My almost 10-month-old has Catholic grandmothers (both sides) and a veerrrrryyyy Catholic great-grandmother (his side). Hubs and I had a Catholic wedding because Family, but are not believers, do not attend church, & will not teach kiddo the faith. I don't like it, but we're giving in on the baptism too because they think it's so important & won't stop talking about it. But all the stuff that goes with it is making me want to go RAAAAR NO HE'S MY BABY and move to Canada. I'm incredibly shy and reserved and basically a pushover around most people though. Consequently, I half want to shut the whole thing down, and half want to roll over and let hubs' family do whatever they want. I wonder if I should I allow some things and not others, or if that's just silly posturing & unnecessarily drama-mongering since it's all just for show anyways.Here are the things that I don't likeLying to priests: we won't raise the kid in the faith, that's not up for discussion. But I'm pretty sure that's required for baptism... lying is a no-no in my personal code of ethics, but if it comes down to lying or else no baptism, should I make an exception? I guess it would be hypocritical to NOT lie since I lied to get married. Though I still feel bad about that.Stupid dress: kid already got stuffed into the inlaws' heirloom baptismal gown once and hated it (he's very easygoing usually). It's silly, but I'm hating the idea of someone else deciding what my kid wears. He didn't like it & it'll be tight on him, but as MIL & GMIL said, it's only for an hour.New party outfit: Hasn't been bought yet, but upsets me for basically same reason as #2. It was described as being ideally tux-like, so I don't see that being practical to wear more than once or twice. OTOH, I'm not paying for it & it will please the inlaws.I guess I'll go along with what will inevitably be a huge party (though I'd prefer just to have our immediate families there) because it'll give me leverage to keep his upcoming 1st birthday small & simple.Smash cake: don't really like the idea of kiddo eating more than a spoonful of frosting. Plus it seems wasteful and so, so messy to me. But it's not like he gets sugary stuff everyday.Presents: he's probably going to be given crosses and crucifixes and bibles etc etc. We have absolutely no extra storage and I always feel guilty about tossing/donating religious stuff especially if it seems expensive. Should I make limits here or just let people do what they want to do? I can sneak stuff into my mom's attic without her noticing probably.To clarify, MIL just told us the baptism date and started party planning with GMIL yesterday. My mom is very pleased but uninvolved. Hubs is taking the "just do what they say and it'll be over soon" approach.Believe it or not, I'm generally very laidback, even when it comes to my kid. But my back is up about this whole thing for some reason, and it's the sort of thing that'll be repeated with my inlaws in one variation or another forever, so please give me some perspective! TIA via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2allMrn
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