..to not have a christening?

[BabyCub]

(My first thread, so please be gentle with me!)

I am pregnant with DC number one (due in August) and during banter with friends a few have said ?Oooh, I hope I get to be godparent?. Their response to ?we?re not going to have DC christened? was ?but you must!?

Must I? I don?t believe in God. I don?t go to church. I am uncomfortable with organised religion. DH shares my views, and we didn?t get married in a church for those very reasons. I personally feel hypocritical taking vows in front of, or making promises to a God I don?t believe in.

DH & I are very much in agreement that we won?t be having a christening. We are looking into other options ? a secular / humanist naming ceremony, or a welcoming party of some sort. With ?mentors? rather than godparents. Something informal & relaxed, in our garden perhaps. We want our family & friends to be able to celebrate the arrival of our DC, and to feel involved, but without the religious stamp.

If DC feels the need to explore religion when they are older (and able to make their own, informed decision about it) then I have no problem with that. In fact, it is exactly what I did ? I wasn?t christened as a baby. My best friend whilst I was growing up went to church every Sunday with her parents, quite often I went with her. I explored Christianity for a fair few years, I was christened and confirmed. I eventually realised it wasn?t for me.

AIBU? Or did my friends & family react that way because it is ingrained in our society that christening your child is the ?done thing? (even if you are not a churchgoer).

[hogsback]

somewhere that why I said sometimes it feels like I live in a parallel universe :) I wonder why it is though? Generally you would think the countryside to be more conservative and therefore more churchy.

[CheerfulYank]

Oh, that sounds beautiful artymoo . :)

[artymoo]

Hope that you have made your mind up not too have one after all the comments! We felt exactly the same and ended up having a flower service, not religious!, where everybody brought a flower. Most flowers have a meaning or message and we pressed ours for our son to have in the future, along with peoples messages that came with them.

[Seona1973]

dh's family seems to do christenings for the sake of it as none of them go to church - him and his siblings are christened and his sister has had her 5 kids christened. I wasnt christened and neither of our children are either.

[CheerfulYank]

That's interesting...both to Grimma and Somewherewest .

[somewherewest]

PS Hogsback,rural areas aren't necessarily representative. Here in Oxford I can think of one city centre Anglican church with an average attendance of one thousand spread across three services a Sunday, almost all students and twenty/thirty somethings (I'm 31 and the congregation at their main Sunday evening service makes me feel ancient!). There are several other churches in the city orientated towards young people / young families with attendances well into the hundreds. Oxford is a little more churchy than average (ditto Cambridge - the Oxbridge student body has more than its fair share of Christians for some reason), but I can think of lots of equally big under-forty congregations in plenty of other cities. The three-old-ladies-in-a-musty-church school of rural Anglicanism isn't terribly representative of anything.

[somewherewest]

As a Christian I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. If you aren't Christian and don't intend to bring your DCs up as Christians then it makes no sense to christen them. To be honest I have a lot more respect for your position then for people who go ahead with Christenings even though they don't believe in anything

[GrimmaTheNome]

Its more that the state is anachronistically religious but most people aren't.
The US is the opposite.

[CheerfulYank]

Really hogsback ? Reading Mumsnet would never give me the idea that you're an incredibly religious country.

[Ballyxxx]

Dp and I didnt get our DS's christened. We arent married but when we do it willl be a civil ceremony. Sil couldnt believe we wouldnt get them done and kept asking us why so I said 'Well why did you get your children christened?' and she said 'well...um...i dont know...just because its the done thing!'

[hogsback]

Scholes34 - could be. I live in a very rural area and by the look of it, the average age of the congregation at the church in the nearest village is about 93.

I don't know anyone locally under 50-60 who is religious, it just seems to have died out (or of course people may become religious as they get closer to the end of their lives.)

The craziest thing is (and I've moaned about this on MN before) the junior school in the village has church attendance on the entrance criteria, although luckily it is not oversubscribed so it's not really an issue.

I imagine it is different in big towns and cities with larger immigrant populations who tend to come from more religious countries.

[Scholes34]

hogsback - could it be a big city v smaller city/town thing? I know lots of people in my small town who go to church, but none of my close circle of friends go to my church - they go to different ones. All the toddler groups are run by church groups too.

[hogsback]

I sometimes think I live in some kind of parallel universe I don't know anyone who has had their children christened and I don't know anyone who thinks it's a big deal that we didn't have DS christened - I think it would have caused more of a stir if we had had him christened.

