how did you choose Godparents for your LO, whether for religious reasons or not?
my sister is too young, my brother is old enough - but still young enough at 20 that he's not totally into babies, lol. DH's entire family is out, for religious reasons. I have several close friends..but anyway! I'm thinking I'd really like to choose god parents but having trouble deciding on who to choose. I know, this sounds a little dumb.
pineapple / 12526 posts
We chose the people we chose to be her guardians in the event of our deaths, my best friend and DHs best friend, who just happen to be a couple.
hostess / watermelon / 14932 posts
@loveisstrange: can you tell I'm really stuck on this right now? lol! we are listing my parents as guardians. my grandfather is my brother's godfather as well, so it's not totally out there - but idk!
eggplant / 11824 posts
We are not religious so her godparents didn't have to conform to any of the rules of any religion concerning godparents. We selected DH's best friend (and her husband), as she and DH have been best friends for 20+ years and they are like family. We also selected our other friend, who married us.
Her godparents are the people who will always be available to listen to LO and help her through any problem she has. They will also be "moral guides", helping LO with any ethical or moral question she has but doesn't want to come to us with.
In both cases, we are also godparents to their children, too and across the board the godparent designation is separate from the legal guardian designation.
pineapple / 12526 posts
@sorrycharlie: haha, I noticed! It's okay, it was a serious discussion that took several months for us.
We just really considered who we trusted to instill in her the values that we would want them to. My BFF was the obvious choice for me, since she and I are extremely close and she has always given me excellent advice and guidance,
I know DHs family (who are Italian and all have godfathers) generally pick a best friend or sibling of the parents. DHs godfather was his dad's best friend.
wonderful cherry / 21504 posts
My sister, who I always knew would be my first born godmother (also my moh). I let Dh choose the godfather and he chose his best friend, rather than his brother. His reasoning is that his brother will already have a special bond, and now his best friend will also have a special bond. My sister would also be her guardian.
GOLD / wonderful coconut / 33402 posts
We chose a couple that we are really good friends with. The guy is the closest thing to a brother DH has. We are asking family to be a guardian if something were to happen to us so we decided to go with someone other then family.
Also will add, we chose people that are religious, as that was the most important part to us.
blogger / coconut / 8306 posts
@sorrycharlie: it was partly a religious reason. In the Catholic Church one godparent must be catholic. Our church allowed us to have a non-catholic godparent, but needed a letter of recommendation from their church.
I have a brother and a sister, and my husband has a brother. We decided to choose my husbands brother, who had to get a letter, and my sister who is catholic & knows the priest where we had Chloe baptized.
kiwi / 673 posts
We chose SIL and DH's cousin. We wanted the godparents to be practicing Catholics, plus our church required that at least one be able to provide a letter from their parish stating that they are practicing and registered. The other needed either the same letter from their church (if Catholic) or a letter from their church saying they were a practicing Christian of another religion. That meant most of my friends, my siblings, and some of DH's family were out. I'm okay with those rules, and very happy with our choice of godparents, since that serves a religious purpose for us.
DS's godparents are not the people who would be his guardians in the event of our deaths. We chose my sister and BIL for that. For us, those are two different things. The godparents are for helping him grow in his faith, the guardians are for raising him in the event of our deaths or becoming incapacitated. I do know that, though they do not practice my religion, my sister and BIL would try their best to raise LO in our faith if something happened. That was important to us, too.
grapefruit / 4862 posts
In our families, godparents are more an honor and are not who would care for the children if something happened to the parents. My family has one from each side (so godfather from dad's side, godmother from mom's side, or vice versa) and all are aunts/uncles, but that's not possible for DH and I since I have no brothers, and he isn't close with his. For our LO who is due any day, we asked one of my sisters (the other is in the Peace Corps now so location made the decision for us) and one of DH's two BFF's. DH doesn't even really remember who his godparents are- but for me and my family, it was about a special bond and having someone who connected with you and "spoiled" you a little. And now on the parental side it's about honoring someone who we know will love our child almost as much as we will!
grapefruit / 4823 posts
@sorrycharlie: my godfather is 13 years older than me! 
We originally were going to pick godparents, but neither DH nor I are religious, so we are going to pick guardians. DS is 17 months old and we still haven't decided....
persimmon / 1171 posts
I was always under the impression that Godparents acted as guardians; with that, we chose my sister and her fiancé. I agree with the way they are raising their LO and we have similar views on life, religion and everything that is important to us. I also like that my sister knows EVERYTHING about me and let's me talk about DH all the time, this will let LO get to know us as much as possible (:
GOLD / pomegranate / 3938 posts
When I have a LO, god parents and guardians will be two wholly separate things. God parents will be restricted to people who fall into my husbands religion who i believe will be good spirtual rile models. I wont do any "honorary" naming just because thats been how it was in the past. Guardians will likely be my mom and step dad for the immediate future. That will change as my mom gets older and will likey switch to my sister.
@sorrycharlie: just FYI, my husband is the godfather of his cousin who is just about 11 or 12 years younger than him. So I don't think that anyone could be "too young" depending on what the purpose is for which you are naming the godparents.
cantaloupe / 6630 posts
We have a ton of brothers and sisters so had a ready bounty of godparents to choose from! We choose a brother and sister of DH's, because we think they're fab, exactly the kind of people we would want to guide A through life. I chose one of my best friends, who I hope will teach A a lot about tolerance and kindness, and one of my sisters, who I hope will be a good ear for A through her life.
coconut / 8279 posts
Our church let us choose whoever we wanted to, no prereqs.
DH doesn't have any family besides his mother. I have a huge family, one sibling, my brother. We always knew he would be our firstborn's godfather.
The godmother was tough. I have three friends that are like sisters to me. One friend has a sister and was having a son of her own. One friend has three kids. The other friend is like me, no sister and didn't have any kids. I could've picked any of them, I love them all the same. But I chose the friend that didn't have a sister and didn't have kids yet. She's such an amazing friend and will be a great mom. I wanted her to know that I would be honored if she would be J's godmother.
blogger / pomegranate / 3491 posts
We only have a guardian, who is my bff (and in turn, her DH, but only she is legally written in our will). We didn't really want to alienate either side of our families by picking one or the other, and none of our siblings were the right fit anyway (DH's sis already has 3 kids, my sis is too young)
GOLD / squash / 13464 posts
My church (Presbyterian) doesn't do Godparents so we didn't have to name them when LO was baptized. My brother and SIL are her guardians so in the traditional sense of the word they would be her godparents. But my husband didn't want to actually call them that because he wanted his sister to be the godmother. My feeling was that if we made my bro and his sister the Godparents then who would our second child get (we have no other siblings). His response was "I don't know... Maybe they won't have god parents". This struck a real nerve with me because my bro has godparents and I don't (we were baptized in different churches). His response solidified to me that his desire to name godparents was motivated by wanting to make his sister happy and not by wanting to do what was best for our daughter so I put my foot down and said no godparents.
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