No christening. Family issues

You have to be so sure your OH is on board aswel though. My uncle brought his child back from England for a visit where the child's mother didn't want her christened and when he got to Ireland for the holiday went straight to the church as soon as they landed and christened her on the sly. Still think it's one of the most disrespectful things I've ever seen!

Me and my OH are expecting and apparently you tell then now at your scan what you intend to do, I feel really strongly that we shouldn't do it on the child's behalf and they can decide when they're old enough and while he is Catholic he doesn't practise or anything and doesn't feel strongly one way it the other. Was just reading the thread as a guide to how to break it to his family so I finished it and brought a few points up to discuss and apparently he already has them told! His Dad is totally backing us and his mam is freaking out but he said he basically told them it's our decision end of story he was just telling them so they wouldn't get a shock when the time comes! He's a bit of a chicken like that so I can't believe he's done it, especially unbeknownst to me! Love him so much right now!

I think the main thing is letting them know you're not telling them to ask for an opinion, you're doing them a courtesy so they don't embarrass themselves presuming there's a christening and telling people about it! Tbh I think a lot of it is feeling like they're being hard done by not having a fancy day out. Sorry about the rambling I'm just still in shock at my OH :P

Peregrinus wrote: »

Plus, it might help you to talk to a couple of people who were raised as unbaptised children in Ireland - no doubt there are a few on this board, or at least there are people who can point you in the right direction. They can tell you what the experience was like for them, even twenty or thirty years ago.

Yo yo...godless heathen here, ready and willing to help! Looks like you got a lot of the pertinent reasons for not baptising already Whispered, but I'll put in my own experience.

As the eldest child of an atheist "lapsed catholic" and an atheist "protestant", never mind my non-baptism, my parents were already taking a stand just by getting married (in the doorway of the C.C., since neither family would darken the door -literally - of the other church). This was 1971, and it was church wedding or nothing at the time, as far as I know.

Anyhow, non-baptised me got a good few shock reactions from people and teachers growing up in those times (being half prod, never mind atheist was a disaster as a child in 70's Dublin), and my stay in the local catholic N.S. was short-lived (due to an awful teacher, nothing else). Coming from Dublin as I do, there were protestant schools (not like where I live in rural Ireland), so it was an issue only once when a teacher made a massive show of me for NOT believing in a god :mad: That would not happen now, no way.

My two non-baptised boys are now in secondary school and went to the local RCC NS as there was no viable choice within an hour's drive. It was a great school though, and the principal was very inclusively minded. No aspect of the religious teachings have been taken up by my children and neither of them came home saying "god made everything, the clouds, the birds, etc..." because they were left out of RE classes and let go on the computers (they are now computer geniuses).

There was no issue over communion/confirmation as I took each out for the day, and gave them a few euro as compensation (although it was a bit hard on them seeing their mates make in excess of 300 euro in some cases, but they actually each realised for themselves about the bribery aspect for their friends to make their communions). The only problems arose in those years when I was asked (and one other non-religious family) for permission to bring the boys to church for com/con practices as they couldn't supervise them in the school due to lack of staff, or to bring them home. As an atheist, I basically was being required to facilitate the non-curricular faith formation of others in a state school!! Beggars belief (no pun intended).

It's been mostly a non-issue for us tbh, but we were very lucky with our local school - REALLY lucky, when I think of the waiting lists for schools in other areas and the OUTRAGEOUS human rights issue that allows religious schools to discriminate on the basis of religion, while the state cowers away from the fact that our state schools are 95% religious.....sigh.

I'm glad you feel strongly about this Whispered. This is an issue for our country.