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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think MIL being judgemental and over-bearing about DC's baptism.

340 replies

Rollergirl1 · 05/07/2009 22:55

DH and I are not religious. DH's parents are practising catholics and DH was heavily involved in the church until he was a teenager (was an alter boy). I was christened when young but haven't gone to church since i was little. We had a civil ceremony when we got married. DD is due to start school in Sep 2010 and I have started looking at local schools. The two best schools in our area by a mile are the two local catholic schools. So we are now getting DD (3) and DS (1) baptised. And we are getting them baptised at PIL's local church despite it being 200 miles away from where we live. The reason that we are doing this is because local churches expect you to go to church regularly before they will consider baptising. So this is purely down to laziness and convenience. MIL knows the exact reason we are doing this and knows that we are not religious. She is making a big deal of it, arranging marquee for after the ceremony and inviting all their side of the family, etc. And I am happy for her to do so because she is doing us a favour. One of the godparents (my best friend)is unable to make it as they have other plans for that date. I wouldn't dream of making her change them as she knows this is not a big thing for us and we are really only doing for reasons cited above. Also my Mum won't be able to make as she is having a knee replacement the week before and won't even be able to walk. And she is not religious and not catholic. And it is happening 200 miles away. But my MIL is now saying that if my best friend can't come than i should ask someone else to be the godparent and has firmly stated that she thinks my mum should be there. I'm now getting stressed as I really don't want to make a big deal of this as we are only doing for the reason of schools but then think am I being unreasonable as MIL doing us a favour by sorting this out for us?

OP posts:
HerBeatitudeLittleBella · 07/07/2009 20:48

TBH I think that the act of barring a child from your school because of the beliefs of its parent, in the name of Christianity, is far more hypocritical than anything proposed by the OP.

BetsyBoop · 07/07/2009 20:48

FAQ, almost identical to my local RC school too.

I was when I saw mine & though it particularly unchristian to only give catholic looked after/SN children priority

all our local CofE schools give priority to any looked after/SN children

LucilleAustero · 07/07/2009 20:50

Agree with LittleBella

KingCanuteIAm · 07/07/2009 20:50

She is purporting to have a belif she does not have - hypocritical

HerBeatitudeLittleBella · 07/07/2009 20:52

So were c16th Jews and c13th Cathars hypocrites - after all, they purported to have a belief they did not have?

I'm really interested in the definition of the word hypocrite, can you tell?

LucilleAustero · 07/07/2009 20:55

So what exactly should she do, King Canute, given your earlier "faith is not exclusive, faith is open to anyone" post?

HerBeatitudeLittleBella · 07/07/2009 20:58

Anyway, how do you know her DC's won't embrace catholicism with a vengeance?

(That would be a turn-up wouldn't it - it's not unknown.)

KingCanuteIAm · 07/07/2009 21:04

Lucille, as per my previous posts, if she waned to convert that would be fine, she doesn't though.

Bella, yes they were, technically, however hypocritical behaviour to save ones life or the life of your loved ones is not the worst crime (although does go against the teachings of some/most religions).

If you wish to know the meaning it is here. You can, of course, argue the meaning/relavance/application of "higher" but I have taken it (I feel reasonably) to mean "different").

kalo12 · 07/07/2009 21:04

i think you should ask someone else to be a godparent, after all if you are not religious and only doing it for reasons cited, (which i think is fine and up to you) then why are you being so precious about who is the godparent? there must be plenty of relatives/friends you could ask. if it has no meaning for you then ask someone else.

why would you want to make such a fuss over this?

FAQinglovely · 07/07/2009 21:08

"Great FAQ, your ds is OK so there's no problem. "

yes because at the time I had the MONEY to move closer to a good school.

FWIW - all the other children that side of town aren't missing out on anything - they get to go to the even worse non-church schools across that side of town .

HerBeatitudeLittleBella · 07/07/2009 21:11

I don't know how you propose to have a baptism without the godparents there tbh. I don't think that's possible.

FAQinglovely · 07/07/2009 21:15

and the fact still remains that if something was done about the crap schools in the vicinity of "selective" schools then issue wouldn't be so great.

Lets face it - those 61 children that didn't get into the VC CoE school next door to me will be going to worse schools. And it was all done by the "normal" LEA admissions criteria - yet still an entire reception years worth of children (there are 2 reception classes in the school) are going to get a worse educational experience. AND THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR FAITH.

canttouchthis · 07/07/2009 21:15

yabu - hypocritical. just had a friend over at weekend getting her unborn child christened next year yet they are not religious... yeah, that makes sense. I buttoned it and didn't give my honest opinion to friend because she is pg.

msbossy · 07/07/2009 21:16

YABVU

Don't stand in a church and lie. It's rude.

I wish everyone would get over the "best school" crap. The school's report and league table results are only a small part of the picture. Think about how you want your children to grow up and whether there really is that much this school can offer over others, and what it is YOU should be doing with your child to ensure their happiness now and in the future.

