Should we get our child baptised?

ravydavygravy

Heyho,

We recently had a new member into the family - Conor, now 4 weeks old. Neither parent are particularly religous (I'm athiest, AM is a non-practicing catholic), and we are now faced with a thorny issue - what to do with Conor...

Basically, I want to know is there any practical problems with not baptising him until he can decide for himself if he wants to be baptised or not? For examples, what happens with the way schools are generally run by churches?

Anyone have similar issues or experiences in same? Basically, we don't want to inconvenience him in later life by not baptising him... but at the same time, we are not fond of baptising him just for the sake of it...

Dave

robindch

Depends on where you live and what schools are there. Yes, you're right -- the church is allowed to demote or reject your child's application if he's not the "right" religion. And it frequently does, as the recent displays of legal, institutional racism in Dublin showed earlier in the year.

Alternatively, if there's an Educate Together school close by, then you may have better luck there as they operate a reasonably strict first-come, first-served system (siblings excepted, I believe), and religious membership cards of whatever hue do not allow latecomers to skip queues.

The Athiest and Agnostic forum might give you more info:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=614

Nevyn

Check with your local schools find out if they are demonimational and ask for a copy of thier enrollment policy.

kelle

OP, my work colleague has 2 daughters who haven't been baptised. They're in their twenties now, but she had no problem getting them into a convent school for both their primary and secondary education. The only hassle she encountered was when the older daughter was 7 and another colleague insisted she borrow her daughter's good communion dress - she said the look of horror on her face when she told her the truth was priceless! But that's about 15 years ago, I'm sure nobody bats an eyelid nowadays.

dame

I have three cousins, all girls, who were not baptised as babies. The parents were R.C. and Protestant and wanted to let the children chose for themselves when they were older. Each one of them "decided" they wanted to get baptised a few months before the First Communion was coming up for their friends. Now I can't be certain, but I'd say the excitement and the dressing up in a Communion dress had a lot to do with that decision. I mean, 7 year olds aren't really in a position to choose between different religions/faiths, in my opinion. Maybe your son won't face the same dilemma, what with boys not wearing Communion dresses and generally being less excited about the whole thing.

catmad

I would see the school as the issue to look at, particularly with places at a premium, depending on where you live. If neither of you are particularly bothered, would it be that big a problem if you did baptise Conor into a faith? If it got me a place a school of choice, I would go for it.

ravydavygravy

catmad wrote: »

If neither of you are particularly bothered, would it be that big a problem if you did baptise Conor into a faith? If it got me a place a school of choice, I would go for it.

Yeah, we may well do this - I'll ring the school next week when they are open to find out what the story is...

Dave

Nevyn

Communion dresses have a fatal flaw, they are not pink.

My son toyed with the idea of making his communion and happy to hear that if he wanted to start the process and get baptised I would allow it and got his grandmother to be his sponsour and take him to mass for a few sunday mornings. He quickly changed his mind.

My daugther is now in second class and was toying with the idea but did say it was the dress she wanted so we agreed that she could have a pink princess style dressed made just for her.

Once you have the school situation sorted it is not a big deal.
Still it is horrible that parents have to consider baptism to get thier child into a local school.

Gaspode

Dave, one of our children wasnt baptised - the others were only baptised to stop their great grandfather from worrying himself to death that they'd end up in purgatory or limbo or put into some other holding pattern if they died before baptism.
The fact that my youngest isnt baptised hasnt presented any problems for us, though we've been very lucky to be able to send her to the educate together school.

I cant see you ever having problems with Conor unless your local school is run by the church and gets pedantic about the rules.

none of ours have done the communion and confirmation bit thankfully, and it was not a problem. They were a bit curious as to what the money bit was all about, but it wasnt the problem for them you might think it would be.

Best of luck

Deliverance

Myself and my daughters mother did not have our child baptised because of the fact / principal that, we felt it would be shallow and hypocritical as we are not practising in the 'faith'. However we do feel pressurised, or I do at least by the social norm that exists, plus there is the old inbuilt fear which was instilled in us as R.C's growing up i.e. Hell fire and all that.

To be honest my memories of communion are a bit vague but my confirmation to me at the time was a proud moment for me. It just felt good in my 'semi' innocent state to have principals of doing good and respecting thy fellow neighbour and helping out people and all that jazz (not a bad thing for a kid to believe in). That was a good foundation in that sense, so there is no wrong in that I feel. If you take out all the 'you will burn in hell if you don't do this' then it is not a bad ideology.

Tis only later on really when I was mature enough to see the huge flaws and corruption in the institution that I and I'm sure many others of my generation of change and freedom of choice of thinking, turned away from the institution. But the old fears are ingrained as I always feel 'what if I'm wrong and I will go to hell or something similar for not believing by practising. This to me is wrong and a restriction on my freedom of philisophical and real progressive thinking.

