The other night, I had a terrible nightmare.
In it, I was about to get married. It was one of those horrible stress dreams I used to have a lot in the months before I actually got married: I was late, I hadn’t showered, there was no time to get properly made up and groomed before the wedding ceremony, and no one cared except me.
But this dream had a nice little twist. In it, we were going to be married for a second time. As in, we were already married, but my parents had set up a second ceremony. It was going to be in the Lutheran church (my family was originally Methodist but are now Lutheran). And for some reason, the ceremony was going to transform both me and my husband into Lutherans.
At first, I was more concerned with trying to put on mascara – which of course failed, and I ended up with huge black clumps instead of eyelashes. But then I became rather hysterical about the idea that we were going to take part in a ceremony that would assign us to a religion. My in-laws weren’t there, for some reason. They certainly would be shocked and probably dismayed to hear that their son had become a Lutheran. (In the dream. I honestly don’t think they’d care much in real life.) And my husband was only going along with it to placate my parents, because he adores them.
I think it turned out okay, in the dream. Or morphed into some other dream.
But I know exactly why that was the subject of the dream.
It’s because I watched an episode of this odd reality show called Pregnant in Heels the other day, and one of the pregnant-in-heels women on the show was struggling with her husband about whether or not to baptize their baby. The woman was Catholic and her husband was Jewish, so both were opposed to the other’s idea of religious-induction ceremony.
Anyway, this show made me start thinking about my own future hypothetical baby and what I would do in that situation. And I discovered that the idea of not doing anything just doesn’t sit right with me. (And by the way, if you didn’t have a religious baby welcoming ceremony, I don’t think THAT is weird. In fact, I would love to hear why you didn’t. What I’m saying is, this are my muddled thoughts on something that – surprisingly, to me – is totally personal and different for everyone.)
So when my husband and I drove to Chicago for a conference he was taking part in, I asked him what he thought about the issue.
What you should know straight up is that my husband and I are not religious.
We do not go to church. We do not really identify ourselves as one religion or the other. My husband is entirely fine with this. He is a Man of Science and he hates pretty much everything about organized religion, but especially the evangelical aspects of some religions.
I, on the other hand, don’t mind religion. In fact, I actually really like certain things about religion. Namely the lovely traditions that have been passed down for centuries, the beautiful allegorical stories from religious texts, and – my favorite thing – the sense of joyful peace that accompanies a religious service.
My husband’s parents are Jewish and non-denominational Christian. They are non-practicing in either religion, but my mother-in-law identifies herself as Jewish enough that we did not mention Jesus at all in our wedding ceremony, which was performed by my childhood Lutheran pastor.
My parents – as I said in the bit about the dream which you may have skipped because sometimes reading about others’ dreams is tedious – are Methodists-turned-Lutherans. I was baptized into the Methodist church and then confirmed a Lutheran. I went to church pretty much every Sunday as a child and even taught Sunday school for four years in high school. In college, I sang in my college’s chapel choir. I loved that the most, because the chapel was non-denominational, so we got to hear perspectives on all different religions. Plus, we got to sing beautiful music from religions all over the world.
I don’t miss religion, per se. I feel like I can believe in what I believe on my own time, in my own way. But I do miss the traditions and the music and the lovely peaceful happiness of sitting in a church service. (Not enough to go to a church or temple by myself, mind you. My shyness wins every time.)
But when I think about (possibly) having a kid… The idea of NOT having some sort of welcoming ceremony… a baptism or a brit milah or a simchat bat or what have you… just seems odd.
And yes, I realize that what’s even more odd is that I’m considering these things when we don’t actually belong to a church or a temple. Which probably needs to happen if you want a religious professional to preside over such a ceremony.
But let’s allow that teeny little point to slide a bit for a moment here.
What I can’t pinpoint is why I think it would be weird not to have some sort of religious baby welcoming ceremony.
Maybe it’s because I went through all the religious ceremonies as a kid – baptism, first communion, confirmation – and so it seems like a natural part of child-rearing?
Maybe it’s because I feel like it starts the child off on a good religious foot? We’ll let our kids believe in whatever they want to. But maybe it would be easier for him/her to choose a religion if s/he had a background in it?
Maybe it’s because I love ceremony, the act of speaking the same words and going through the same motions and following the same tradition that have been passed down through centuries?
I honestly don’t know. I don’t think that the possibility of having a child should change our level of religiosity. And yet… some part of me feels a spiritual obligation to give my child a religious background. (If it’s not clear, I don’t care which religious background it is. Jewish or Christian doesn’t matter. What matters – to me – are the solid moral foundation and the you-are-a-small-link-in-a-giant-chain history that religion brings to the table.)
My husband pointed out that he wasn’t baptized and he didn’t have a bris, and that’s okay. He is one of the most kind-hearted, moral people I know. So I know lack of religion hasn’t tainted him. (And, to be fair, he didn’t grow up with a complete lack of religion. He participated in some of the Jewish holidays and even went to a Unitarian church for a short time.)
(When pressed about the issue, my husband noted that he doesn’t think baptism would sit well with his mother. Belatedly, I’m irritated that he said that. I know we want to please our families, but this would be OUR child to raise however WE wanted. But I know he was just talking, and hadn’t really thought about the subject before I dropped it on his head.)
And then he said, “Can we talk about this when we are actually on the path to having a baby? We’ll have 40 whole weeks to talk about all this stuff.”
