My son is getting baptized soon and I really have no desire to attend or have anything to do with Mormonism.

I am a born in the church returned missionary Ex-Mormon from California. I have been out of the church now for maybe 2 or 3 years.

Just about a week ago I had been wondering if my son had been baptized because my wife decided that religion wasn't going to be something we really discussed. This was her decision after I was spewing out information I had found out after deciding to leave the church.

Within the past week my wife messaged me and several family members announcing my son's upcoming baptism through Facebook. She has not mentioned one thing about it to me in person.

I have only asked a couple friends about what they think and they have both said I should go.

I felt here would be a more appropriate place to pose the question as more of you can relate to me as my friends have never been Mormon.

Again, I have no desire to go because I feel the church is irrelevant. Also being around family when they talk about the church makes me embarrassed and ashamed. This is a problem I am still struggling with. In other words if I did end up going I would be feeling ashamed the whole time I am there. In particular because there will be lots of family and my son will be getting baptized by someone else and not me, his father. I don't know why I even let it bother me. I don't know if it is because of the way I grew up or if it is just a personal weakness of mine or what.


Anyways, just wanted to get opinions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2012 01:08PM by TheBrianGuy.

In your situation I would. You son will only remember you weren't there. And in time he may make the choice you have.

Yes, go to support your son. Make this about him and not you.

But...you have a much bigger problem than your son's upcoming baptism. Why are you and your wife not having detailed discussions about your son's religious upbringing? The lack of communication is troubling.

I second this.

My husband's mother came when he got baptized at 18. She didn't believe then, and never did, but she supported her son.

You sound like you might be divorced. It doesn't matter because you should attend. Make sure you attend every activity of importance in his life, no matter how you feel about it. Suck up feeling embarrassed or ashamed.

That is NOT your frame, it is a paradigm they indoctrinated you with, like a parasite foreign to your nature and completely false. They inserted it in you and you know what the hero of any sci-fi flick does, right? He pulls out the parasite by cutting through his flesh with a pocket knife, facing the pain like Rambo.

That's what you have to do. Start by watching some good movies like 1984, Blade Runner, and Logan's Run--oh, and The Body Snatchers. My friend, you are the HERO, you are the remaining HUMAN among the zombies, you alone of your family had the balls to go with truth rather than running from it.

You are not the namby-pamby, porn-addicted hypocritical finger pointing mouth-open screaming conformist who lets old men tell him where to touch his body and how much and how high to cut his hair.

YOU ARE A REAL MAN and I would be proud to call you a friend. You have nothing to be ashamed of, you are no longer a membership number, you have claimed your individuality and your son is DAMNED LUCKY to have one person who will whisper, "You are supposed to do your own thinking" and "Your life is yours to live, no one else's. It doesn't belong to the church, or God, no one knows everything about you but YOU."

Never leave him to them. He belongs to you--you are his father and he is programmed to switch his attachment from his mother to YOU. If you don't blow it.

Best of luck

Anagrammy

we'll put. +234

Duly noted to all you who have said this is about my son and not me and the support I should be offering him. You are definitely right.

And yes you are right summer; the fact that we don’t have more communication about many things is troublesome, especially since we are not divorced. But I think that is a fault on both our parts.

To Anagrammy. Thanks for the pep talk. Your perspective does hit home. This has been an issue for me even as a Mormon. Though as you rightly explained has been ingrained in my Mormon upbringing. I am making very slow progress but in the right direction at being my own person and not letting them affect me. Your comments are definitely making me re-think things.

There are two additional reasons I think you should be there at the baptism:

The first is so you can watch what the cult is doing with your son. Because his dad is an apostate, they could bring out some unusual bullshit talks to the effect that every boy has many dads and he should choose to listen to the one that will lead him back to the only dad that matters, his Heavenly Father.

If you are sitting right there in the front row, they will not dare make these kinds of statements, nor will they bunch around him and tell him he call call them any time with his questions...

The second is related and that is to send a message to the entire ward that this child has a FATHER WHO MATTERS. He should not be treated as a pity case and favored or discriminated against. You don't want the parents to forbid their kids to play with your kid as long as he is forced by your wife to associate with such cruel families.

Make sure the brethren understand that you will be there for every Father-Son activity and you do not want your boy left out of those.

I hope you will be able to negotiate a non-LDS scout troop where you can be part of the leadership.

