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@hotchildinthecity: this isn't going to be helpful but I am kinda going thru something similar right now.

We did baptize both kids but now I need to decide if I want them to take PREP classes for 1st Holy Communion and Confirmation.

DH never goes to church
Taking the kids is stressful
I go "sometimes"

I cannot decide if its important enough to me or not....

I am leaning towards skipping it and letting them decide when they get older.

I was very young when I made up my mind and moved away from Catholicism. My parents, while the praying sort, never really questioned me or pressured me into believe one thing or another. I just didn't really talk about my feelings until I was an adult.

Both my parents and IL's asked if we were going to baptize L. We told them that we weren't, that we don't believe and we're not going to baptize him just to get him into a school (the argument being that we would "have the option to put him into a Catholic school system"), which isn't where we would want him to go anyway. I told them his religion, or lack thereof, would be a decision for him to make and mould as he grew up.

@hotchildinthecity: I think, if this is the route you want to take, you have a great reasoning. As you said, it isn't like that is what he J was born into and if I were you, I would just say "nope, in staying close to his roots, we aren't going to baptize him and we will let him choose the religious direction he wants to take".

Not Cathlolicism, but I was raised quasi-Jewish (although we never went to temple, and I was never bat mitzvahed). When LO was born/around that time, my dad started to become much more religious, and there was an expectation that he would have a briss and be circumcised. We chose to not do either, and my dad flipped his shit. It was a teeny bit tempting to just do it and make him happy, but ultimately, we decided what we felt was right for our son. It was really tough, my dad didn't talk to me for about 3 months, including 6 weeks after LO was born. But everything worked out (i.e. he got over it) and now things are fine. I would not let your family pressure you into doing anything you don't want to do for your family.

I'm a practicing Catholic so haven't dealt with this situation myself, but I think you have to be true to your beliefs and values. Your family may have a hard time with that initially, but I expect they would come to respect your decision.

I was raised strongly Christian, moving into Southern Baptist Fundamentalism as I got older. I definitely don't remember a time when I wasn't dragged to church multiple times a week. Around high school I started questioning things some, and by the time I was 21-ish I moved to complete non-belief/atheism. I didn't tell my family that for several years, so if we had had a baby during that time, when they thought I was just not into religion but assumed I still believed, there would have been a lot of pressure to take the baby to church, have a baby dedication (they don't do infant baptism, so the dedication is when you go before the church and vow to raise the baby to be a Christian, basically), etc. Since I'm "out" now as an atheist, that will be more limited. But I guarantee you they'll be asking to take her to things at church, like VBS. The churches my family attend do a LOT of very kid-oriented things with the specific intention of catching them while they're young. Now that I think about it, converting kids in the hope they'd convert their parents was definitely a thing I heard about growing up, so my family may be hoping to be able to work that angle.

DH and I have discussed it (he wasn't raised religious, beyond maybe going to church on Christmas or Easter a handful of times, but his family does nominally believe in God), and our basic plan is no church or religious teachings when she's still very young. It's not like we're going to atheist church or planning to read her anti-religious books or anything, so she basically just won't be terribly aware of the existence of religion early on. As she gets older, and starts asking questions, we'll teach her about the beliefs from a variety of religions/cultures. Any discussion of personal beliefs (or non-belief, in our case) will be prefaced with some qualifier along the lines of, "I/some people believe," not just stated as an obvious fact. Family will have the same requirement, and won't be allowed to talk to LO about religion if they refuse. I grew up genuinely believing that Christianity was 100% self-evident, and non-believers really did believe, deep down, they just didn't want to give up their life of sin. I don't want my family trying to instill that same attitude in LO (because they really do believe it to this day; they can't even conceive that I'm not "angry at God" or something, and really genuinely just don't believe there is one). We'll take her to a variety of religious services if she's interested, but no church camps or VBS. Those settings are very isolating and high pressure to convert, which isn't healthy. In the end, it will be up to her to decide for herself what she does or does not believe, but we're not allowing anyone to put pressure on her one way or the other, or use scare tactics ("do you want to burn in hell forever") etc.

Sorry for the novel! Dealing with religious family as a non-religious person is a topic that hits really close to home. It's been hard on my relationships with everyone in my family.

I was born Catholic and went through baptism, communion, and confirmation. My parents were not church goers but we went through the motions of getting me and my brother confirmed to satisfy my grandparents (my father had also had to convert to marry my mother). I never felt like I was a part of the church and resented it growing up. The last straw for me was when my parents told me that I could choose whether or not to get confirmed, and when I choose not to, they back-tracked and forced me to go through with it.

DH was also raised Catholic but does not practice, and we specifically chose to have a secular wedding and to not baptize our LO. Even though everyone threatened me that my grandmother would basically die if I did not get confirmed, no one has said a peep about LO not being baptized. I'm not sure why things changed in my family, but I feel lucky not to have to worry about it.