I let it go. But not without having a mini freak-out inside my brain where I thought, “Those 40 weeks will go by so quickly! And we’ll be preoccupied with morning sickness and hormones and what kind of car seat to buy, not to mention picking a NAME. There’s no way we can leave such an important discussion until then!”
So now I am discussing it with you, Internet.
If you care to share, what sort of religious ceremony did you have/will you have for your baby? If you are not religious, did you do anything similar that I’m just not aware of?
If you and your spouse each identify with a different religion, what did you/will you do when it comes to welcoming the baby into the world? And how did you/will you reconcile your religious differences?
I am seriously interested, so even if you have pages and pages to say on the topic, please say it all!
We’re expecting our first baby in August and have talked about this same issue. My family is Catholic but I wasn’t raised with much religious influence. I did CCD and my First Communion as a kid but we didn’t attend church. I chose not to be confirmed and am not religious now. My husband was raised Catholic and attended church regularly but does not attend mass now. We were not married in the church. He wants to have a baptism for our baby, which is fine with me, but I don’t intend to participate. I don’t know how this will work out or if any Catholic church would even be willing to baptize a child under such conditions. To be honest, I sort of expect my husband will forget about the baptism idea once it falls entirely on him to start attending church and organize a baptism. But, should he go through with it, I’m fine with that. We plan to be very honest with our daughter as she gets older about our own views and let her make decisions for herself when the time comes.
We’ve always understood each other’s religious beliefs (or lack thereof) so this hasn’t been a problem for us. I’m not certain it will go over as well with my mother-in-law. Time will tell…
We are pretty similar to you. We are both from different religious backgrounds (okay, not really, we are actually both from the very same religious background, but I guess what I mean is that we are from very different applications of that religious background) and we don’t really identify with any particular religion. And we don’t go to church, not for any particular reason, just because we never STARTED going to church and habits are easy to stay in.
We meant to have Elizabeth baptized. Actually, I still intend to have Elizabeth baptized. But since we haven’t attended a particular church since she was born, we’ve never actually gotten around to doing it. Which I know sounds like a horrible reason. I actually mean to have the minister that married us (friend of Matt’s family) do the baptizing, but we haven’t seen him since he married us.
Matt and I were both baptized as babies, though one branch of our family now believes in adult baptism only and child blessing instead. I suspect that will be a sticking point when we do finally get around to this whole baptizing thing. But, like you said, OUR baby, not theirs.
Oh my goodness, it is SO WEIRD that you posted about this – I just registered our family at the neighborhood Catholic church so we can have a joint baptism for Adriana and Kid B (we never baptized A because I wasn’t sure how I felt about it until recently – I’m an atheist who was raised Catholic, and Justin believes in God but isn’t religious at all). I do have pages and pages to say on this, and actually have a draft blog post sitting around with some random thoughts in it. I will definitely let you know when I post about it (and will probably beg you to discuss further over email), since I think you might be one of the very few people who can relate to my crazy thought process or can understand the desire to baptize a kid when you don’t necessarily do the religion thing yourself. It might be nice to hash it out with someone who is kinda sorta going through the same thing?
I could (and should) write my own blog post on this topic. I’ll try to keep it somewhat shorter here in your comments section. I’m Jewish, my husband is Baptist and neither one of us is very religious. Though we were both brought up more religious than we are now. We never solidified the “what will our kids be” conversation, what with us not wanting to offend the other person and it really not being a deal-breaker in any event.
So, here we are, almost 7 years of marriage and 2 children later. And, still no closer to an answer. Neither of my sons had a bris, but I didn’t want to have one even if we were going to raise them Jewish – I was more comfortable with a doctor doing it in the hospital. In Hubby’s religion, baptism doesn’t occur until the child is old enough to choose it for himself. The only times of year Hubby and I go to church or temple is on Christmas/Easter and Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur. The kids have come with us to church, but not to temple (as I know they won’t sit through a 2 hour, in Hebrew service).
We celebrate Christmas and Hanukah (the commercial aspects, that is) as well as Easter and Passover in our home. Recently, my 4 1/2 year old started asking questions about what religion he is. I kind of evaded the answer. I didn’t feel it was right to give one without discussing it with Hubby first. His teacher told him he’s Jewish because I am (which, by Jewish law is correct) and then he asked why Daddy isn’t Jewish. These are all tough questions and we just bought him a children’s bible story book, but I’ve only been reading him Old Testament stories. I told Hubby if he wants to read him some New Testament, he can, but I’m not qualified to answer any questions.
Here’s my quandry (I’m wrapping this up, I promise). Hubby’s faith would teach my children that I’m going to Hell because I haven’t accepted Jesus as my savior. Reform Judaism teaches tolerance for everyone and that not everyone is or should be Jewish. I feel like if we had to choose, I would want it to be Judaism just because it wouldn’t have them thinking one of their parents is damned to hell. That has to be traumatic on some level.
I will take any and all advice on this one. Sorry I have none to give you!
Fascinating topic!
I think this is a topic that is not discussed enough before marriage. Sometimes people in their early twenties who may not be overly attached to their faith at that point in their lives get married to someone of not the same faith or someone who doesn’t believe with the same intensity they do, and they don’t discuss the “how will we raise our kid” or have a wing it when it gets here attitude, which is fine…until then they have a kid, realize that they are the person responsible for imbuing their child with a belief structure and then hey! Maybe I am way more religious than I thought I was! This can cause a ton of stress in a marriage.
