When you become a parent, most of your 'firmly-held' beliefs go out the window. Like the way I thought I’d never co-sleep until it became the only way to get any sleep. Or the way I was against organised religion. Turns out my staunch atheism folded like a napkin when it came time to put my son’s name down for a national school.
The local school — whose 'liberal' ethos I admired; co-ed, no uniforms, coding workshops, that kind of thing — prioritises Church of Ireland children over other Christian faiths and didn’t even mention Judaism on the candidate criteria. My being a lapsed Catholic, or Crapolic if you will, wasn’t going to impress anyone over there, never mind that the father is Jewish.
The fact that the church and school systems are so interlinked is not a positive aspect of our society, and I would love to support non-denominational schools, but the fact is there are none in my locale. I would've thought I'd have the balls to take a stand and not kowtow to social pressure, but it turns out I don't. When it comes to my child I don't want to risk taking a stand, I just want him to get into school.
So we set off to do the head-wetting in the west of Ireland, where nobody would know us from Adam (or Eve). Our journey there almost made a believer out of me when disaster struck our car, and we found ourselves stranded just outside Athenry. We phoned to explain we wouldn’t be making the ceremony after all. Mortifying – nothing says flaky heretic like missing your own child’s christening.
I began to panic that the long arm of the Catholic church was sabotaging our efforts to baptise our son a Protestant. That or my dead Catholic grandmother had caught wind of the situation. The Reverend was very understanding about our breakdown and graciously moved the ceremony to the following day.
Before having the baby baptised, I admit, I’ve always been pretty cynical about organised religion and deeply cynical about disorganised ones, but I have to say, I enjoyed the ritual of baptism in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. The reverend didn’t talk about hell or original sin or guilt; he just welcomed our son into a spiritual life. I was really impressed. The tone was inclusive and tolerant. Now I haven’t had any epiphanies as such since, but I’m happy to have three religions represented in the one family. I figure we’re hedging our bets with the three biggies covered, so I’m liking our odds for eternal salvation.
