baptism with two mums?

[cantthinkofagoodname]

I am one of the mothers of a 4mo who has no dad.

We would like our baby to have the moral, social and cutural benefits of church involvement as a child, and she can decide for herself if she wants to continue as an adult.

If we were to get our baby baptised, would we be "allowed" to be her parents in the service, or would one of us have to act as though we are a single mum? (which, obviously we won't do!)

I'm talking fairly high church c of e btw.

don't see why not.

have a word with your vicar first.
he'll want to have a chat about the baptism anyway, so you can raise your concerns.

you both have charge of the child, and that's got to cover the social and moral issues, surely?

can't speak for the individual priest, though.

I would hope that any priest would welcome the baptism of any child by its parents in his/her church. I'm assuming you & your partner have been made to feel welcome in your church thus far?

As far as the actual baptism service goes all the parents and godparents make the same promises & they say them together, so unless you know the family you can't often tell who are the parents & who are the god parents anyway

There are CofE pastoral guidelines on this here para 24-25 if that helps, although & would hope the priest/you wouldn't need them

I have to say, having attended such a baptism, that I wasn't very happy with how insensitive the priest was. My DH's niece was the non-biological mother, and she was told the only way she could be involved as parent, would be as Godparent. This was high church C of E. However not all churches are like this.

Really?!

You see, there is absolutely no way we'd be prepared to do that, and we certainly wouldn't take our daughter to a church that didn't even acknowledge the existence of one of her parents.

I'm beginning to think we'd be better off not doing the baptism now, if there's a chance this situation might occur as it would be far too upsetting. I suppose we could always do it ourselves at the kitchen sink!

A friend of mine was refused a christening for her child, as she and her DP (babies father) weren't married. They weren't regular church attenders. This was at the village CofE church.

I guess you have to find a church with an accepting vicar.

You could do it yourselves at the kitchen sink. As our priest says, all you need for a baptism is a baby, some water, and some words.

But then you wouldn't have that all important baptism certificate for school entry.

If I were you I'd think about this more widely than just in terms of the baptism. If you want your dd to grow up familiar with church, then you yourselves will be part of that church community. So get to know some churches, find one that sits right with your family, get involved a bit if poss, then get onto the business of talking about baptism. Church websites are sometimes (but not always) good at giving you a sense of what they might be like. That way, by the time your dd is baptised you will know that as a famiy you will be supported and known, and it'll be much more meaningful.