My husband and I are both non-practicing Catholics, and I have a few issues with the Catholic church….but I baptised all of my kids, and it occurs to me I really should sign my kid up for CCD (religious instruction) since I wont be sending them to a parochial school, and especially since my oldest is only about a year away from the Sacrament of Communion. Even though I am not an outwardly practicing Catholic, the tradition and rites are important to me, which I guess makes me more Catholic that I appear from the outside.
Even though I have problems with some of the beliefs of the Catholic church, I still have a gut instinct of hell no if someone were to suggest that we raise them Jewish or Lutheran or some other organized religion.
So! Three paragraphs to tell you I’m a struggling Catholic. I don’t think I answered your question.
I love this post. I’ll tell you a long winded story that I don’t want to put up on my blog bc I think it might offend my family. Anyways. As you probably know (since you read my blog) I’m Russian and grew up during Communism. I don’t know if you know this about Communism, but since there isn’t just one religion, ANY religion was not allowed and was punishable by something horrible or another for practicing. So when I was a kid from age 0-about 8, I didn’t really know any religion. (although my grandma taught us prayers under a blanket quietly at night). Then Communism fell and suddenly Churches started opening back up. My parents had me Christened at 8, which I didn’t really get but was too young to think anything of it. But because we were used to no religion and religion was just starting back up and most Churches and stuff were completely torn down, we didn’t practice anything. So I grew up with almost 0 knowledge of organized religion. I did however read the Bible because I thought it was awesome. Anyways – obviously there was no religion on my mind pretty much the majority of my life. And on a side note, Jon was confirmed Catholic but then stopped going to everything bc of a divorce thing. So yeah. No religion for us. Until we got pregnant. And then suddenly I thought exactly what you said! I didn’t get to be part of this “clib” of a Church and get to learn religion. And honestly, I feel kinda left out. I don’t know if I would be a stronger believe if I was raised with it. But at least I’d have a choice! Which I didn’t. And I didn’t want Peanut to NOT have a choice. Neither did Jon. So we actually went to a bunch of Churches while I was pg and found one that we LOVED and joined a little while ago and had Peanut Baptized there. SO….LONG WINDED STORY short – I get ya.
My husband and I are expecting our first baby (a boy!) in about a month. Neither one of us come from a religious upbringing – I was baptized Presbyterian when I was born, but shortly afterward we moved and I never attended church regularly growing up. Thus, I’m…not religious! Which was kind of a stickler for my parents when I came to that realization as a teenager. But should we be surprised? Not raised in it, hard to believe in it, yes? My husband was not baptized as far as I can recall but attended Catholic school growing up because it was a better choice than the public school. It pretty much taught him he was…not Catholic.
I’m okay with not baptizing our son, given our religious inclinations. We’ll celebrate mainstream Christian holidays in the mainstream way – my kid will hear the story of Christmas, but he might also hear the story of Buddha or attend Passover celebrations of Jewish friends, etc. He’ll get Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. But there won’t be any water dropped on his head.
On the other hand, my son will have godparents. My best friend and my husband’s best friend will be his Godmother and Godfather. In lieu of a baptism, we’re going to plan a “Welcome Baby” party for later in the summer after we’re into our groove where our families can come and celebrate his arrival with us. There will be food, there will be good family times, and there will be a short announcement by my husband and I about the meaning behind his name (his being named for both his grandfathers) and the declaration of who his godparents are. It’s going to be low-key, but it will be something special for us to have some sort of ritual for the new baby. I’m excited!
Sounds like a tough topic – especially when there are different views on each side of the family. I’m sure when the time does get closer that your hubby will open up more and help you make a decision as a family.
Sorry I can’t be of much help. I’m sure you’ll get great advice 🙂
Once again, very interesting topic. My husband and I were both raised Catholic, but now we are both NOT of the religious variety. We have definitely had our conversations about to baptize or not to baptize and we ultimately decided that baptism is not for us. If our child chooses to be baptized/pursue a religion then he/she is welcome to. My husband and I feel strongly that we can raise a moral child without religion. In retrospect, I dont think it was weekly church services or bible verses that really made me moral anyway. I think it was the environment around me. So, that’s just my two cents. Isn’t it amazing how many questions you suddenly have when you decide a baby might be in the future!
Ooooh this is a touchy one, huh? We had Nolan baptized at about 2 months. Hubs and I were both raised Catholic and with that comes all of the guilt and doom and gloom of babies who are unbaptized WON’T! GO! TO! HEAVEN! But at that time we weren’t even going to church, so we did it at my parent’s church and we were just very disconnected from it all. With Tessa, we still haven’t done it (much to my family’s unncessary (apparently the Catholics (in a very duh-do-you-really-think-God-will-ignore-babies kind of way) have abandoned the belief) dismay.) We’ve recently switched churches (NOT Catholic) and we have to wait to become members before we can baptize Tessa there. So we’re waiting until we’re in a place in which we feel comfortable and at home.
My opinion is to do whatever you and your husband are most comfortable with. It’s a big decision and should be YOUR decision. No one else’s.
We were practicing Catholics when my son was born, so we baptized him. Now we are non-practicing Catholics, but we’re going to baptize our daughter because it seems wrong to do it for one but not the other.