Honestly, who are all these people who are so religious, because I never meet any of them!

Reading MN you would think that we live in an incredibly religious country but my impression has always been that the UK is one of the most agnostic countries in the world.

[PuppyMonkey]

Did you know some register offices do baby naming ceremonies now? No need to mention religion and you can just nominate people to be mentors for your child and have a big party afterwards. you get a little official certiciate type thing and stuff. All seems quite a nice idea.

[irregularegular]

We didn't have a christening- I didn't consider it for a moment, and everyone we know would have been shocked if we did. We didn't get married in a church either. Very few people I know have had their children christened. As an adult, I think I've only been to two christenings and one 'naming day.'

I wasn't christened myself either - which did bother my grandmother apparently. She thought I would go to purgatory.

[LadyWithNoManors]

None of my 3 DC's have been christened.
It would be hypocrytical to. We don't go to church.

[Scholes34]

YANBU. I think it's fair for you to make your own decision about your own children. However, with regard to comments along the lines of "my children can make their own informed decision", I feel my three DCs are in a position to be able to make their own minds up with regards to christianity. I married in a church, all three DCs have been christened and have taken their first communion. We don't go regularly to church, but the DCs have been often enough to understand what goes on in the service and the kind of atmosphere to expect in a church. Therefore, their decision on whether to take their faith further or not is well-informed and it's not like they've been tainted in any way by being baptised or taking their first communion.

[ticklebug74]

I have never understood why people, who have no intention of taking the DC to church and practising the religion, go ahead and christen their DC. I have had similar comments and several heated debates over our choice NOT to christen.

My MIL who has never gone to church was mortified and even cried believing her DGs are not children of God. WTF!

I just don't see the point unless you are going to follow through with church, bible studies etc, and it is VERY hypocritical to do it just because it is the done thing and I think that is a very poor example to set for your DC. All my friends DC have been christened and not one of them attends church (not even on a semi-regular basis) and I know my friends look oddly at my point of view but don't really care.

My DC are my responsibility and I don't want to impose any sort of religion on them until they can make up their own mind!

Anyway, sorry for the waffle, the point is your DC are your responsibility and you have to make the right choices for them, and I think it is far more important to show them love, respect and teach them right from wrong etc etc, and you certainly do not need religion to do this.

Don't be bullied into something that does not feel right for you and your family.

[GrimmaTheNome]

Thanks fluffles - I'd assumed that confirmation would have to precede being a communicant. I grew up in a nonconformist church (URC) where the equivalent of confirmation ('being received into membership') with classes etc came before taking communion - at about 15/16.

[fluffles]

Grimma - No, first communion and confirmation are different. Confirmation is about between age 11 and age 14ish.. first communion is about age 7ish.

i think confirmation is 'supposed' to be around 14/15 but many primary schools cover it at the end of primary school because there's not a lot of time for it in the secondary curriculum. it's doubtful about whether most 11yr old have 'made their own mind up' but more so than infants or first communion age kids.

[5DollarShake]

I would loved to have not had the DC Christened, but it was important to DH. If it was up to me they most certainly wouldn't be. Was probably the biggest fight of our relationship.

YANBU.

[PicaK]

I'm not religious so a christening was never on the cards and nobody ever commented.

I thought about a naming ceremony but decided it was a bit naff and self-indulgent.

That's about the worst decision we've ever made.

Went to friend's baby's naming ceremony recently - with proper celebrant, vows etc and was MOST MOVING thing I've ever been to. Expected to be sitting cringing iykwim, but was in bits at how lovely, meaningful and uplifting it was.

[blackeyedsusan]

no. not at all unreasonable. a christening is a religous ceremony where you make promises to God.. if you don't believe what is the point? your friend is being too pushy. shame there isn't an alternative to Godparents though...

[TheBride]

YANBU. If it doesn't mean anything to you, there's no point.

Of my friends, it's pretty much 50/50. The vast majority who have had a christening for their baby are at least infrequent church attenders, or consider themselves to be Christian (i.e. they'd write CofE on a census form under "religion" without a second thought)

Of those that haven't opted for christening, it's split between

• not Christian
  
• are Christian but don't believe in infant baptism- i.e. believe the child should make the decision to be baptised when they're older

[Fifis25StottieCakes]

I was christened CofE but have not had my 3dd's christened. I dont go to church and would feel like a hypocrite having to sit through church services. If they want to be christened they can choose their religion and do it when they are older