Stay at Home Moms
tazluvr
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Godparents?
tazluvr
member
I grew up Catholic, but I'm not anymore. I got to a non-denominational church. So, I was wondering if godparents are just a Catholic thing? Do any non-Catholics practice this custom? Do you celebrate it somehow?
I believe all our church does is a "dedication" where they introduce the child to the church.
I was curious.
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Re: Godparents?
I believe that a god parent is someone you would entrust your children too shall anything happen to you, they should have the same morals and beliefs as you. I attend a non denominational church as well. My children have a god mother. I do expect her to be there for them and attend special events in their lives.
I also go to a non-denomination Christian church and I know people there have given their babies godparents. I really don't think people choose them with the intent of having them raise their child if anything happens to them, though, even though that's what is meant traditionally.
A lot of the time the godparents aren't even married, they're just close friends of the parents. I think having a godparent creates a special bond between the godparent and child, which is nice, but for most people I know (actually regardless of denomination) it doesn't mean anything besides that it's a special person in their child's life. I don't think we will have any for our children.
We are Methodist and when we baptized our first two sons we chose godparents and then when we baptized our third son, we didn't. I was raised Catholic and felt that it was important to have godparents for the children - not to raise our child if something happens to us, but to help raise them to be good people.... to give each child two more people in their lives that they can really turn too.... Well, it's been 4 years since we baptized our second son and to be honest, I do not feel that the boys' godparents have really done much more than stand up front with us during the baptism. The one set of godparents (my brother and his wife) don't even go to church and I'm not sure of what their religious beliefs even are. That's why when we recently baptized our third son, we just chose to forgo godparents. I'm not upset that we chose them for our first two children, but I really felt that it wasn't necessary. I think in the Methodist church it's up to the parents if they want to have godparents for the children. I think in the old days it meant much more than it does today.
So, I think no matter what you choose it'll be ok. It just depends if you feel that the people you choose will help raise your child in the faith that they are being baptized in and teach them the same morals and beleifs that you have. I felt that we did it more as a formality and we didn't truly do it for the reasons that we should have.
Good luck with your decision.