Do your kids have designated godparents?

[justlearning]

Poll coming...

[elektra]

My kids were baptized in the Catholic church so it comes with the territory.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if my SIL is going to start pushing for more religious exposure for my kids, especially DD who is her god daughter. I know she takes the "spiritual guide" thing very seriously, and really with the best intentions. The thing is, it's not a priority or a desire for me at all.

[wellyes]

No, we do not belong to a church.

[AnnieW625]

yes. DD1's godparents are DH's aunt and uncle. DD2's godparents are my sister and one of DH's cousins (he only has 2 so that made it easy)

[Giantbear]

My dd has godparents, but in Judaism the godparent is responsible for the child's religious upbringing. The godparents are one sister and husband, but dd would go to my other sister and her husband.

[justlearning]

No, we do not belong to a church.

We belong to a Protestant church and do not have godparents either (not for my kids, nor do I have any). But I know that some in my church do designate godparents.

[lizzywednesday]

Nope, no godparents for my DD.

We do not belong to a church and, frankly, we are not religious in the least, so I don't particularly see it happening at all.

I no longer have any intentions of baptizing/initiating my child(ren) into any religious community and am content with raising her/them to be decent human beings rather than religious ones.

BIL's kids were baptized, but they're not particularly religious either.

On the flip side, DH & I have discussed who should be our DD's guardians should anything ever happen to us and we fail to agree on who they ought to be beyond the fact that we both feel they should be family members.

[ZeeBaby]

DD's both have two godmothers each and two godfather's each. I did family and friend combos for each. Also we are catholic and I wanted one set to be catholic.

[daisysmom]

We are Episcopalian now (I was Catholic) and our DD has 3 god-mothers and 1 god-father. I had a married set of god-parents who were friends of my parents from before they got married. I do really enjoy my godparents, we don't have a close or in-touch relationship at all (and I don't think we ever did) but frankly, I really appreciate the friendship that they still have with my parents and how deep it runs (my father's older brother recently passed away, and my godfather - who was a very close childhood friend of my father's- and his wife drove back early from a family vacation numerous states away because that is what they would do for a close friend's loss). For that reason, I was glad to have them at my wedding and I am always interested in hearing how they are doign.

My daughter's god-parents have no role in her religioius upbringing at all, they don't go to our church. But they are good family friends, and I care deeply about them.

[BabbyO]

Each of our kids have 4 Godparents. 2 family members and 2 church family members. Our family member Godparents do not live near us so it is hard for them to take an active role in their religious upbrining. So we also have very close friends from our church who are Godparents. We felt obligated to choose people from our family, but thought the kids would benefit from seeing Godparents weekly in our faith community as well so we did both.

[cuca_]

My 3 oldest have a set of godparents (DS has two godmothers and no godfather), but we've slacked with the 4th, so she has none. I think we will try to have her baptized this summer. DH and I were both raised Catholic, but are not currently practicing anything. I feel guilty, though, that DD is left out, so I think we will go ahead and do it. DD1 keeps asking about her First Communion, and honestly I am very torn about the whole thing.

[ourbabygirl]

We're Catholic, and in our church we need at least one of the godparents to be a practicing Catholic, and both people can't be women (although they didn't tell us that when DD was baptized 3 years ago).
DD's godparents are DH's sister (Catholic) & my aunt (not Catholic but very religious & a good role model); DS' godparents are my brother & SIL (she's Catholic).
The whole godparents and guardian thing is a yucky subject for me because I don't feel like we have many people who we're close to and who are good candidates for either role.

[niccig]

Yes, but DS isn't baptized, so not in the traditional sense. We had a naming ceremony and our 2 friends were chosen to be part of that and are his guardians.

We're godparents and guardians to their 2 girls.

[TwinFoxes]

Yes, they were baptized Roman Catholic, and each have two Godparents.

[DietCokeLover]

No, our children do not. The closest they have is that they would go to my BFF and her DH if something happened to DH and I.