I don’t worry about my kids growing up without the Catholic doctrine, but I do regret that they may grow up without the sense of community and being part of something bigger that going to church provided for me.
I went to the First Methodist Church until I got married. Husband didn’t attend church. We had our son baptised/christened at the First Meth Church even though we didn’t attend church there any longer. Had friends who did not belong to the church as godparents too. Some churches don’t require you to be a member…..and there are plenty of churches who are very open with the studies and philosophies….maybe that would work for you.
My favorite part was this part: “And for some reason, the ceremony was going to transform both me and my husband into Lutherans.
At first, I was more concerned with trying to put on mascara…”
(I left in the space between paragraphs, because I think it was the new-paragraph that made it ten times funnier.)
Another favorite part: “…as I said in the bit about the dream which you may have skipped because sometimes reading about others’ dreams is tedious…” Ha ha ha!
Oh, and “Belatedly, I’m irritated that he said that.” HEE!
We’re not religious, so we didn’t have a religious baby-welcoming ritual. I DID feel a little of an absence there (our families are religious)—but the point of those rituals is to welcome a baby into a religious group, and so it seemed pretty clear to us that it wouldn’t be appropriate for us. (It would have been different if, now that we had a child, we were planning to participate.) (I also think it would have been different if we’d done such a ritual for the sake of our families.) (But as it was, it reminded me of my Christian mother who enjoys participating in Seder: I want to say to her, “It’s a GREAT ceremony, but it’s NOT YOURS.”)
I wish there was a government ritual: we got married by the government because we weren’t religious, so it seems like we should be able to do a similar thing with baby-welcoming! This feels silly to say, but it is nevertheless true so I will nevertheless say it: I felt like it was a “government baby-welcoming” when we applied for (and received) the baby’s social security number (which felt also like Officially Naming him—another thing that’s often a part of religious rituals). It felt like making him official—the way a christening/baptism/whatevs sort of makes the baby official.
In my church babies are given a name and blessing soon after they’re born, but they aren’t baptized until they’re 8 years old. You could consider doing something similar – ask one or more religious figures (pastor, rabbi, priest, etc.) to bless or pray for the baby without necessarily baptizing the baby into a particular church or religion. I’m not sure if a priest, rabbi, minister, etc. would agree to that, but it’s an option to consider.
Great post! Great topic! Great, great, great!!!!
If you had asked me this question 5 years ago, I would have said it doesn’t matter – religion, no religion – as long as you teach some sort of morality you are good to go.
I think that with time and age and wisdom comes an appreciation for religion AND spirituality. I was brought up Greek Orthodox and Brian was brought up Irish Catholic. Both of us have very strong religious backgrounds yet neither one of us have been “practicing” Orthodox/Catholic Christians for the last 10 years outside of the required masses (funeral, Christmas, Easter, etc.) that we had to attend to appease our families.
Like your husband I am also a person of science and realize that most things have an explanation. But what there is no explanation for is how the hell everything got here in the first place and how did it come to be that everything and everyone on some level or another are connected.
As I think about becoming a mother and building a family I wonder what can be so wrong about believing and having faith in religion. All we would be doing is providing a foundation of believing in something that is bigger than we are. Our children will eventually grow to make their own decisions – we are merely providing a base line.
And as far as which arm of Christianity we will be leaning towards it will be Greek Orthodox. Because that is what I am. And what I say goes.
What? I’m the boss 🙂
To me, the solution isn’t about the baby, it’s about finding a church you feel comfortable with. I bet when you do, you’ll find they have (or can create) a ceremony that will fit your needs. I would put that search first and worry about the ceremony itself second.
(For the record, both no longer religious and kid wasn’t baptized nor will he be, much to his grandparents’ chagrin.)
How did you get into my brain???
I’ve been thinking about this A LOT too, especially right after Easter. And, uh, maybe that same episode of Pregnant in Heels 😉
I was baptized/raised Catholic, Ed is Southern Baptist. We don’t go to church regularly (mostly holidays and even then we alternate, usually based on which family we are visiting, which keeps it balanced), but are considering checking out something non-denominational. We were married by a non-demoninational preacher and loved him, his attitude, and the open-mindedness of it all. No “you must convert!” or whatever. Anyway, while I don’t love the Catholic Church’s stance on a few things (women, AIDS/HIV, homosexuals, & birth control to name a few), I think they know how to do ceremonies right, and I love the traditions I grew up with. Ed, of course, wants our (future, hypothetical as of now) kids to also know his roots, since attending church with his grandparents was a huge, happy part of his childhood. And because each church handles its ceremonies differently, we are thinking about “doubling up” on the ceremonies and rites when the kid is little, exposing him/her to both religions (and keeping the door open for other ones through our friends), and rolling with it from there. I mean, both of our religions recognize Jesus, so there isn’t a lot of conflict, unlike the couple on PIH, ya know? Maybe this is a lame or confusing way to do things, but it feels fair to us and I think our families will appreciate incorporating everyone rather than “picking a side” and being exclusionary.
Or maybe we’ll just join a cult and start anew. Possibilities!
I feel like I should know the answer to this, but have you read ‘American Wife’ by Curtis Sittenfeld? I’m rereading bits of it, and just today I read this, and thought you might like it in that it might be something of a kindred feeling to what you’re experiencing. The narrator, Alice, grew up in a church-going family but lost her faith after a tragic accident many years ago; now she’s in her late thirties and has a young daughter.