I can't think of a single person I know who feels their life was determined by the primary school they attended. What they did with their parents on weekends is more important.

LovelyTinOfSpam · 07/07/2009 21:30

Forget "best schools". What about being able to go to local schools? Why should people have to purport to believe things they don't in order to go to schools which are within a reasonable distance?

KingCanuteIAm · 07/07/2009 21:38

I think the point has been well made that they don't, most faith schools follow the usual criteria with a %age held for faith applications (in our area it is something like 6% so tiny). There are some that have criteria like those listed above but they are fewer and fewer in any case and - as has also been pointed out - why would you want your non-religious child to attend a school which has such a massive bias towards religion?

LovelyTinOfSpam · 07/07/2009 21:45

King canute did you read my previous post?

"where I live (have just had a look) there are 89 primary schools. Of these 23 are community primaries, leaving 66 religious schools.

I know the entrance criteria of the ones near me - they are based on worshipping at particular places. A quick skim confirms my suspicions that the others all have entrance criteria based on religious conditions as well.

Some have a small percentage of community places - 20% say - which follow the usual rules - I think this gets them more money. But of course if its your nearest school and you want to go there you're working on guesswork as to whether you are near enough or not. The distances from the school each year for the community places are not published."

This is a london borough. People shouldn't extrapolate what happens in their area across the country - certainly where i live this is a huge issue.

LovelyTinOfSpam · 07/07/2009 21:46

I should also point out that not many of the schools offer any "community" places at all.

FAQinglovely · 07/07/2009 21:49

Lovely - what about when you're all "close" schools are crap?

Why do you think DH and I were so desperate to move house a few years ago? There was no church school option in that part of town for anyone to choose from - so it was ALL LEA - and all 3 possible schools are simply awful.

Are you honestly telling me there are 66 VA - or are you simply guessing that they're all VA?

LovelyTinOfSpam · 07/07/2009 22:17

Personally I would rather a poorer school which was local than a better school miles away. As others have said, parental input etc are as important as the schools itself. I also think its sad that children are shipped a long way, adding to pollution and breaking down community ties etc.

Although obviously I wouldn't be keen on a school where there was a lot of violence.

The schools that are near us in the borough, and the ones my friends children attend, are all based on faith requirements. I quickly skimmed the document produced by the LEA just now - when I got the figures I quoted - and the faith schools all have lists like the one you quoted earlier for the catholic school.

Which is why around here so many people suddenly discover religion and why I have a certain amount of sympathy for those who do.

Ninkynork · 07/07/2009 22:19

Oh what is all this about walking to school as opposed to the environmental damage done by driving to the private day school twenty miles away? 'Tis bollocks. Live on a sink estate if you want a true environmentally-sound walk to the local school and pick up the dog-shit and needles along the way if you really want to make a difference.

Where I live, people walk to school because they cannot afford a fecking car at all and don't travel by plane at ALL, much less three times a year skiing and to Tuscany and Florida because they have cannily bought a house 0.2 miles from the outstanding Church school thus saving tens of thousands of pounds in fees every year.

These free marvellous schools are advertised on the internet alongside houses as a selling point with a big hike in price FFS.

Environment my arse.

LovelyTinOfSpam · 07/07/2009 22:23

?

Very agressive post ninky.

Can you honestly not understand why it would get my back up to be surrounded by schools but have to bus it halfway across the borough as I'm not religious? I would have thought that was pretty easy to understand. I don't travel by plane FWIW, well haven't for years anyway and don't intend to any time soon.

Also nice for DD to have friends within walking distance.

I'm not sure why you think I'll be sending DD to a private school either, we don't have money for that.

All I want is for her to be able to go to one of the schools near where we live.

I wasn't aware that was so out of order.

FAQinglovely · 07/07/2009 22:29

well I'm afraid I disagree - I had incredibly supportive parents at home, both of them very able to help me with homework etc.

However I attended a series of crap schools - may not have shown at the time as I was fortunate to go to a very good senior school (but that was only because of my musical talent) who managed to drag me through my exams.

However, I struggle to help DS1 (8) with a lot of his "foundation" (ie building blocks of learning) homework because I don't understand them.

I passed most of my exam by mostly guesswork as I had no understanding of the methods behind what I was working out in maths, or how sentences are actually constructed.

We did just move for the schools either - niether of us wanted our children growing up on that estate with the sorts of neighbours we had - wasn't a nice place to live.

FAQinglovely · 07/07/2009 22:30

and at least you don't have to bus it half way across the town as several people I know have to do (and no threre was no issue of church schools - there's only one selective church school in the town) because there weere simply no places in their "local" schools (and they still didn't even get a decent school).

mummytowillow · 07/07/2009 22:36

YABU to just get them baptized so they can go to 'the best' school!

However, I was still a godparent to my niece, even though I wasn't there as I had just had a C section two days before and it was 300 mile journey, they did it by proxy and my lovely cousin said the words for me! So I can't see a problem with someone else stepping in? Its about being there as a 'godparent' for their lives, not just the service.