These days I guess as a parent I have more power over the upbringing of my child, I can take the good and seperate it from the bad by experience with regards to religion, I think, as mentioned it is a good idea to give the child a choice in later life rather than indoctrinating them at a young age. I think a lot of parents have the choice to do this which is good.

I will summarize by saying that I feel that I was, and am right about not baptizing my child. Giving them a choice later on as mentioned by others is a very good idea (that helps me in my decision to). Doing it to just get into a school only defends the old school of thought of control by fear when it would, for me at least, be much nicer to have my child have the ability to make her own choices and therefore have her own mind whilst still benefitting by the better parts of the given ideology of the religion.

littlebitdull

If you dont baptise your child your local roman catholic school can refuse you a place. This is legal. They are allowed to perserve the ethos of the school. In practice this means that all the RC children will be offered places first. I would imagine it would be the same in a CofI school. If your child has no specific religon you will be lowest on the list.

If you have an Educate Together school within your area now is the time to get Conors name down. They operate on a first come first served basis. So you need to get your childs name down as early as possible.

None of my three have made their communion or confirmation. It was only a minor difficulty to opt out for the elder two who were in mainstreem school at the time. But they were ok with it. My eldest lad found out about the money element about a month before the rest of his class were due to make their communion, and decided that he did after all wish to make it too. However pointing out the fact that he would be expected to attend Mass every sunday MORNING was enough to put him off!!!

littlebitdull

Remember also that now the schools are looking for your baptismal cert to be at least two years before school entry age. Apparently people were only getting their children baptised to gain a place, and were doing so the summer before the child started.

luckat

Perhaps I'm going against the grain here, but surely if you don't believe you shouldn't get your child baptised?

My son wasn't baptised; it didn't make any difference to his schooling.

silverharp

if your not religious you shouldn't baptise as in my view you are sending mixed messages to your kids, you are basically saying that integrity isn't important and that the ends justify the means.

nesf

I disagree, for an atheist whether or not a kid is baptised really makes no difference, i.e. it's just water like. For a theist it can make all the difference in the world.

ArthurDent

silverharp wrote: »

if your not religious you shouldn't baptise as in my view you are sending mixed messages to your kids, you are basically saying that integrity isn't important and that the ends justify the means.

although I agree with you in principle (and didn't baptise my last child) - I don't think I'd judge people who baptise their kids solely to get them into schools - 96% of primary schools are denominational - if you're not baptised you're at the bottom of the list for enrolment. I think it's crap that you have to do this to ensure your kids a place in the local publically funded primary school - but for most5 people that is the current situtation.
silverharp - do you have kids, are they in school? My kids are in an ET school and didn't require baptism certs but you know what if an ET school wasn't available and I had to baptise them just to get them a place - it wouldn't cost me a thought.

SerialComplaint

littlebitdull wrote: »

If you dont baptise your child your local roman catholic school can refuse you a place. This is legal. They are allowed to perserve the ethos of the school. In practice this means that all the RC children will be offered places first. I would imagine it would be the same in a CofI school. If your child has no specific religon you will be lowest on the list.

Just to be clear, a school cannot refuse a place based on the child's religion. They can prioritise children of certain religions, and in situations where demand exceeds supply (i.e. more kids than school places), children with no religion or a religion which does not match the school's ethos will be at the bottom of the list. So the end result is the same, but it is down to prioritisation.

We got our little girl baptised so she wouldn't be discriminated against at the local school, though I was and am quite uncomfortable with this.

silverharp

ArthurDent wrote: »

although I agree with you in principle (and didn't baptise my last child) - I don't think I'd judge people who baptise their kids solely to get them into schools - 96% of primary schools are denominational - if you're not baptised you're at the bottom of the list for enrolment. I think it's crap that you have to do this to ensure your kids a place in the local publically funded primary school - but for most5 people that is the current situtation.
silverharp - do you have kids, are they in school? My kids are in an ET school and didn't require baptism certs but you know what if an ET school wasn't available and I had to baptise them just to get them a place - it wouldn't cost me a thought.

We have one so far not baptised, though I couldn’t rule out the possibility that my mum did it herself ;-) and he is down for a non denominational school, as I didn’t want our son to go to a religious school. I have friends that I know are not religious and have had their kids baptised but I just couldn’t bring myself to stand up in front of a bunch of people and say that I am going to raise my kids a certain way if I had no intention of doing it. Kids aren’t stupid and without overstating the point I’d prefer to see my kids see that we try to live life with a consistent set of values. In England they seem to go one step further and lie about where they live to get into certain schools and again where do you stop.