“I considered it important to raise Ella in the church, if for no other reason than that years in the future, should she wish to take solace in religion, she would have a foundation for doing so; she would not need to seek it out as a stranger.”
(The actual passage is much longer, and lovely–if you haven’t read the book, I’d HIGHLY recommend! In the passage she talks about how–well, I’ll just type out juuuuuust a little bit more of it. Haha. “That the world was miraculous, frequently in explicable ways, I would not argue. That these miracles had any relationship to the buildings we called churches, to the sequences of words we called prayers–that I was less sure of.”)
Such an interesting question, though! God is such a real and meaningful presence in my life that I would of course want that for my children as well, but in terms of ceremony, I’ve always believed that a person’s faith is something incredibly core and vital to his/her identity, and for that reason I wouldn’t do a baptism of my own child as an infant, just because I feel like baptism is a profession of faith and the baby wouldn’t be professing it himself. But I love baby dedications, where the congregation gathers and prays for the baby and commits to being a positive presence in the baby’s life.
Non-religiously, there’s a Chinese tradition called a (roughly, in Cantonese) moon yeh/red-egg-and-ginger party, which is kind of a celebration of the baby’s … debut, I guess. Traditionally I think you have it when the baby’s 100 days old, but it’s much more lax now. I hope to do that with my future children.
I only have 18 of those 40 weeks to go and we haven’t really discussed this yet. Oops. I mean, we’ve talked about religion and all that, but having the baby baptized (or not)? Not so much.
We don’t go to church. Joel was raised very Christian. I have a feeling his parents will not be pleased if the baby isn’t baptized. I was raised non-practicing Catholic, turned practicing Catholic for a while, and am now half-Buddhist, half-nothing. I have no interest in baptizing our baby (or finding a church to perform such a rite, heck, finding a nondenominational pastor who wasn’t a complete kook to perform our wedding was enough of a headache). But I’m wondering just how much familial discord this will cause. My dad (who has never once attended church in the 30 years I’ve been alive) asked out of the blue if we were having the baby baptized a few weeks ago. Apparently he feels strongly? (I told him UMMMM, sure!)
Anyway, I have no desire to do any sort of baptismal rite, but I have a feeling we’re going to get pressured into it.
We are not particularly religious, but we were raised in basically different denominations of the same religion, so we don’t really think we’ll have a problem. Also, my husband is less religious than I am without being specifically anti-religion so the decision will be mine. I think that made sense.
I’ve thought about this a lot, too, although we are not close to having babies nor are we sure we even want babies. I was raised Catholic and confirmed, rebelled in high school by going to a Southern Baptist church, and then at some point simply stopped believing in anything. One extreme to another – I now identify as a non-theist although I do enjoy studying Buddhism as a life philosophy (as opposed to a “religion” if that makes any sense). Because I have been so close to very evangelical religions and then did a complete 180, I think I have more of a distaste for organized religion than does my husband, who considers himself an agnostic though he was (loosely) raised Methodist.
There are several reasons why I think it would be beneficial to raise a child in a church, one is giving him/her a foundation for understanding religious allusions in western literature (um yes I’m an obsessive reader), and another, which has been mentioned, is giving them a foundation for educated choice later in life. But. BUT! How can I, in good conscience, try to raise a child in a religion in which I neither believe in nor necessarily condone?
The one “middle ground” idea I had was to take my child to a Unitarian church, which I have attended before and liked (I quite enjoy the ceremony and ritual of religion, I simply don’t believe in god and I despise proselytizing). That way, there is a foundation of religion but also the idea of “there are many paths and you get to pick one.” But my husband is the very black&white, pragmatic type who would not see the point in the Unitarian church. What’s the point if they don’t have an actual belief system?
So yeah, those are my thoughts!
We did bless Ella, but we’d always planned to as we are very religious (Mormon/LDS). One of the things I love about baby blessings in the LDS church is that if the father is a practicing member, he gets to be the one to give the blessing, rather than one of the church leaders. Watching my husband bless our sweet baby was such a lovely thing.
This is very timely for me. We’re having our second daughter’s welcoming ceremony in a couple of weeks.
My husband is Muslim and I’m Catholic, although neither of us is practicing. When we got married, we ended up creating our own service, and took a lot of it from unitarian resources and including elements from both of our traditions.
We have done the same thing for our daughters. We bring everyone together, talk about why we chose her name. We make promises/vows to her, and include the big sister, grandparents and community. Then we do a head shaving (which is the muslim tradition) and then a blessing with water and oil (the Catholic tradition) and light a candle. We also print the whole thing out as a program so everyone gets a copy.
It works for us and I love how personal it is.
Personally I think these sorts of ceremonies for babies are actually for the parents only. Sort of like super elaborate first birthday parties. The child has no idea what’s going on and can’t be involved in the decision making process. My personal beliefs are that we make our own decisions, when we’re ready to make them. So baptism/confirmation, etc should be up to the child, when he/she understands what they believe and want to take some action. I should mention I was raised Baptist and still attend a Baptist church when I can wake up in time to herd the children and get there, which is not often right now. So I am obviously biased by my beliefs. I think if you want to do this – you should, it’s for you and it’s something you want. I don’t get why anyone that believes something else should have a problem with it, because their opinion would be that what you’re doing doesn’t affect the child/future or whatever, so what do they care if you want to have a ceremony. So… if you want a baptism/ceremony and a little party, go for it. If you don’t, that’s cool too. Holy crap, I ramble.