Best

Anagrammy

There is good news for you. Statistics show that children with one parent who is not Mormon, have less than a 40% chance of staying in the cult. The odds are in your favor, and will be even greater if you give him the unconditional love and individual attention that the Mormons do not give. The Mormons know this (the stats came from an article in the Ensign), and that's why they are so nasty and coercive with you.

Never feel embarrassed or ashamed! This is a weird little cult, which makes up about .002% of the population. No one believes this stuff.

Only a cult would hold your family hostage like that, and deliberately set you up as an example of "unworthiness." Don't buy into their petty game!

IMO, the best thing you can do for your son, is to be honest, and be an example of integrity. A responsible parent has an obligation to teach his children the truth. If a child doesn't know the basic truths, the child can't function very well in the world. This is a requirement for survival. I would stick to the higher principle and not attend.

This is what my husband did, with our children. He loved them and supported them in every way--soccer and baseball coach, took us to the zoo, parks, beach, trips, went to all their school activities--but not our church activities. He told us ahead of time, that he would not support a cult, but that the children and I could worship how we pleased. We all ended up in the Lutheran church, together, a few months later. Much better!

Non't just not show up. Tell your son ahead of time. You don't need to tell anyone else but your son. Drop by with a special gift for his 8th birthday--my husband gave our son a bicycle--and tell him that you will see him AFTER his baptism. Go to the party afterwards, if there is one, and go to his birthday party, whether or not you are invited. He is YOUR son. As you recall, the baptism itself isn't that special, and it is often shared with a couple of other kids in the stake, as a group ritual. If you aren't doing the actual baptizing, your son doesn't need you there in the audience listening to all the lies (it can make you very angry.) The "confirmation" is supposed to be the biggest deal, and that is done hurriedly in sacrament meeting, with men in a circle, even strangers, but not YOU, and you have to sit through the entire testimony meeting without a whimper. My father was out of the country on business for several months, so my friend's father baptized me, and my uncle confirmed me, no big deal.

Don't put yourself through that. Or, maybe you need to go through that, to understand that your innocent son needs your help. You will both get through this, together. (((hugs)))

Very good argument contrary to what most are posting so far. I will definitely be thinking about your point of view.

Something that you are all making me realize is that not only am I not communicating enough with my wife but not enough with my kids either. I need to turn this around immediately.

I need to make sure my kids know I am there for them and that I love them. I have two boys. The one getting baptized is the oldest.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2012 02:31PM by TheBrianGuy.

OP, have you spoken to your son about it? Have you asked him what he thinks about the upcoming baptism. If it's important to him, you should be there, otherwise you're the dick dad who was never around for the important moments.

Instead of attending, I'd choose another day very soon to take the boy on a very special outing together for some one on one time to discuss "man stuff" that interests you both, possibly sports, games, school, friends, teachers, and religion. Let him know your opinions about baptism and answer any of his questions and be sure his favorite foods are part of the plan.

It doesn't sound like you're ready to suggest delaying the baptism for a few years until your son is actually mature enough to decide if he wants it or not. But I'm always pleased when exmo/TBM parents can compromise and one of them doesn't turn dictator while the other hangs out, a mute, in the shadows.

I don't know the details of your situation, but I am wondering why you are allowing the baptism to happen at all. When a kid has two parents of different faiths, I feel that they should be allowed to wait until adulthood to make a decision about baptism/joining a church/not joining a church.

Isn't the OP the kids real father? Why can't he just say "it ain't happening" ?

I have thought about this. But I think my reasoning, which could be flawed, is that I married my wife in the temple, etc. I am the one who changed after several years of marriage. I am of the mindset at the moment that because of this I hope my children can change their mind when they are indeed older and more cognizant of what is going on.

Of course it's your choice whether to allow your son to be trained to think the way Mormon men are trained to think, but also remember that if you don't want that to happen and he gets baptized they will consider him their property for the rest of his life.

Even though I don't think that 8 year olds are old enough to make a well enough informed decision as to whether or not to get baptized, I'd go.

Whether or not you protest his baptism, which I most certainly would, either privately or publicly, you really should go, for the sake of your son, not the ordinance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2012 02:21PM by Mormoney.

