Baptism BF...

melundie · September 2016

DH and I had a bit of an argument last night. We were talking about another friend whose MIL is being super judgmental and kind of a nightmare and we transitioned into talking about our own parents. I said something along the lines of, "I'm sure we'll have our challenges raising our LO, especially when your parents find out we're not going to baptize him." At which point DH said something along the lines of, "I think we should just do it to avoid the drama. Whatever. It'll take 2 hours and then we don't have to deal with them being weird or upset."

Cue record scratch.

We don't even belong to a church, but he said we could just take him to his parents' Catholic church...He was raised Catholic and even went to Catholic school. When I first met him he told me he denounced his religion. I know for a fact he didn't go in front of the Catholic church and denounce his faith... I'm still not totally clear if he's told his parents these exact words, but they know he doesn't practice or go to church. I was baptized Catholic, but confirmed into a Methodist church. His parents go to church every Sunday and on other holy days, get their cat blessed, and his dad even gives out sacrament at the hospital where he works. My parents say grace every night before dinner and only go to church on the big Christian holidays.

At this point in our lives DH and I are both Atheist. I don't think there is anything wrong with people being spiritual/religious, if that's what floats your boat, but I am vehemently against organized religion. If one day my kid decides he wants to get baptized/confirmed/whatever I'm certainly not going to stop him. However, the thought of baptizing my first born just to please my in-laws or even my own parents makes me extremely uncomfortable. I am in no way, shape, or form willing to take classes, convert to Catholicism, or stand in a church and swear to God or who/whatever else that I will raise my son to be Catholic or any other religion. That would be a blatant lie and would go against our personal beliefs. DH even told me he doesn't plan to raise LO Catholic, but he thinks I only don't want to do it out of spite. He went on to tell me I should compromise. When I said that's not something I'm willing to compromise on, he told me I didn't have to be a part of it if I didn't want to. As an aside--anyone have any idea if a Catholic church would baptize a child if the mother is unwilling to participate?

I have never had a bad relationship with either of his parents. They were definitely bothered by the fact that we didn't get married in a church, but they got over it. Hubby thinks this would be a huge deal to them. He thinks his parents, and in particular his mom, will make things very weird/uncomfortable if we don't have our son baptized. I think it would be much more weird/uncomfortable for all parties involved if we DO get him baptized because, like I said above, I will not be a part of it. Besides, I'm not sure when or where MIL would make things awkward. Did I mention we don't even live in the same state as them? Right now, without kids, we visit about once a month. They almost never come down to our house (maybe 5 times in as many years). I have a hard time believing she would waste that time whining about not baptizing him. Especially because she never even said anything to me about being upset about us not getting married in a church. I think much like she got over the fact that we didn't get married in a church, she'll get over this and that she is going to love her first grandchild regardless of whether he gets water sprinkled on his head.

In addition to just being really troubled with the idea of having my son baptized, I also feel like if we do this to avoid drama it will just be the first Catholic ritual (baptism, first holy communion, confirmation, et. al.) we will have to unwillingly take part in in order to continue avoiding drama. Frankly, I don't feel like we should have to explain our parenting decisions to either set of parents. He's our son, we get to raise him the way we see fit, just as they got to raise us according to their own beliefs. Hubby keeps going back to the avoiding drama/awkwardness argument. Keep in mind NEITHER set of parents has even brought up baptism. If my parents brought it up, I feel like I could easily say, "No, we don't plan to baptize him or raise him with a particular faith in mind." Even if my parents didn't agree, they're not going to disown me or not love their grandchild because of it. For whatever reason, DH would NEVER say this to his parents.

In the end, we still haven't come to an agreement and at this point I don't think we will. I know I'm not alone here, but this one is really tough. It got to the point where I suggested we table the conversation, but the more I think about it, the more upset I get...:(

acreight13 · September 2016

At the end of the day your LO is yours, and you shouldn't have to challenge your own beliefs about how you want to raise him/her for anyone else. Parenting is hard enough without feeling like you need to cave to other people's wishes or opinions. My H and I got a lot of raised eyebrows and sarcastic comments from his family because we chose not to sleep train our son (who is now sleeping 11 hours a night in his own room with ease) and I breastfed him until he was 15 months old. At the end of the day you and your H need to decide together what works for your family and everyone else be damned. I'm sorry you are going through this but I'm on your side - don't cave just for his parents. It's not about them in the slightest. This LO is yours and your H's - nobody else's!! Best of luck. Would it help to write down your thoughts so they are all organized? I do that sometimes when my emotions are closely tied to an argument. Just a thought.

KatieJo1205 · September 2016

This certainly can be a tricky one. I 100% agree with you that I wouldn't want to stand up in a church and lie about my intentions and that it opens the door for having to do that down the road. From your post it sounds like your in laws haven't even brought this up yet? If they haven't I would just let sleeping dogs lie and not do anything about it. If it does come up, would you be comfortable letting your in laws obtain holy water from their church and bless the child themselves? If your father in law gives out sacrament he must have close ties with a church and they would probably be willing to give him the holy water for this. My Grandmother is super catholic and when her son (my uncle) decided not to baptize his children this is what she did. It gave her the peace of mind she needed that her grandchildren would be able to go to heaven and my uncle didn't have to compromise his beliefs too much. My BF and I are not religious at all and will not baptize our children, but his mom is very catholic. She hasn't brought up anything about it yet so we are not either but if it does come up and seems like it is going to be an issue this is the solution we will offer.

dmontgo · September 2016

If no one has brought it up, then I wouldn't worry about it. As an atheist myself (DH is too), we just don't talk about it. We don't bring up any religious things, and neither of our families (Catholic/Protestant) have not asked nor mentioned anything related to religious upbringing.