I am in a similar situation, in that my husband and I are not (and were not before we met) religious at all. My husband was baptized some form of christian (I forget now which one) and I am not baptized, but my family background is protestant. My mom had the idea that she would bring me to church every week and then when I was an adult, I could choose which religion and whether to be baptized. But then my dad got sick when I was 4 and died when I was sick and we never went to church again. I have a few memories of Sunday school, but that’s it.
My husband was baptized and confirmed, but then minored in religion in college and decided to un-confirm himself. He went to the church and asked the minister? or reverend or whatever he is called at his church to un-confirm (de-confirm?) him and the man said he is the first person to ever request such a thing. I guess there is no special paperwork or anything, you just stop going and that is good enough. But apparently my husband felt strongly enough about NOT being his religion that he wanted it to be official.
Neither of our children are baptized and I admit to feeling fearful about it. Mostly because, what if you really do need to be baptized or else go to Hell, for real??? A friend of mine wants to baptize me and my children herself…apparently you can do that. But, then I try and remind myself that other religions don’t have that rule about baptism/original sin. What decent God would send my kids to Hell because *I* didn’t baptize them?
I turned out to be a very nice person with good morals without going to church, but part of me wishes I had been brought up going so I wouldn’t be afraid of church and I sort of want that sense of “community” that people talk about and I like the idea of going as a tradition and for family togetherness. But at the same time, I like having my weekends open to do whatever.
I also don’t even know what church to go to. I know that I don’t believe in the whole Jesus as our savior thing, but I believe in some higher power/God-like being. I don’t really know what church I should go to, given my beliefs. I feel like I have beliefs similar to the Jewish faith….but I am not Jewish by ancestry (I come from a very long line of protestants dating back to the 1600s) so I don’t feel I should become Jewish….I dunno.
Good luck with whatever you decide!!! Obviously there is a lot to think about!
I worry about how to handle the blessing/christening of hypothetical babies too.
For me, it’s less about what to do, so much as whether to do anything at all. My husband and I and both of our families come from the same faith tradition. But neither my husband or I are currently active, and while he’s more so just passively not going, I don’t attend because I’ve got issues with it.
I like the idea of welcoming a child in a religious ceremony. I know it would make our families happy, and maybe even my husband. I don’t want to be the one roadblock, but having my kid welcomed in a ceremony I have issues with to make other people happy really bugs me. Oh well, fortunately we don’t have to figure anything out anytime soon.
We have a similar situation. I was raised as a Southern Baptist. In high school we started attending, and ultimately joined the Methodist Church. I have a very deep faith, but do not attend church regularly and haven’t in many years. My husband was raised Methodist, but like yours is a man of science and philosophy and detests organized religion. He also struggles with his faith and spirituality. He often says that he admires my spirituality. However, we have reached a consensus about this topic. I hope this helps.
We both agree that children need “miracle stories” and the opportunity to develop faith and spirituality. Like us, we want our children to have the experiences of ceremony and community offered by going to church. We also want our hypothetical children to chose their own spiritual path – albeit with the same direction and guidance we were provided. We will christen our future children in the Methodist Church, and attend church with the children. I suspect there will be times that what our children learn in church will conflict with what husband and I believe but we will cross those bridges when we come to them.
This is a VERY interesting topic – and one that I think should be resolved in advance of having children. Hopefully your husband will be willing to discuss this again pre-pregnancy.
My ex and I were both raised Catholic. Neither one of us was particularly religious and we didn’t go to church but when each of the kids was born we did have them baptized and, believe it or not, they went completely through the Catholic school system – and, yes, I was at church every Wednesday for the kids church day and then we went to church as a family on Sunday.
Even though we weren’t religious it was our choice and I feel it’s a choice we could make because we were raised with a foundation of something to believe in and it was important to me that my children have that as well. I really don’t care what religion they end up being, if they choose to be one at all, but I’d like to think that they had some basis of knowledge to make that decision.
And for me it may have to something to do with my upbringing as well. While I may have been raised Catholic, my family (mom, dad, grandparents, siblings and their spouses and children) contained the following religions: Lutheran, Agnostic, Jewish, Episcopalians, Catholics, Baptists, and Methodists.
Good luck.
I am a practicing Catholic and my husband was raised Catholic, even though he doesn’t go unless I make him. 😉 We will be baptizing our children and raising them as practicing Catholics, because my husband defers to me on things religious and moral like that. I think it’s a good framework in which to rear a child. It’s also my belief that baptism is what you do for a child, to save them from original sin. And who wouldn’t want to do that?
My mother was a Scottish Episcopalian and my father, if asked, would probably say he’s a very, very lapsed Church of England protestant. His mother and mine pretty much came to blows about my christening bla-bla, so in the end I simply wasn’t christened at all. This has never been a problem for me (except in middle school when all those getting confirmed could skip two games lessons a week and that alone made me want to get christened/confirmed, but my mother said that was a rubbish reason so it never happened).