Yes. Of course. This is about your son, not you. Besides it's his 8th birthday which means you need to give him something he will remember.
The best method to keep family harmony (in my opinion!) is to keep religion a non-issue, and just be supportive of your loved ones.
It's about them, not you. Good idea to remember that, I think! :-)

You need to 'Bite the bullet' on this and attend. Try to teach/reinforce that making a commitment to Jesus Christ is important. As far a feelings you might have, just look around you at the other people and feel sorry inside for them. In the next life they will be shocked to see where their beloved profits, sheerers and elevators go to be punished for lieing to their brothers and sisters.

I have mixed views on this.

If you go, you will be viewed as the impotent father who was not worthy and did not have the priesthood. The environment of the baptism automatically shames the father who is not performing the baptism. It gives a bad message to the son to see his dad there subjecting himself to the "worthy" males who have set up the rules.

On the other hand, it takes a bigger person to go and support the son. Would it be disingenuous for the father to praise the son on his big day for doing something the father thinks is harmful at worst? If this is something you want to do to show the family you support them, that is fine too.

I think I would try and do something to take the thrill out of the baptism. What about something like this:

Dad lets mom go to the baptism. This is mom's time with the kid.

ASAP, arrange dad's time with the kid. Just dad and kid go somewhere amazing, like to Seaworld, fishing, camping, shopping for amazing video game or whatever. Give the kid 100% attention and love.

The message will be that mom isn't allowed to baptize and they have to have a bunch of stand in people telling him what to do. The time with Dad is more meaningful and fun.

I say tit for tat. If mom uses church for tit (almost a pun?), then dad can use quality fun time for tat. The kid will know who really communicates with him and makes an effort to love him unconditionally.

Honestly I don't think I would go. UNLESS your son asks you to. And then I think it would still be kind of hard to be there. He is at an age where if you go, you are letting him know it's important and you approve. If you don't go then you can tell him later that you're sorry and explain why you couldn't be there, in a simple way.

Unless you are friends with his mother or someone else that will be there, I would bring someone along because it will be awkward.

Your 8-year-old child should not attend that baptism.

As father don't they need your permission to baptize the child?

My daughter attended church as a child. When she turned 8 all
her friends were being baptized and she BEGGED me to let her be
baptized. I said, "no, you can make that decision for yourself
when you turn 18."

By the time she was 18 she wanted nothing to do with the LDS
Church.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2012 10:58PM by baura.

Since you are not divorced they also need YOUR permission to do the baptism so the fact that it is already planned, means they are going against the rules, which means bad PR if you make a stink. I'm sure they are hoping you don't know this and get it done.

Almost all the kids who's parents allowed them to wait until 18, never got baptized. The cult knows this, and pushed baptism with all its might, starting in Primary, no, starting when they are still in the womb, by putting pressure on the parents.

If you can't use your god-given authority as your child's father to postpone the baptism, then I agree that your son's baptism should be a non-issue at the moment. Your son will respect your integrity, more than he will miss your presence at the baptism.

Do not go. The posters are right that your son is more important than the ordinance, but I take this to mean that your son's BIRTHDAY--his special day--is far more important than a meeting he shares with several other kids, and all their siblings and maybe his Primary class, his primary teacher, and many other strangers.

Give him a great birthday present, and take him to Sea World or whatever he wants to do, before his baptism. He will have that happy memory fresh in his mind, while he is bored by the dumb, impersonal meeting.

I feel sad for you, that you are being set up as an example of unworthiness--in front of your own son. I would not stand for that. That's just me, and I'm out. I would not go to the confirmation, either.

I think you should go. Your son isn't old enough to understand all the crap going on between the adults.

When you get home, write down everything you thought and felt about your son and that day.

someday, you can share that with your son. Right now, he's too young.

Jeans, oxford, and some casual shoes, or whatever you feel that would indicate to your son that you love and respect him, but also send the message that his mom's religion is bullshit.

You should go. When I was baptized, my ex-mo dad came. And my 8 year old self loved that. Because then it was important to me. My dad and step mom sucked it up and dealt with all the crap my moms family and friends gave them plus the awful baptism program, it was worth it to them because they were supporting me.

So go, grin and bear it. And hope your son sees the light someday.

How much do you love cheap cookies and lukewarm alcohol free punch?

My suggestion, let the baptism be his other parents thing, though do make a point of pointing out that you are not attending because you do not think he is old enough to make this decision on his own. Then on your own time with your kid, go do something that is actually fun. I would also add, something fun that is not church approved, but that is a little hard to find with an eight year old.