Carrigart Exile

silverharp wrote: »

We have one so far not baptised, though I couldn’t rule out the possibility that my mum did it herself ;-) and he is down for a non denominational school, as I didn’t want our son to go to a religious school. I have friends that I know are not religious and have had their kids baptised but I just couldn’t bring myself to stand up in front of a bunch of people and say that I am going to raise my kids a certain way if I had no intention of doing it. Kids aren’t stupid and without overstating the point I’d prefer to see my kids see that we try to live life with a consistent set of values. In England they seem to go one step further and lie about where they live to get into certain schools and again where do you stop.

Well said Silver Harp, Baptism is you affirming you want your child to be of that religion and will bring the child up accordingly. To expose your child to the sacrament of baptism to circumvent a school waiting list is in my opinion disgraceful and sets your whole childs' life off on a lie.

ArthurDent

silverharp wrote: »

We have one so far not baptised, though I couldn’t rule out the possibility that my mum did it herself ;-) and he is down for a non denominational school, as I didn’t want our son to go to a religious school. I have friends that I know are not religious and have had their kids baptised but I just couldn’t bring myself to stand up in front of a bunch of people and say that I am going to raise my kids a certain way if I had no intention of doing it. Kids aren’t stupid and without overstating the point I’d prefer to see my kids see that we try to live life with a consistent set of values. In England they seem to go one step further and lie about where they live to get into certain schools and again where do you stop.

I totally agree with you about not being able to stand up and not making you can't keep - couldn't do it myself for my daughter, as I said my kids are in a multi d school - - i got involved in setting it up because I don't believe denominational instruction has a place in publically funded education - but given there are only 42 multid schools in the country I appreciate that this is something not open to all and certainly wouldn't point any fingers at those who do get their kid baptised to put them higher up trhe list for their local school. I have many, many friends who have baptised their kids for this reason and presssure to conform from their families, but won't be allowing them to make their comunion/confirmation (or will allow but it'll be the only times they set foot in church). In some ways I think the catholic church are shooting themselves in the foot with the way the schools are run - surely it'd make more sense from their point of view to have truly committed members who actively want their children to receive an education steeped in a "catholic ethos" and not to cater for the "wishy-washy" a la carte-ers, or those who aren't catholic at all. I have a feeling that there will be a move in the next few years to hand over those schools (for a hefty payment) to the Dept or VEC to run if the church decides that there aren't enough catholics in them. The new proposed VEC primary model may be useful from that poiint of view - but how/where the Dept propose finding qualified teachers to teach religious instruction in the muslim, hidu, Seventh Day Adventists faith....etc is beyond me. Amazingly the INTO have been quiet on the subject.

delly

My baby girl is 7 months old now and even before she was born there was never a thought of getting her baptised. Both myself and my wife are your typical Irish former Catholics and we both now have absolutely nothing to do with religion. We also got married in a registry office as whats the point in having a church wedding if it really means nothing?

I was only recently telling people in work that I wasn't getting her baptised and some some people really couldn't believe it, saying I was mad because of getting into schools etc. TBH in this modern day of so much immigration into the country, if it meant you had to be a Catholic to get an education we'd be fecked. The educate together schools are great and the more that open the better. I have respect for people who are religious and if my daughter comes to me in years to come and decides she wants to be a Catholic, Muslim or Jewish then i'll support that decision knowing she has done the research. But to decide such an important aspect such as religion for a child based on the fact that they may have trouble getting into a school in years to come in my mind is a kop out.

Oh, and when it comes to Communion time and you fear your child is being left out, you could do as a friend of mine did and take them to Eurodisney or similar. Costwise it might even be cheaper than a Communion.

ex_infantry man

i dont think you should get your child baptised in a catholic church if

1. your not catholic
2. you have no intention of teaching your child or showing him how to live in the catholic way
3. if its just to get into schools
4. just because its what people do.

stop making a mockery out of the catholic church some people actually baptise their kids for the right reasons not just to get into local schools. dont be hypocrites.

di11on

ex_infantry man wrote: »

i dont think you should get your child baptised in a catholic church if

1. your not catholic
2. you have no intention of teaching your child or showing him how to live in the catholic way
3. if its just to get into schools
4. just because its what people do.

stop making a mockery out of the catholic church some people actually baptise their kids for the right reasons not just to get into local schools. dont be hypocrites.

All you say is fine and dandy, in an ideal world. But the reality of the situation is that funding increases in the primary education system has lagged far behind the increase in population. Now many people are facing stiff competition to get their children into school.

The fact that someone is forced to baptise their child as Catholic to get them into school is a complete outrage. It's the fault of the state that has created and sponsored an arpartheid system of schooling. I would not blame anyone for doing this.

