Wedding Woes
mrsconn23
member
Uhhh. Talk to your wife and read your mom the riot act.
in Wedding Woes
Dear Prudence,
I’m Jewish by conversion, having been raised in a conservative Christian environment. My parents are generally good, even mostly liberal these days. However, my mom has directly told my mother-in-law (also a Christian) that she would have any child of mine baptized against my will. My wife is not pregnant, but this offends me deeply, terrifies me, and honestly is making it difficult to even be sexually intimate with my wife for fear of this. What do I do?
—Religious Kidnapping
I’m Jewish by conversion, having been raised in a conservative Christian environment. My parents are generally good, even mostly liberal these days. However, my mom has directly told my mother-in-law (also a Christian) that she would have any child of mine baptized against my will. My wife is not pregnant, but this offends me deeply, terrifies me, and honestly is making it difficult to even be sexually intimate with my wife for fear of this. What do I do?
—Religious Kidnapping
Re: Uhhh. Talk to your wife and read your mom the riot act.
I would get my mom to say it to me, not my MIL, but this would be grounds to prevent her from being around my kid without supervision in my book.
Also, dear god man...don't withhold sex from your wife because of your mother's BS. It's not fair to her and will cause a ridiculous amount of unintended consequences if you start pulling away from your wife physically or rejecting sex.
Not that I'm saying it's NBD if his mom secretly does it! That would be an absolutely outrageous act and breech of trust. However, it is hard for me to understand the part where the LW is "terrified", to the point where he doesn't even want to have sex with his wife.
He needs to talk to his mother. He also needs to stop this fear from, not only having sex with his wife, but also potentially interrupting their procreation plans. And if they need to lay the hammer down that their future babies are not allowed to be alone with his mother if they can't trust her, than so be it.
ETA - and I think we're probably one of the denominations that's most "serious" about baptism and its impact.
If your mom isn't going to be trustworthy about things relating to your kid, then she doesn't get to do those things.
But the other part of this is that even if remains impossible for the mother to accomplish the issue is that she's asserted her intention. And she's asserted it to others alluding to the concept that she is not trusting her own child how to parent. And that will still yield the same consequence for mom because she's decided that she will be ignoring the wishes of the child's mother and father.
This lady is a 'light' version of the lady who called CPS because her ex-DIL was following a vegan diet and had the baby eating vegan as well. It's a gross overreach, disrespectful, and clearly these kids need to be in a controlled environment when it comes to interacting with these grandparents. This isn't sneaking cookies when it's bedtime, it's showing you fundamentally believe that your way is the correct one and you won't take no for an answer.
We actually had a slight issue with DH's aunt back when Chiquita was born. She's a December baby and her Godparents do not live in state. We moved just before she was born and between a (lack of) unpacking and a rough postpartum phase PLUS a winter of never-ending snow storms we did not move to aggressively schedule her Baptism. The last thing I wanted to do was schedule something only to find out that it wasn't going to happen or we'd have proxy Godparents standing in because flights were cancelled. Instead, we waited until she was 5 months (not really all that old) and had her Baptized then.
Well, MIL and FIL let me know that DH's aunt (FIL's sister) was VERY worried that the devil was "Going to get his hands on her" and repeatedly asked what we were doing. A confrontation never happened nor was it needed but I'm still irked years later that we were questioned about it.
I know its in no way the point but I didn't realize churches even allowed children to be baptized at the request of a non-custodial adult. My own kids it was a few weeks of prep classes, a blessing mass, interviews between the priest and H and me (especially H, since he's not Catholic). Again, not the point, but could LWs mother even have the baby baptized?
And, while one would HOPE that any pastor would not baptize an infant all willy-nilly without verifying the child's guardian, there is sadly not a doubt in my mind that the mother could find a pastor/minister to do this. Especially with the right sized "donation". And/or have views as messed up as the mother's that "it's best for the baby, who cares what the parents want". Not limited to, but possibly for independent and/or non-denominational churches.
Keep in mind, there are tons of...for lack of a better word..."mom and pop" Christian churches out there. That aren't necessarily tied to any major denomination or, even if they are, act independently from whatever National organization there is. The leaders/ministers may not have any formal religious education. Nothing wrong with all that! Overall, I think it's great for people to have opportunities to worship God in a less structured way. But with less oversight can unfortunately sometimes also lead to negative actions or mistakes. Like buying some made-up sob story from an old lady bringing her grandchild to be baptized, without it's parents.
The grandmother is definitely wrong here but a clergy person isn't needed for baptisms in some cases. In the Lutheran Church, baptism by a clergy person is the preferred norm. However, in cases of "emergency", baptism is valid when performed by a Christian layperson.
Like @levioosa, I'm certain there absolutely are places which would do this for the grandma. My point is that just about all major denominations recognize that you absolutely cannot eliminate the parents' consent from the equation (and therefore just how wrong grandma is). They wouldn't excuse her or condone this just because she has salvation anxiety.