I am a Jew and first generation Canadian. My parents were holocaust survivors who abandoned god when their families were killed by the nazis. Both my parents spoke several languages but the household language of choice has Yiddish. They would speak to me in Yiddish and I would answer them in English.

I married a woman who is a fourth generation Canadian of Irish-catholic descent. As a child, her father would drag the family to church every Sunday. But then he had a secular epiphany – golf – and putting replaced prayer. Today, the sum total of religion in my wife’s family consists of a rapid, mostly incomprehensible, grace before meals.

My wife and I are atheists. There is no hint of religion in our home. After our children were born we started buying a december christmas tree and we purchased a hanukkah menorah that we would light for one night and usually forget for the requisite remainder. We view these as cultural, not religious, icons.

There has never been any religious or cultural conflict in our home before the children were born or since. We have two wonderful teenage daughters. They couldn’t be more dissimilar from one another. The younger is the spitting image of her mother. When she was young she would speak non-stop just as her mother did as a child (or so I’m told and I have no trouble believing it). My wife’s family dubbed her “Chatty”. And 30 or so years later they called our daughter, “little Chatty”.

My elder daughter, with her semitic features, looks like me. She self-identifies as a Jew. Many of her friends are Jewish, she’s traveled to Israel with her Jewish boyfriend, falafels and matzoh ball soup are amongst her favorite foods. A few years ago she attended a sabbath dinner at one of her Jewish friend’s house. She loved the religious components: the songs, prayers and blessings. She came home that night with a sense of deprivation – she had been denied exposure to the religious side of being a Jew.

My younger daughter went to the same daycares and schools in the same neighbourhood as her older sister. She self-identifies as a Canadian of Jewish and Irish-catholic descent. She’s a committed atheist. Right now she’s traveling through Southeast Asia and is far more interested in the history and politics of the region than the religious shrines.

Same home, same upbringing, same environments. How to explain the differences in my daughters’ self-identifications? I have no idea. I do know however, that I feel extremely fortunate that I live in a community - and in a country – where cultural self-identification is a personal choice with no consequences. Not only is it permissible, it’s encouraged.

- Carl in Winnipeg