
si te lo reservas,
porque tus padres
no lo van a entender.

English: 
my kid ends up being
religious or something.
So, it's a tough question about
how do you come out to your parents, but
it starts by raising
some questions,
it starts by challenging them
on their own views.
And, you know, best-case scenario,
what you might actually find out,
is your parents were
taking you to church,
and reading the Bible to you,
because they thought
it's what they had to do,
but they don't believe
any of it either.
I've met a number
of students who
finally told their parents, you know:
"I don't believe any of this."
And their parents are like,
"Phew! We don't believe any of it either."
"We're atheists too."
That sometimes happens,
that best-case scenario.
For the most part,
I wouldn't
do it immediately. I would kind of gauge where
they're at. I would figure out where I'm at.
And then I would slowly ease my way into the process.
And that's if I wanted to come out to them at all.
There are some arguments
that would say, you know, maybe it's a better idea
to just kind of keep it to yourself,
because your parents
aren't going to get it.

Spanish: 
¿Y sabes qué? Si sólo te va
a provocar más problemas
que se lo digas,
tal vez lo mejor sea dejarlos en penumbras en
ese aspecto de tu vida. Espero que eso no suceda,
espero que muy pocos
tomen ese consejo,
pero a veces es la manera más fácil de lidiar
con ello, y respeto a quienes toman ese camino.
Soy Hemant Mehta y escribo
en FriendlyAtheist.com
Si tienes alguna pregunta que quieras
que respondamos en este canal,
por favor, déjala en los comentarios
y trataremos de llegar a ella.

English: 
And you know what? If they're just going
to provide more hassle for you
if you do come out,
maybe it's better just leave them in the dark about
that part of your life. I hope that doesn't happen,
I hope very few people
take that advice,
but sometimes it's the easiest way to deal with it,
and I respect people who take that route.
I'm Hemant Mehta and I write
at FriendlyAtheist.com
If you have any questions you'd like us
to answer on this channel,
please leave those in the comments as well
and we will try to get to those.
