To not christen my son

[justlonelystars]

Posted here for traffic!

My DH is catholic and I am an atheist. Although we’ve agreed to raise our DS to make his own mind up about religion my DH would like to christen our DS (catholic christening) for two reasons

1. It would mean a lot to him and his family
2. There is a v prestigious catholic school near our house and being christened might help DS chances to get in to this school

Now here’s my issue - and I mean no offence to anyone here who is catholic. I bloody hate the Catholic Church and everything it stands for. But I’m worried that I am indulging my own prejudices and opinions at the expense of opportunities for my DS (e.g. the school).

So as not to massively drip feed, my DH is not a practising catholic, hasn’t stepped foot in a church since I met him, but believes in god and identifies as catholic. He is pretty laid back and agreed to a non religious ceremony for our wedding and would also let me have my own way on the christening (or lack of). However, it’s the issue above that’s worrying me - am I letting my own opinions get in the way of what’s best for DS?

AIBU - yes christen him
AINBU - nah don’t do it!

Oh and at my catholic primary school we prayed 4 times a day; morning, before and after lunch, and before we went home. I don’t remember learning anything about other religions. I do remember lots of masses in the school hall/local church, and us spending lots of time in Y3 while everyone did their first communion. Hours and hours out of the classroom on this. The 5 or so non religious kids just sat on benches on the sidelines. Anyone who says it’s not a part of the day is kidding themselves.

My DH and family are non practising catholic’s. We christened Church of England. Was just right for us.

To get into the school you’ll need to be practising to be top of the admissions criteria. So really christening him catholic won’t really help for that

@Graunaile2017

Everything is not taught fron RC point of view, they don't really have a view on verbs or nouns, or fractions.

If there was you'd presumably have to learn your 13 times table!

@x2boys

Yeah my 14 year old is in year nine in a Catholic school and also went to a Catholic primary school so I feel I do have more up to date knowledge than you *@seahorseorami* who seems to think Catholic schools are still stuck in the 80,s 🙄

Yes. Ive only worked in Catholic schools for twenty years. Rather than you, the closet you've got in twenty years is standing on the yard. But of course, you clearly have more kowledge about the daily routine than me

@MrsSmith2021

My DH and family are non practising catholic’s. We christened Church of England. Was just right for us.

To get into the school you’ll need to be practising to be top of the admissions criteria. So really christening him catholic won’t really help for that

This really depends on the individual schools admission criteria. For some it will be baptised Catholic, for others it will need proof of church attendance.

I'm Catholic, my husband is Church of England. Our son isn't either because we couldn't agree or compromise on which religion he should be as I wanted him to be Catholic and my husband wanted him to be Church of England. So to make it fair we did neither.

We have 3 local schools, 1 Catholic, 1 Church of England and 1 non denomination. We agreed to go to the open days for all 3 with an open mind and treat all 3 equally. And both agreed that whichever school we both felt was the best for our son was the school we would put as our first choice.

It turned out it was the Catholic school that was the best by far. My husband was I’m complete agreement on that. We spoke to the headteacher at the open day and explained our situation. My husband clarified that he had no problems at all with our son joining in with prayers or the viewpoint they partial lying teach from, and obviously I didn’t as I went to a Catholic school myself, I wanted him to be baptised a Catholic (always will), and I wanted him to go to that school so had no issues with that at all. We also put that information on the school supplementary faith form so they knew it wasn’t a problem at all.

The headteacher told us that in recent years the school hadn’t been oversubscribed and that she felt our son was highly likely to get a place, which pleased us both. However I knew that if the school was oversubscribed this academic year (2020-2021), that the oversubscription criteria would be used to determine offers of places. I also knew that based on that criteria my son fell into the last category as he is not of any faith or religion. I had to accept that he would not get a place if the school was oversubscribed. But what I would never want to do is take a place from a child of the faith because that would be completely wrong and unfair of me. Therefore I would not have got my son baptised just for the purpose at all. (If my husband was to agree and I believed he meant it then yes I would because I’ve wanted my child to be a Catholic since I found out I was pregnant, so I’m not a hypocrite). As mentioned by previous posters that is unacceptable. I knew that my son would only get a place if there were less Catholic children that applied than there were places available. Therefore he or we would not be taking a place from a child more deserving of it based on the religious aspect or from that point of view.

So I don’t feel we have done anything wrong in terms of our approach whatsoever. However what you are suggesting is not right at all. Especially given how strongly you feel with regards to the Catholic Church. Why would you want your child to have anything to do with something you hate so much? Prestigious school or not should be irrelevant. Baptising your child should be about your belief and faith and wanting your child to be brought up within that, not to get them into a school. Also you can’t just turn up one day, do it and then that’s it. It doesn’t work like that at all. So to answer your question yes I think what you are suggesting is extremely unreasonable, even more so given your quite extreme viewpoint.