to not let my mum take my DS with her?

[ivybee]

My mum stays abroad (country where I grew up). She phoned me last night to say my DS (currently 9months) should be christened next year. I've agreed previously we will christen him even though neither me or my DH are religious. However, due to financial reasons and other holidays already booked we won't be able to go to the country where I grew up at least not next year.

My mum then says she will come and take my DS and take him back to hers and christen him...what? I said to her that that won't happen without me and my DH. This really pissed me off.

She has previously said about how she will take our DS on skiing holidays once he is 4 and how he will spend his summer holidays at their house. I realise this is quite a nice gesture. However, she's never actually asked us or suggested it as an idea, just stated it as a fact.

My mum is a bit of a bully, she doesn't have any patience, she always finds something to argue with my dad about, and I don't have many happy childhood memories because of that.

I don't want my DS to experience any of it. I'm happy for them to visit us (which they do every 2-3 months) or we visit them, but I don't want my mum to just take our DS and go places for weeks at a time.

AIBU?

Ugh, YANBU. She sounds a bit like my mother apart from the religious stuff - mum could never let go of being the authority figure, even when I became totally independent. I think you should come down hard on her and leave no loopholes. "No, you will not christen DS. You are his grandmother, not his mother. Any criticism or attempts to take over will result in much less contact with all of us. You are not currently allowed alone time with DS as I do not trust you to follow my wishes."

AMumInScotland - that might be what some Roman Catholics believe, but if it's not what SuburbanRhonda believes, why should it make any difference to her. Either you're catholic and you believe that being baptised makes you catholic, or you're not catholic, and you don't. I can't understand someone saying they don't follow that faith, and yet saying that they are that faith because someone of that faith says they are. It's very confusing to me.

Sorry to OP for hijack, and to SuburbanRhonda for talking about her as if she's not here

BTW, this absolutely not to say that the OP should let her mum christen her child, definitely not.

frab, don't worry, I wasn't here. I posted then went to work

The reason I said the "once a Catholic" thing is that a few years ago I was drawn to the idea of "de-baptising" myself and contacted the priest at the church where I was baptised. He told me you couldn't be "de-baptised" because the baptism was an event and couldn't be un-happened.

What I do know is that the Catholic church counts me in their numbers, despite they fact that I am now an atheist, because there is a written record of the fact that I was baptised into the RC church.

Ah, fair enough Suburban, I can see that being annoying. If there are official records kept like that you should be able to rescind your membership of the church if you want to.