bore me to tears

It’s too late for me. But, there’s still hope for you!

I was reading the description of one of the nonreligious parenting webinars (about which I posted here) and had to laugh.

WEBINAR #2: The Religious Extended Family: Most nonreligious parents are raising their children within a religious extended family. This can provide enriching diversity but also painful conflict: “Should we just go to church to satisfy Grandma?” “Should we have the kids baptized to keep the peace?”

I bet you’d be surprised to hear that Husband, Daughter and I faithfully attend Mass each week. Husband says that it would just be too painful for his parents to know the truth (that we don’t); so, we should pretend — for them. Besides, they live back east; it’s easy to keep it from them. Our deal? I keep the secret – as long as he doesn’t ask our daughter to participate. Oh, and I get to tease him about it – mercilessly – whenever I want.

We did get married by a Catholic priest however. I even took… The Classes. (Don’t believe me? Ask me a question about Natural Family Planning so I can prove it…. Or, on second thought, just click here if you really want to know.) In class, I was the elephant in the room full of devoted Catholic couples, and the object of many a hopeless prayer, I’m sure.

After my Catholic Wedding, I thought I could go back to being a non-Catholic, but then I went and had Dear Daughter. When Husband and I expressed reservations about baptizing her, Father-in-Law went to his parish priest for permission. Yep, Parish Priest said Nope. Unbaptized babies go to Hell. (Or is it Purgatory? I forget.) So, Father-in-Law was now determined that we do the right thing, and Mother-in-Law was fretting about it incessantly. Husband asked if we could cave and “do it for them.”

(Sigh.) Naive about what it entailed, I agreed to my husband’s request. Then, I found out that, during the ceremony, we would be required to vow to raise our daughter Catholic. And, we had to find and dupe convince a nice Catholic couple to act as witnesses at our sham blessed event! To complicate matters, I was unclear about the existence of God at that time and became concerned about vowing a pack of lies – to God – in a Church. Just in case he existed.

Then one night, perhaps contemplating his dilemma, Husband realized that he could do the baptism himself! In the bathtub! Apparently, and I forget why this is so, his hands were officially “blessed” by the Church at some point when he was young and, technically,…

So, the event was lovely. It reminded me of, oh, what’s the word? A Bath. Of course, Mother-in-Law wanted to know all about the (Church) baptism; Did the baby fuss at the water? Did she laugh? Did you get any pictures? NO. We forgot to bring our camera.

So, here we are many years later and we’re still practicing Catholicism. I inquire on occasion; Seeing as how we’re now in our FORTIES, do you think…? No, they’re not going to live much longer – and it would just be too cruel at this point…