We've thought about having secular "godparents" for LO, but we haven't gone through with it because we don't want to draw attention to the fact that LO is not baptized! But that could be an option.

We've also talked about potentially joining a church that we feel more in line with in the future, and I think we decided that Unitarian Universalists would be a good fit, but so far, we haven't joined a congregation. I know some families are less offended by a different christian religion than by no religion at all, so we sort of kept that one in our back pocket in case of conflict.

I totally understand how you are feeling. I was raised catholic, and had all my sacraments as well as attending catholic school from 7th grade through college. My high school was the last time I was really active in the church, in terms of attending mass and practicing. I have felt less and less connected to it, and occasionally would attend mass with my grandmother, and never get anything out of it. I honestly don't even want to, I like the cultural aspect of it, but don't identify with most of the social teachings and core beliefs, aside from charity and general moral decency. Too much discrimination, too. Having a child has temporarily made me reconsider, and I kind of want to get him baptized so my grandmother can see that happen, but not enough to actually do it. I just hope to raise him as a good person and teach him right from wrong. I also really hope I can instill a sense of social justice in him. Honestly, I don't see those things as seeming to important to most devout Catholics I know anyways. I suppose it will be an ongoing process.

I would still baptize him. If it's incredibly important to your family, I think that should be considered. Maybe ask them why they're pushing for baptism and explain your thoughts and concerns. I don't think baptism prevents you from exposing him to other religions or teaching him to be loving, inclusive, and respectful. But, I'm just a random person on the internet!

Contrarian here-
Family was very Catholic for most of my life. When they went to a more conservative church, I peeled off and bagged it all. I toyed with some other traditions from Buddhism to Judiasm. Now in my 40's I recognize that my family has been Catholic as far back as I can trace every single part of my family tree (well and crypto Sephardic, but they ultimately ended up Catholic) I felt sort of like it was my culture... And religion and culture are really just two sides of the same coin.

Another factor was that we live in a part of the world with a dominant religion. We wanted our kids to be familiar with religious traditions and to have one that they could say that they belong to.

So after all that, we will get all three kids baptized when adoption is finalized. How involved we are after that remains to be seen, but being in my 40's has given me new perspective on religion.

@honeybear: I think that's a fairly updated view, and that's why I referred to the "traditional" view. When I was researching, I did read that the Pope at the time had revisited the topic, but left it kind of vague and said that it was a decision left to God. Which to me isn't a resounding "Infants go to heaven in all cases". Believe me, there's many Catholics that still take the traditional view. Including a very good friend of mine, who when I asked her about this, said "Oh yes, the devil is in all babies, so they must cry during the baptism so you know he's gone". I figured we'd just disagree on that one, lol.

And I don't want to start a religious debate. I did do some research on the topic and what I found didn't sit well with my personal beliefs, that's all :).

I also could've written your post. We've decided, after being raised and married in the Church, not to baptize dd. My IL's took it rough at first, but we explained to them that they are more than welcome to explain their faith to her. We want her to understand that people have different beliefs, and that's ok. After a few weeks of processing, they have accepted it, and the topic hasn't been mentioned since. I think they worried that we made the decision hastily, and we explained our stance. We consider ourselves agnostic. Once they realized that it was a thoughtful decision, things were much better.

@ShootingStar: on the issue of salvation, you won't really ever hear Catholics say a defenitive "yes, this is what happens." The church has moved away from the interpretation that baptism was necessary for an infant to go to heaven, to it being a rite of initiation into the church.

Very interesting topic and close to my heart at the moment. I've enjoyed everyone's thoughtful discussions. I was raised Protestant in a great, welcoming, "celebrate and share Gods unconditional love" church. Then I decided to do RCIA and convert when I married my husband. At first I loved it...pre kids when we went regularly and belonged to a great parish with very positive and welcoming priests.

Now we are in a new city with a 2 yr old and baby 2 due in the fall and have a hard time getting there and I feel ....like I miss church but am also resentful of the "rules" that say now I'm out of good standing or whatever. I feel bad for not going to mass every week and truly WANT to go but it's just not always doable right now and it feels like Catholicism says that makes me a terrible person unless I go to confession etc etc. It's honestly made me more anxious and worried, like "what if I die tomorrow and I'be committed all of these "sins""?! Then I read things from non Catholic friends on Easter about how the whole point of Jesus' death was our salvation and I wish I could go back to getting strength and peace from faith instead of guilt and worry.

Agh. Those are really problems with me and not the religion I guess but I do worry about my son growing up with "catholic guilt". My husband still thinks when bad things happen that it's some sort of payback for something he's done wrong in the past. It's awful!!!