Parents raised me catholic so I could get in to catholic school

[foreverisover]

Was having a conversation with my Mum recently where she told me that her and my Dad decided to raise me catholic in order to get in to the catholic primary and secondary school in our area as the secondary school is rated outstanding and known to be a very good school. I'm 21 now, not a practicing catholic and haven't been to church since I was a teenager. My Dad is a non practicing Anglican hasn't been to church since he was a child and my Mum is catholic but was non-practicing and didn't go to church when I was born. I wonder how common this is? I suppose I feel a bit weird that the religion that was chosen for me was based on what school they wanted me to go to.

They school admissions system makes religious hypocrisy appealing in many areas and exploiting those loopholes is easily achievable. I knew someone who got heavily involved in her local church as soon as her children were born, ticked all the boxes and stopped the second they had their places.

Very common, and not that weird given your mum is Catholic.

This! How exactly were you raised a Catholic other than being baptised? It’s fairly common for people who are not particularly religious to baptise their babies. And with one parent a Catholic, more likely a Catholic baptism.

Did your mum have to go to church to get you into the school? If not, I don’t think your position is unusual.

Fairly common, not just with Catholic schools. At least your mum has admitted it.

Common practice but far from acceptable. I could not be a hypocrite and I certainly couldn’t raise my children into a religious group - after being brought up religious, I do actually consider it to be child abuse

I think it's fairly common. My cousin is Anglican but he married a not overly observant RC lady. Her faith returned miraculously when she had twins & there was an excellent RC secondary she had her eye on.

I might be persuaded to be a more regular CofE attendee if it helped, too.