Now I live in France and have 2 daughters. Their father was raised Jewish (and how) but kind of wandered away from that, deciding about 10 years ago that he wanted to become protestant (nothing to do with me – you’d be hard pushed to find anyone less religious than I am). He pushed hard for this and eventually got himself and both our daughters christened in 2006 (they were aged almost 5 and 2.5 at the time).
Since he had his mental conniption fit last year (too long and painful to go into but it’s all in my blog if you’re interested) he’s become more religious than ever and spends all his time with friends from the church (though it’s strangely called a Temple here in France). My daughters do Bible Study there once a fortnight and are becoming fully integrated members of the French Reform Church. I’ve accepted all this but am drawing the line at the “Eclaireurs” (a French scout movement for protestants, as the actual scout movement is very much Catholic here) as I just don’t like it. My ex seems to be OK with this for now.
The girls would also be in a protestant school, except there isn’t one, so they go to a catholic one instead (I know, this is all such a mess), whilst their grandmother (my ex-MIL) persists in doing the Jewish thing with them whenever she can. I suspect I wouldn’t be so against it if I didn’t dislike her so much, but she brings me out in hives.
Sorry this is so long but it’s a tough subject round here!
I’m so fascinated to read other’s peoples’ opinions on this. We are both Catholic, so it’s kind of a no-brainer for us. Our future kiddos will be baptized in the same church we were married in, that we go to every weekend, that our niece and nephew were baptized in, etc. One of the few things we won’t have to make a decision about!
While I was growing up, the only times I set foot in a church were weddings or funerals. The older I got, the more curious I got about religion in general, but because no one in my family was religious I was uncomfortable bringing up the subject of church. Once I had my girls, I had a longing to learn more, to sort of try things out and see if raising them in church was something I wanted to do. (By this time, I was a single mom and got to make all the decisions by myself, which made the process a little easier.) Over a few years, I found a church that was right in line with what I believed, had a wonderful kids’ ministry, and we really got involved and made it “our church”. I went through membership classes, and decided to have us all baptized a few months ago. It was really cool (to me) for all three of us to get baptized together. That being said, with all the things I love about the church, if when they get older, decide it’s not for them… That’s cool. It was important to me that they have SOME KIND of religious background, even if to grow up and go “no, thanks”.
I’ve been in a new relationship with B for three years now. We are planning on getting married and having at least one more kid. B grew up Catholic, has an extremely Catholic mother, yet B has NOTHING to do with the Catholic church anymore. Really, any church for that matter. He thinks that most churches are scams, and believes that evolution is a more probable theory to go on. When (if) we have a kid, I intend on having her/him baptized, and B is cool with that. His mother probably won’t be too thrilled about having a Presbyterian grandkid, as she has put her other granddaughter through parochial school and makes sure she attends church every week, but considering her son’s view of religion… She will probably just be glad the baby won’t be raised “a heathen”, lol.
My husband and I are not spiritual either though we both celebrate the major Christian holidays. Like you, in enjoy going to church, but do it infrequently. On the other hand, my husband does not like anything religious.
When we have a baby, I would like to have a “welcome to the family” type of event that would be like a baptism, but without the actual baptism. In my imagination, this would begin with some kind of ceremony led by us or people we would choose to be the baby’s supporters (i.e. God parent alternatives) and would include readings and poems. After the ceremony, we’d all eat a meal and have a party like most people do after a baptism. And we’d take our first family pictures.
My husband and I are similar to you and your hubby. I was raised Pentecostal then switched to Southern Baptist and my husband was non-denominational. My father use to lead Sunday School when I was growing up, so we are going to have my father do a baby welcoming ceremony. I think we will have it at our house, invite both sides of the family over, and have a little reception. I would like to do it next month when our baby is 6 months old. We were members of a church, but do not go at all anymore. Organized religion is not hubby’s thing and truthfully it is about your “good works” vs your attendance record in church. There are so many beautiful readings you can have at a baby blessing/welcoming that does not have to take place at a church. You can always hire an officiant to come to the location of your choice for the occasion. There are so many options out there now.
Thanks for this post. This topic is very timely in my life as well and that Pregnant in Heels episode really hit home with me (which I can’t say about any other of those episodes or show on Bravo!). My boyfriend and I are different religious — he was raised Catholic but is not very religious; I was raised Jewish and while I am not very religious, I definitely identify as Jewish and it is important to me to have a Jewish home. I guess it is the cliche, but I think true, cultural vs religious leaning.
I have said since we started dating over a year ago that I wanted to raise my children Jewish and I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a baptism or anything like that. When I watched that episode, I thought that, even though I think I am much nicer about it, I feel strongly about it like that wife did and I made those feelings clear early on so he could decide if he was ok with that. As we are close to being engaged, we actually met a couple of times with an interfaith counselor to make sure we were both on the same page and were comfortable with the compromises we would both make, of course understanding we could never plan for or anticipate everything or even close to everything!
As for a religious welcoming ceremony, my boyfriend had a big issue with a non-doctor performing a circumcision 8 days later if we had a boy, so I think a formal bris would be out. But we could still have a naming ceremony for this hypothetical son should we be in that situation. He doesn’t identify much with any religion so he doesn’t have a particular ceremony he cares for. Although if I had my choice, i would probably like a bris, I definitely see this as a place for compromise and as long as there is still some Hebrew blessing going on, I’m cool with it.
