Never married, no children, but I guess I've always hoped that any kid of mine would insist on deciding for themselves what they believe anyway.

My husband and I have talked about the possibility of our child being interested in practicing a religion. We're cool with it.

My parents' marriage handled it just fine. They were both raised in very strict faiths which could not be theologically reconciled, and both had experiences of serious challenge to their faiths when younger that caused them to begin opting out of strict observance at the same time as they got together.

They raised us freethinking and free to believe as we wished, but we were also surrounded by the religious rituals and beliefs and services and prayers and practices of our contrasting grandparents. I think of this as a singularly spiritually rich upbringing, actually, as we were exposed in depth to two different traditions. We had a lot of fascinating conversations that resulted in an incredibly strong religious education with a comparitive perspective, which I then continued as a student and today as a student of history and folklore. Probably largely because of this background I worked in Quaker institutions and have adopted that faith as my spiritual path, because it can contain the largeness of my understanding of faith, even contain the possibility that faith is nothing more than a product of earthly experience, and still provide a belief community organized around ethics and drawing on a long spiritual tradition.

Spiritual backgrounds aren't meaningless, but happy families of all compositions exist, so yes, clearly you can have happy outcomes when people of different faiths marry. If there is family opposition, just deal with it. My parents had a lot of that on both sides, but fortunately their families' beliefs in love and forgiveness, to their credit, ultimately proved much stronger than their dogmatic objections. Though there are occasional stories where that doesn't happen, in my experience, that ultimate acceptance is most often the case over long human lifetimes.

But as to your question - it's hypothetical, apparently. I think this is best dealt with in the realm of a real relationship with a specific person as you are making actual plans. Becaause individual personalities and family personalities have everything to do with whether this works or doesn't - it doesn't have very much to do with the religous backgrounds themselves.

As an atheist, I enjoyed being married to a Catholic. I got my Sunday mornings off, the folks at her church introduced me to a great bookie, and the church suppers were delicious. Plus, wine. My stepson was 12 when I married his mom, and I didn't presume to make spiritual/religious decisions for him, but I told him what I (didn't) believe. We left it up to him to go to church or not. He decided to go ahead and get confirmed in the church, and he still attends with his mom and grandma every now and then.

It was not a Big Deal, surprisingly.

Miko, you continue to surprise me with the wisdom of your words. Don't stop being awesome.

Miko couldn't stop being awesome if she tried. Even if she tried to stop, she has so much superfluous awesomeness that nobody would notice.

It's true. That's why my imaginary kid decided to worship her.

The kids are gonna decide for themselves ultimately anyway.

Oh, gosh, don't worry, you guys. In real life I come up waaayyy short of awesome on a regular basis.

but thanks, that is sweet

geez, ANOTHER religion question, hajiboy? Seriously?