My upbringing was also similar, largely because my dad was an atheist (a non-believer from the age of 5 or 6 raised in a Mormon household, awkward all around) and my mother was an agnostic and an early feminist. We also celebrated Christmas and Easter, because those were secular holidays for my parents, but much of other people's religion was bizarre to me. I caught glimpses via osmosis and my grandmother occasionally taking us to her Methodist church, but it was more like an outsider's observation of someone else's mythology. Still is.

My parents mostly didn't care what I read, but the classics very much had that gender and religious bias you noted (a product of the times). Nancy Drew was one of my favorites, though, in part because of her independence and because of her choice to _get things done_. ;)