I would just keep living and not worry about it.

melundie · September 2016

Well I'm certainly not going to bring it up again, even though that's going to be hard! I am definitely someone who likes to talk out problems.

I never even thought about FIL being able to do a blessing of some sort. That's definitely worth looking into, especially if I don't have to actually go to church or compromise my beliefs. Thanks for bringing that up as a possibility!

leksiL · September 2016

I'm sorry you are going through this. It sounds like your husband is plagued with the same Catholic guilt that my DH has. We are in a very similar situation and before we got pregnant DH always said that we would have to lie and baptize the baby for his parents' sake. I told him I was unwilling to lie and promise to raise our baby Catholic (I'm a lifelong atheist myself so wouldn't be allowed to participate anyway). Luckily he has come around and is now vehemently against it (he is also super against organized religion). I have no idea what caused this change but I hope your husband similarly comes around. Right now at least to us the baby is still a conceptual thing instead of something real. Hopefully when he sees the baby things will change.

We can all acknowledge the grandparents' fears. If the baby isn't baptized the devil roasts it over a spitfire for the rest of eternity (or something similarly scary). We are luckily the babies on that side of the family and so this isn't their first rodeo and they seem to accept that we have no interest in this. They still love us and the baby and they know that as the parents we are the ultimate decision-makers. Good luck!!

phoebecar · September 2016

@melandstevek I can see where your DH is coming from. I too have a DH that wants to make the relationship, especially conversional decisions, as easy as possible with his parents (see why my family is driving me nuts ) sometimes despite what my feelings are on a particular situation. It can make things very difficult in our home for a few days until the situation is resolved.

However, Baptism is not "just another particular situation," it's kind of a big deal- whether you are Christian or not. So I agree with you. You're not discussing what flavor of cake to have for his first birthday or whether or not you're going to let him play with dolls- this is HUGE gesture of the Christian faith that you all don't follow. So I can absolutely understand why you don't want to move forward with this.

I'm not Catholic so I'm not sure how the church would handle that- so I can't be of any help there. But I will say this- this decision will be the first of many, many controversial parenting decisions you will make that you will have to deal with comments coming from either side. They don't like that you BF after the kid is XX old, they don't like that you allow your child to watch Baby Einstein, they don't like that you let your child CIO, whatever the decision you all make- ultimately it's YOUR decisions because you are his parents.

And I think going forward it may be more difficult to explain no confirmation, no First Holy Communion, no other religious services if you allow the Baptism now. You can always explain to both sets of grandparents that you are allowing your child to make the decision to be Baptized or not when he gets older and can make his own informed decisions. That may help assuage some frustrations both with your DH, and both sets of grandparents.

I'm sorry, I know that had to be a very hard conversation to have and is causing you some stress. I agree with PP- write down your feelings and then when you all have this conversation again- you can pull out the paper and feel like you got out all of your points- maybe you'll say something your DH hasn't thought about!

cjt121413 · September 2016

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/5020794/uploads/editor/x9/kda3k99m6viv.jpg

Allow me to be the ant at this picnic and mention that we have lots of ongoing posts where we discuss stuff like this. Perhaps if you'd like to participate here, you might check those posts out.

That being said, you got a bunch of helpful responses from our wonderful board members who are totally nice enough to give kind, well thought out advice to all.

My opinion is that you and your H are grown ups and your ILs should have 0 say in this decision. I think it would be disingenuous to baptize your child into a religion you don't believe in. Your H probably needs to be able to stand up to his parents on this one.

allicat89 · September 2016

I agree with the other posters. Baptism is a big deal, and you and your husband shouldn't feel any pressure to participate in the ceremony. Since most of the pressure seems to be coming from DH's guilt rather than your in-laws, I agree that it might be better to just drop the subject and let things take their course. Besides, in my experience, most men are lazy about events that take extra work to arrange, and a Baptism will require going to the church, speaking to the priest, dressing up, maybe even picking out and sending invitations etc. etc. When he realizes how much work is involved, his own laziness may save you

bookworm8622 · September 2016

I feel some of your pain! My husband's parents are Buddhist, and every few months there is some food or water blessed by someone that my husband and his siblings HAVE to eat/drink. I don't know what would happen if they refused, because I've never seen it happen, but when I ask my husband why he does it he says because it doesn't affect him and it makes them happy.

When we first told our parents we were pregnant, my mom called his mom to say congratulations and make small talk. His mom mentioned some Chinese drink that is traditional for pregnant women to drink for whatever speculative reason, and she would consider asking me to drink it. I think because I've refused the blessed food in the past, she's never brought it up.

So maybe you will get lucky and your DH's parents will know that you don't participate in church activities and not bring it up?

I do worry though about what his parents might try to feed my kid when I'm not around...the bottled water isn't a big deal, but I don't know what the "medicinal foods" are made of or where they come from.

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