Christening or Naming?

[YouBetterWORK]

I thought about putting this in chat for more responses but the responses might be giving me a verbal bashing (for having a church wedding) so here might be better for hopefully some understanding folk to help me decide...

Right, so I would class myself as agnostic. I think, or like to think there is something more to us out there, sometimes I think nah, we are what we are when we snuff it that's it nothing further. But then I think umm maybe not, faith is a very powerful thing. Ahh, but there's not just one faith is there...there's loads! And so I seesaw a bit.

DH is more towards athiest land.

Together we adhere to the general philosophy of "Be a nice person. Don't be a dick", like most people really.

Now I will be honest, we had a church wedding. For me, the ceremony and the words felt right for me. Proper. Now it may be that it's just how you view it growing up, you go to weddings and you hear these words and so you go "Yes, when I marry those are the words I need to hear to feel like I'm married"? It was a lovely day, it felt right and it was a decision we both made for us.

But now we have DD. And I'm torn on the whole christening vs naming thing. Words and ceremony I've come to realise, are quite important to me.

But the church ceremony is something we decided for us, we are making a decision for DD here. She has christening gown already, my one, which will be lovely to see her in. I know this doesn't mean she has to wear it in church, she can wear it wherever. My mother (from the school of 'it's what you do, it's traditional'), has already given me the big eye roll treatment at the mention of a naming ceremony and probably thinks it's all rather silly and why not get her christened properly or not do anything at all.

Our church going Christian friends interestingly have had dedications with their own children and not christenings, which makes us feel very hypocritical if we had DD christened.

I'm just really torn on which way to go. Right now I'm veering towards a ceremony. Oh and DH fully admits this is something he is happy to take my lead on. He'd like a party for her but isn't fussed about a ceremonial part, wheras that's important for me.

Have you looked at the Unitarian church, we did this for our child, a naming ceremony. You can be any religion or none. I felt aligned to their ideals, and loved the ceremony.
I didn't want to 'burden' our child with a religion that we the parents were not following. I myself inherited been Catholic, my DH none. This way it felt like a wonderful way of marking our child's entry into the world, had the right feel that we wanted, and was a wonderful space.

Here is a blurb from. A random Unitarian church I googled

www.brightonunitarian.org.uk/child-naming.html

Naming is a good way to make her 'official' without all the indoctrination mumbo jumbo of a religious affair. Enjoy the day!

My personal approach was to not have anything. I'm not religious and I can't stand listening to all the rubbish spouted in churches. So when I started thinking about whether we should have a naming ceremony for DS, I took the approach that the whole concept of having a ceremony in the first place is a religious one. There's absolutely no need for having a ceremony to introduce a child to the world, it only really makes sense if you're introducing your child to a religion (and even then, 'making sense' is probably a bit strong!)

It seems that it's just another excuse for people to have a party (and open up the potential for further gifts from friends and family). So it all feels a bit superficial to me. If you want to have a party, have a party. Don't see the point in throwing a load of money at someone to perform a ceremony though.

Anyway, that's just my personal thoughts on it.

The difference is, in a wedding you’re making promises to each other that you intend to keep. In a christening, you’d be making a promise to bring your child up as a Christian. You wouldn’t mean that.

I’m a Christian and I wouldn’t have a christening. People should make their own choice about faith when they’re old enough to understand what it means.

We were in a slightly different position, in that our choice of ' godparents' for DS were orthodox Jewish and atheist ( plus vicar uncle) . Obviously a christening couldn't happen but as DD had been traditionally christened and we had been married in church we wanted some sort of church based welcome. We discovered the C of E has a blessing ceremony which welcomes children into the church, but it nothing like a formal christening. It's often used for children who are recently adopted or in mixed faith families. Our parish vicar was thrilled to oblige and it was just right, I wish we'd known about it for DD. Very informal and welcoming but no promises to be kept

That's a thanksgiving service. I've done a few and they are lovely as they celebrate the new family that has come into being with the birth of a new baby. From memory I think I did something around why the parents had chosen the name they had for their little one so although it wasn't a naming ceremony I added that in. It is a very flexible service.

A christening if you do not believe and have no intention of raising your child in the faith is offensive IMO.

Just have a party or some humanist type shenanigan.

Just an update, we have decided to go with a naming/welcoming ceremony. It feels right for us, even though as predicted mum of the 'christen her or do nothing' school of thought actually laughed at me down the phone as it's "something silly that someone made up". Although she will give me my gown for her to wear, and I told her I hope she doesn't see fit to sit and laugh while we're actually doing it! She won't obviously, but I wish she could have just said oh that's nice etc.

MIL, by contrast did just say how lovely, and what a nice venue we're doing it in!

Thanks to all who advised, I did look quite a lot into Unitarian as I'd never heard of it, and was very interesting, but there is no Unitarian church near us.

Glad you found what feels right for your family and wish you all a lovely time