Telling my parents about my (lack of) beliefs (in gods)

A little while ago Greta Christina asked on her most excellent blog for people who had come out as an atheist to tell their story. I had struggled with if and how to tell my parents for a couple of years and after reading her book What Are You Athiests So Angry About? (which you should definitely read no matter what your thoughts are on the question of any god's existence) I decided it was time. Below is copied from the comment I made on Greta's blog.

I have been an atheist for years after being rather religious through high school, but never said much about it except to close friends. I have become much more outspoken about atheism the past few years (wearing the occasional atheist t-shirt, telling more people, reading books and magazines about atheism on the subway), but had been avoiding telling my parents who are religious Evangelicals. I don’t see them very often, I live in New York City and they live in California, so the topic doesn’t seem to come up. I suspect they had some suspicions over the years, but nothing had ever been explicit, perhaps it was the elephant in the room, and I really wanted them to know so struggled over the past couple of years with how to tell them. I was not entirely sure why I felt they needed to know before, but they have always been happy to talk about things like Celebrate Recovery and other things they do with their church, and I felt I had to be honest with them about my views, which they never really asked about. Greta’s book helped push me over the edge.
The Reason Rally and the Lobby Day before the Reason Rally gave me what I felt was an excellent opportunity because I could talk about being in DC and slip in why I was there without a glaring “Hey Mom and Dad, I am an Atheist, God doesn’t exist, So whatdyathink”. I wrote them an email describing the weekend and how much fun my wife and I had, mentioning the Lobby Day, briefly saying what it was, how interesting I had found the entire process meeting Congress folks, and how I felt being on the Mall for the Reason Rally and what it was, all very low key. I nervously hit the Send button and waited.
Email to my parents is never answered quickly, so I waited nervously for a few days, wondering if I had been excommunicated from the family. Finally, one day I see a response from my Mom in my Inbox and I nervously clicked on it.
“Did you see the cherry blossoms?”
That was it.
My mother has always been very big on ignoring chunks of my emails, so I wasn’t sure whether telling her was a non-event, something she’d always known, or was a case of “I can’t hear you… nah, nah, nah”. So, after a birthday greeting from her a week or so later I wrote another letter thanking her for continuing to include me in her life as I had heard about many people telling their family that they didn’t believe in God and found themselves booted from the family.
Nothing was ever acknowledged. I went to visit her for Mother’s Day since I was on the West Coast. Nothing came up. I rode with my Dad to the restaurant. Nothing.
So, all in all, a non-event. My wife had suggested, knowing their penchant to talk about themselves and never ask about us, that they might not say anything at all, and her prediction proved true. My mom continues to say how she thanks God I am in her life. I am sure she’s trying to convince God to change my mind. So life is the same as it always was.

The one thing I spaced answering that Greta had asked was what would I have done differently after seeing what happened. I have thought about that some, and am not sure. Mostly I just wanted my parents to know, to have another data point about me. And not just suspect they knew, but explicitly know. My sister had known for years, but she is pretty laid back and understanding (she is also a Catholic, though I have never been quite sure how seriously), but my parents were another matter. If I had wanted a response, then I should have told them with me standing in front of them. It would have been a much harder conversation, much easier to hide at the other end of a cross country fiber-optic cable, but they would have had to say something rather than keep all of their thoughts to themselves. But all in all, everything seems to be fine.

At least I hope it is. In my ever hopeful desire to talk about something with my parents that isn't just about weather or how it sucks to get old, I keep bringing things up, like a secular government being important for folks to have their religion, or lack thereof, be properly protected. I finally got a couple of small responses from my Dad, but they haven't gone into much detail from his side. Hopefully he will still be happy to see me next time.