It's a disgrace that religion is a descriminating factor in admissions to the vast majority of state funded schools.

nesf

di11on wrote: »

All you say is fine and dandy, in an ideal world. But the reality of the situation is that funding increases in the primary education system has lagged far behind the increase in population. Now many people are facing stiff competition to get their children into school.

The fact that someone is forced to baptise their child as Catholic to get them into school is a complete outrage. It's the fault of the state that has created and sponsored an arpartheid system of schooling. I would not blame anyone for doing this.

It's a disgrace that religion is a descriminating factor in admissions to the vast majority of state funded schools.

You make it sound like children are turned away when there are empty desks waiting to be filled. The problem here is one of too many kids and not enough places not religion tbh.

muckety

di11on wrote: »

All you say is fine and dandy, in an ideal world. But the reality of the situation is that funding increases in the primary education system has lagged far behind the increase in population. Now many people are facing stiff competition to get their children into school.

The fact that someone is forced to baptise their child as Catholic to get them into school is a complete outrage. It's the fault of the state that has created and sponsored an arpartheid system of schooling. I would not blame anyone for doing this.

It's a disgrace that religion is a descriminating factor in admissions to the vast majority of state funded schools.

'state funded schools' - these are few and far between! The majority of schools are subsidised by the state - 'funded' would imply the sufficient monies were provided to run the school without further funding from the Patron (religious body or other group such as Educate Together) and massive efforts in fundraising by parents.

Until the State is prepared to step up to its responsibility to 'fund' schools its hard to see how the resulting dependancy on religious organisations can be avoided.

Nevyn

The school buildings are paid for by the state, the running costs for the schools are funded by a per head grant per child which is given by the state, the staff and teachers wages are paid for by the state.

niallb

Thaedydal wrote: »

The school buildings are paid for by the state...

The state is often inclined to give only half the funding required for the school buildings.
We've upgraded our three room school over the last few years, and the community
raised about 350,000 euro which the Government matched. It couldn't have happened without the funding, but it wouldn't have happened on funding alone. It took over five years to get it organised!

The alternative was to close our local school and have our kids go to school in Dunshaughlin which is itself under increasing pressure for numbers.

Interestingly, by giving half the sum, the Government also avoids paying many of the costs
of administering the project in its usual fashion, so the money may be better spent!

di11on

nesf wrote: »

You make it sound like children are turned away when there are empty desks waiting to be filled. The problem here is one of too many kids and not enough places not religion tbh.

The points system for third level education was introduced because the available supply of third level places was insufficient for the demand. The points system was seen as a fair way to allocate limited places in third level amongst those seeking a place.

Imagine the points system for third level was scrapped and we brought in religion instead as a way of allocating third level places.

Would you see that as appropriate?

There is absolutely no difference.

I agree there's a problem of funding, it's an outrage that this situation has been allowed to develop. Do Irish families abroad face difficulties getting their children into school because of their religion?

niallb

di11on wrote: »

Imagine the points system for third level was scrapped and we brought in religion instead as a way of allocating third level places.

That's a wild comparison! Excellent.

We've three children and none of them are baptised.
Our local school officially "espouses a Catholic ethos" (their words), but there's been no problems.

The local parish priest called around a few weeks ago as my son is in the Communion class.
He wasn't pushing for baptism/communion either. He was talking about what the class
would be doing in preparation and wondering if our boy wanted to be involved by singing
in the choir or something. I was quite impressed with his approach really, as we're well known heathens.

I feel that baptising your kids just to get them into a school is doing three things:
1) Showing a lack of respect for genuine Catholics
2) Artificially inflating the number of Catholics on the books (86% in the 2006 census)
3) Perpetuating a situation where religious discrimination is considered to be OK.

Every school is a little bit different I guess.

nesf

di11on wrote: »

Imagine the points system for third level was scrapped and we brought in religion instead as a way of allocating third level places.

Would you see that as appropriate?

There is absolutely no difference.

There are many differences and really you should be able to see that. I appreciate the point you're trying to make but seriously the above analogy misses the point. We've a primary school system that is not made up of purely state run schools. The state subsidises them but it doesn't run them.

Honestly, if the Catholic Church runs a school and it is oversubscribed, then I really don't have a problem with it offering first choice to Catholics. That really seems reasonable to me. The problem is that a) we're oversubscribed (when there were enough places there weren't widespread problems with kids being turned away because of their faith or lack thereof) and b) that the state doesn't actually run many primary schools in the first place. Either a) or a) & b) needs fixing.

di11on

nesf wrote: »

There are many differences and really you should be able to see that...

Sure... the crux of the problem is that too many of our schools are run by the catholic church. This results in a situation, the absurdity of which I was highlighting with the above analogy. Of course there are differences. But to the non catholic trying to get their child into school, all they know is they are being refused because their child is not catholic. I doubt this situation has been allowed to develop in any other civilised country.