How do you choose godparents?

[Moomin1000]

hiya what did you consider when choosing?
how many do you have?
Thanks

Don't have any because were not religious. Thought about having 'life guardianp' but in the end couldn't see the point of it. My dd is loved equally by all her extende family, it would have seemed odd to single someone out as the main love provider.

We chose Godparents for DD based on who we thought would be able to support her not just in faith but in life in general. So she has 2 Godfathers & 2 Godmothers. 1 Godmother is my best friend from school & is just a wonderful Godmother I'm so glad we asked her. 1 Godfather is DHs brother (I wasn't keen on having family as Godparents but DH wanted to ask him). The other Godparents are my mums oldest friends (a couple) and they are very unlikely to have grandchildren & are just the nicest people I know & utterly adore DD. 3 out of 4 are practising Christians & all are baptised (as is required).

I was always told that you need to have at least 2 Godparents. I think it is 'traditional' to have 2 Godmothers & 1 Godfather for a girl, 2 Godfathers & 1 Godmother for a boy.

IShouldHaveBeen in all honesty we went ahead with the Life Guardian thing as much as to demonstrate how important those people were in our lives, how we wanted them to have a close relationship with our son, and because we wanted a Naming Day sort of celebration of his birth and life. It hasn't stopped other friends showing a huge interest and being very involved so far...agree with extended family though (if you mean blood relatives), don't see the point in that

I agree with what has been said so far. Please don't choose someone just because they are a friend and would be offended if they weren't asked. These people don't usually stick around and aren't that interested in your child's welfare.

We chose DD's godparents because they were Christians and had been baptised and confirmed. That is the whole point of them being godparents. If you can't find anyone who is prepared to make a promise to God (because that is what happens during a christening) and you aren't believers yourselves I would just have a naming ceremony instead.

My mum told me tradition is to have two god fathers and one god mother for a son and two gm and one gf for a daughter. We have one of each for our DS. We wanted them to be unrelated so that he would then have a special bond with two more people who he could turn to when needed, who would give suitable guidance in life, people who DS would be able to love and respect and use them as role models for the future, kind of an extended family. My OH and I chose our closest friends. I knew that they wouldnt necessarily give him spiritual guidance but I did expect that they would both step up and make an effort in spending time with him etc and take it seriously. Neither one has made any effort whatsoever, which makes me really sad and I kind of feel it was a novelty to the pair of them. For some reason his gm is very quick to tell people she is his gm and is convinced if we have more she will be gm again but honestly if i could, i would do it again and choose people who have shown they would have been better.
I think both of his gp are catholics (although not practising) but didnt need to prove to the priest they were, we literally just turned up on the day and muddled through! You need to work out what you would expect from the godparents in the long term and how you hope their relationship with your child will benefit him/her in the future and go from there. Next time round I will definitely consider my sister and SIL instead as I know how much they will appreciate the role and feel priviledged that we have asked them.

I think it's easier if you're not Christening them immediately (I believe Catholics Christen their children quite early?) because then you have an idea for who actually spends time with your children.

I chose ours (well not god parents, they are 'supporting adults') on this basis, we'd been on holiday with them, with their children and ours, see each other all the time, and as they'd had their little boy a few years before ds was born, have been a great source of help/encouragement.

we went a little godparent crazy! dd has 4 - 2 godfathers and 2 godmothers, and ds has...wait for it...6!...3 godfathers and 3 godmothers! with dd these are my 4 closest friends, and we wanted them to have an important role in her life. They are deifnitely people i want her to develop a relationship with as she gets older and go to them for advice and support. None of these 4 are baptised or practising christians, but they very much understood the importance of the role to us. With ds again they are all v v v v close friends and this time two of the couples (so 2 godmothers and 2 godfathers) do happen to be pracitising christians and have given ds presents to help tell him about the christian faith. With all 10 of these people we could not have better choices - it makes me so happy to see these close friends of our getting so much pleasure from spending time with our children, and as the children get older seeing how much they really gain from having these adult friends in their lives!

For me it is really important that when my baby is born his/her godparents will be Christian. However this leaves me with a problem, as none of my very close friends are Christian and I can't think of anyone I know from church who I would ask to be a godparent. Also, my husband is not a Christian. Has anyone else had this problem before?

lalabaloo, could you have people from your church be the official sponsors (our parish will ask members of the congregation to fill the role if the parents don't know or have anyone in mind), then give your close friends an unofficial godparent role? Or what about family - aunts and uncles, grandparents etc. can be godparents too.

That could be an option Bue, I didn't know that happened! I could always ask my sister and her boyfriend, but i'm not sure because they are still fairly young and it seems like a big responsibility to give to them. My second cousin and her husband are Christian and we have a good relationship with them, so they might be able to do the official bit and then I could have another set of godparents who perhaps weren't Christian. I'm only 5 weeks pregnant so I will have a lot of thinking time!

Ds has 3 godfathers and a godmother. All are christened themselves, I didn't see the point in a christening if the religious aspect wasn't going to be there.

I don't expect anything from the godparents other than for them to be a positive role model and be someone he can turn to for help/support/guidance as he grows up.

This is something we are thinking about as none of our friends are Catholic (at least not practising) and this is something that is important to me as I really want my child to be able to talk to his or her Godparents about faith, especially if he or she has questions or concerns as I am conscious that I had a wobble about Catholicism during my twenties and needed someone to talk to. We are thinking of asking DH's cousins, who are brother and sister (adults) as we are close to them and in my opinion, they are great examples of young adults who are fun, kind and thoughtful and balance good jobs and exciting social lives with a consistent faith. I think this will be important to our child as he or she grows older and tried to work through how church can fit in with being 'cool'

I know this post makes it sound like I'm overthinking this, but I have been asked to be Godparent to friends' children and I think it's because not many of us are baptised, let alone practising any kind of faith so I get shortlisted quite often!

Truffkin That is how I feel, I want godparents who actually believe in God and are happy to talk to our child about their faith. And like you said, I would like them to be down to earth and friendly so that when the wobbles and questions arise there is someone to talk to outside the family who will understand where they are coming from. I only became a Christian at 19 after years of uncertainty and doubt and I would like to think there would be someone there for my child to go to who could help them work out their views, I didn't know any Christians that I could talk to and going to church for the first time since childhood was daunting to say the least!

we had a naming ceremony for our DC and our criteria was :

• No Family, they already have an important role in the DC life
• Those chosen must be a close friend of BOTH of us - saved arguments
• People we felt confident we would stay in close contact with
• People we thought the DC would be able to approach if they ever wanted to talk to someone other than us

In the end we chose a couple that we have known for the whole length of our relationship, they have taken it seriously, made and kept promises and are at every 'event' (birthdays etc)

In response to the GODparents comments, I am a GODparent to one boy (and soon to be another ) the above couples DC actually. They had a catholic baptism for their DS1, when asked my response was to be honest about about my faith (or lack of), I will always answer DC / godsons questions about faith / religions, but I won't pretend I believe something I don't. Luckily the vicar was amazing, he said it was fine, and I should only state the promises I agreed with, so I stated them all, just without the promise TO GOD, simply because I didn't want to start with a promise which I couldn't believe.

They obviously think we've done a good job so far as have been asked to do it again for their DC2 at the end of the year