[Gena]

DS has Godparents, but they are different from his designated guardians.

[scrooks]

Sort of ..i grew up catholic and have god parents. Dh is Protestant and comes from a tradition without godparents. Our dc were baptized in his parents church and while godparents aren't the norm they were very very flexible with us and let us designate them. We designated our sisters to be godparents for both kids. Very untraditional but it was enough to make me happy!

[Ceepa]

Yes, our kids have Godparents.

[belovedgandp]

All of my kids have godparents - combinations of siblings, in-law siblings and cousins.

We are Catholic and consider it part of their religious upbringing. One of the cousins that is a godmother does also happen to be the individual named in our will to be the legal guardian of all of our children if something happened to us.

[american_mama]

I wanted to ask this too. No one in my family had godparents, nor did DH, so it's a really foreign idea to me even though I attended church growing up and again now that I have kids. I never heard any of my friends growing up talking about godparents, not to say that they didn't have them. Is it more common in certain religions? I grew up Presbyterian, and most of my friends growing up were Catholic or Jewish, or generic Protestants. I wasn't aware of anyone being specifically Lutheran, Methodist, or Episcopalian, to name some of the bigger Protestant denominations.

When we went to DH's niece's christening, (Episcopalian), I was amazed when godparents stood up (all friends or relatives of SIL). That presumably meant his older nephew also had godparents, and DH had never been asked. I was a little irritated on his behalf. A few years later, DH's brother divorced and many negative parts of SIL's personality were revealed, and then the slight made more sense.

eta: Seems like a lot of Catholics replied that godparents are common there. I'm surprised I don't remember my Catholic friends mentioning it.

[Puddy73]

No, they have all been baptized but the Presbyterian Church does not have specific godparents. A "sponsor" stands with the family during baptism, but the entire congregation agrees to foster and encourage the spiritual growth of the child.

[GoBlue]

Nope.....Jewish.

[MontrealMum]

We are raising DS in the Presbyterian Church of Canada and he has (had - one has passed) 3 godparents. It's not a requirement, but it's quite common. He was sponsored at his baptism by the Clerk of Session who is BFF's with the IL's. I was raised in the Congregational church where there are never any godparents and sponsors were only for adult baptisms/conversions so this was somewhat foreign to me, but DH was raised Anglican so we compromised. DS' designated legal guardians are entirely different people.

[roseyloxs]

Yes. I really need my brothers to get married soon though because we are running low on choices for godmothers.

[AJP]

We're Greek Orthodox, so Godparents are chosen and Baptize the child. my brother and SIL, sister and BIL, and close friends of ours (husband and wife couple) are Godparents of our DC. We're not super religious, but Godparents are supposed to act as spiritual guides in our faith - both now and in the event that the parents are gone. To us it is important that they become a close part of the family and share in milestones of the childrens lives. The couple who have baptized our one DD (who aren't already related) are like family now. That is how Godparents are supposed to be seen for us... Like family.
ETA: Legal guardians named in the event of our passing are whoever we choose, so it doesn't need to be a Godparent. In our situation my Sister and her DH would be guardians for our children.

[dcmom2b3]

We're Episcopalian, and DD has sets of godparents from each side of her family: my uncle and cousin, (both AA) and her father's best friend and his then wife (both Francophone Catholics, and, in her case, African).

We're all mixed up. :)

[nfowife]

We are Jewish and I have never heard of Jews having godparents. So our kids don't have them. However, we are godparents to a friend's son who are Episcopalian. Their pastor (priest? not sure what it is called in the Episcopalian church) knew we are Jewish and was OK with us being selected as the godparents. So we are! We felt very honored.

[georgiegirl]

I'm Jewish (well I was raised Jewish but I'm not practicing) and DH was raised under communism. So our kids do not have godparents. I'm not sure my 6 year old even knows what god is (she completely freaked out when she heard the Pledge of allegiance at school last fall and thought the teacher was forcing her to pray...I had a good laugh about that one.)