But to your question of why it is so important to you even though you are not religious, I struggle with that as well. Many of the things I want in terms of religion are just because of the tradition or that is what I am used to, it is not because I am actually tied to the doctrine (or even know entirely what the doctrine is). So sometimes I wonder as well why I am so intent on some things. But perhaps tradition is enough.
Anyway, sorry for the novel! Thanks for bringing this topic up, I enjoyed reading all the comments. There really are so many options out there now as people have said. Thanks!
Hey! I finally wrote my post on the topic – let me know what you think when you get a chance to read it!
http://diniwilks.blogspot.com/2011/05/to-baptize-or-not-to-baptize.html
Hey there! I was blog hopping and came across this post. You have kept me up for quite some time thinking about my own beliefs and going back and forth on all of the comments! Ha! In fact, thanks to your post, I think I am going to do a series on my blog in a few days about my background and beliefs – I have written it, just want to let it settle for a day and will reread prior to posting.
Anyway, I hope you dont mind, but I wanted to mention one thing – nondenominational typically refers to christian churches who strive to only follow the Bible and not go by mans doctorine. Interdenominational {I think} is the one who is open to all beliefs and theology. A few people had commented on it as well and as I attend a nondenominational church, I wanted to mention the difference in the two 🙂
Thanks for the insightful post. I think it is great to contemplate and discuss topics like this as it sheds light on and helps people to delve deeper into themselves and seek out who they are.
Should you want to read my post on organized religion, it will go up this weekend and feel free to check it out after that!
Happy blogging,
Lauren
http://www.talkofthetrains.com
I would TOTALLY try your hardest to work this out BEFORE pregnancy hormones which are BEYOND wild. I mean, it is IMPOSSIBLE to think rationally which means it isn’t fair to either one of you. We had Gooner dedicated to God as a baby. We pray that she makes a decision to follow Christ and chooses, as an expression of faith, to get baptized as an adult. I don’t think any of the things mentioned “get you into heaven” but they ARE special AND it is a time where friends and family can gather to celebrate your baby. ALSO, this is my soap box, as a stay at home Mom, the Church provides a lot of opportunities for Gooner. She LOVES the nursery and learning about Jesus. Like you mentioned, I feel this gives her a foundation for the future. I am surprised that you don’t care at all. I mean when you look at the doctrine of Jews, Catholics, Evangelical Christians….it is all very different. Don’t you care WHAT your child learns? OR would it be strictly just a “thing to do” so it really doesn’t matter? But why would you register or become members of a church ONLY for this UNLESS you believe in some way? Sorry lovie, I don’t get it.
I stumbled onto your website here from a friend’s, and want to put in my 2 cents! Pregnancy and motherhood are the most exciting, and confusing experiences I have ever been through! I am also LDS (I think there was one other post) and we don’t believe in baptizing babies because they are not capable of sin, and we don’t believe in original sin (people are not punished for the sins of their parents…) Therefore there is no need for baptism until an age when children can clearly distinguish between right and wrong – in our religion this is age 8. Anyway, what we do when we have babies is give them a name and blessing, and I have to say this was such a sweet experience with our two boys. My husband blessed them with things like the desire to serve others, gain a good education, and seek good in the world around them. Good luck in your decision!
We have frittered away at this for 4 years next friday. well, 4 years and 39 and a half weeks, I guess. He is a Catholic in good standing, confirmed and everything. He’d just have to confess and he’d be good to go. Except I am a raised but never confirmed Catholic, whose mother managed to get her first (shotgun) marriage done by a priest. Which has never been annulled. So, He has been living in sin with me for going on 20 years. It’s worked out fine.
We took my daughters to church for a while, until I realized that we were spending a good quarter of our every other weekend going to church mainly to counteract the effects of the time they spent in their dad’s church. At their dad’s house, they caught the church bus. Do they have these outside the south? Evangelical churches often have them in order that kids can go to Sunday school before. Or children with hypocritical dad’s who don’t actually go to church themselves can send their children. I am only criticiszing HIM about this. their step mom had two kids under age 3 at this point and I don’t friggin’ blame her for not getting all 4 children to church. In fact, maybe they mostly caught the bus to get them out of her hair. I can understand that. (I’m wonderfully sympathetic to her since he left her for his 3rd wife.) Anyway, I was worried about them growing up in a religion that specifically denigrated my (non) religion but after awhile, I decided they were intelligent enough to interpret that hypocrisy for themselves. From that point, Catholic became the church we didn’t attend.
And they did. Child #1 fell deeply in love with an Episcapalian boy as a freshman and began going to youth group with him, in the south, dating via church activities is perfectly normal. She chose to be baptised and confirmed and now, Episcopal is the church she doesn’t wake up in time to attend. The boyfriend recently completed seminary in the Anglican/Catholic Church, having become more and more devoted to God.
Child #2 was invited to be in a friend’s Quincenera, in order for THAT girl to be admitted to the Q mass, she had to begin confirmation classes. So, my daughter and she was baptised and confirmed and I think has been to mass twice since. (A 3rd friend also joined the confirmation class and her mother confided to me that the whole thing was obviously an answer to the mother’s prayers as she’d been upset about her daughter beginning to pull away from the church.)
And then, a few years after all that, their stepdad and I had a son. Both our mom’s are bothered by the lack of Baptism. I’m vaguely of the mind that we should spend some time as church goers. Just enough to give him the idea. But that seems hypocritical.