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HOW DO?

I suspect I’m not the only God-Parent on Dakka. And this thread is about celebrating that very special relationship.

See, we get to show the relevant sprog different things to their parents. We get to spoil them, and take them on awesome adventures. Yet we have a cross to carry, which is not simply undermining the teachings of their parent/s.

As you may have gathered, I’m a God Father to a lovely wee girl. And if anyone tries to harm her, I’ll just sit on them. Which isn’t a joke. I’m 17 stone (238 pounds). That’ll at least leave a butt groove.

And as atheistic as I am, it’s a sacred duty. And it’s not a particularly easy one. Sure I don’t have to change Nappies/Diapers. And much of her upbringing is nowt to do with me.

But this is something I volunteered for. I hope to be only fun and educational to my God-Sprog. And being a wee girl, to teach her how to kick ass, take names, and stand up for herself. Yes I will always be her backup. But will I always be in the right place at the right time? Of course not. So whilst I’ll quite happily go all Liam Neeson on folk, I’d much rather she’s savvy and fighty enough for things not to get that far

Anyone else waiting in the wings like a Hagrid to support a sprog they’re oath-bound to?

For 5 kids. Cousins third daughter, younger little brother and all 3 of my nieces. 5 dear kids i love to spend time with. And apart from cousins daughter been changing diapers as well bringing home from nursery is also familiar thing that has helped bonding over with

Gets bit expensive though kids have funny habit that as years go presents get smaller and expensive!

Was asked to be once, said no. I felt it would be disengenuous as an athiest to agree to take on sonething that requires me to take a religious oath.

I'm interested and charmed to see people taking it seriously (without over references to its religious significance) above, though. In my experience in the UK today outside of groups with strong religiosity it tends to be an entirely arbitrary role, so it's nice to see people treating the responsibility with some reverence (and apparently gleefully so!). Post-infancy, I've met my godfather twice in my 34 years. I don't actually know who my godmother is - probably his wife but I'm guessing.

For me it's about showing her a world outside her Mum's chosen faith, rather than just going with it.

It's a tricky line to tread, as it's certainly not about undermining that. But to show her my world, one of largely rationale thinking and embracing science, should serve as a decent counterpoint to her Mum's airy-fairy crystal type stuff.

What particularly helps (or will help. She's nearly four, and thus getting closer to being old enough to spend a few hours with me, so her Mum can have a break) is that I'm not of particularly limited means. Can certainly do stuff like adventure play areas a couple of times a month. Her Mum, being a Mum, has More Important Things to spend that money on. Me? Not so much

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
For me it's about showing her a world outside her Mum's chosen faith, rather than just going with it.

It's a tricky line to tread, as it's certainly not about undermining that. But to show her my world, one of largely rationale thinking and embracing science, should serve as a decent counterpoint to her Mum's airy-fairy crystal .

By that metric, I'm my own kids' godfather . Fortunately, my actual godson (sister's son) doesn't need much help; he's growing up to be a strapping lad. I still do what I can for him, but living a ways away with two young'uns myself and a job that has me away from home a large portionof the time makes it difficult.

To my best pals 2 daughters. The way I see it is my job is to do fun stuff like flipping for coins and silly games and stuff when I see them.

nfe wrote:
I'm interested and charmed to see people taking it seriously (without over references to its religious significance) above, though. In my experience in the UK today outside of groups with strong religiosity it tends to be an entirely arbitrary role, so it's nice to see people treating the responsibility with some reverence (and apparently gleefully so!). Post-infancy, I've met my godfather twice in my 34 years. I don't actually know who my godmother is - probably his wife but I'm guessing.

I know my godparents and met one semi regularly until she and my father's brother divorced. I keep touch on these kids lot easier though as they are direct blood relatives. Cousins daughter is least common meeting these days but she's 20+ and with her own life but I still meet periodically anyway. Little brother and nieces I see 2-3 weekends per month more or less when I go to see parents/rest of family anyway(I live about hour car drive away). And helping either mother or sister with kids has always been easy choise. I enjoy being with kids and if they need help(sister's job is not regular 8 to 5 but instead you have morning and night shifts and her husband is taxi driver for even more essoteric shifts so sometimes they get serious conflicts. And sometimes they just want evening to spend together for a change!). And before she met current husband(and father of the 2 younger ones) she was living alone so combining evening+morning shift created brutal time schedule for young kid. Sure daycare is no problem. Problem is if kid comes past 9pm home when mother gets home and has to be at daycare again before 7am that's recipe for cranky sleepy 1.5 year old! Since I then lived on same town it was easy enough to take her home earlier and put her to sleep...well try anyway! She generally demanded to see her mother. Best armstruce we got was with her resting in bed without crying until mother came out.

3 weeks ago eldest niece was in Canarian islands with father. Sister had again evening+night shift and then evening shift so I got to do that again(been a while). First night grandmother was also helping but on saturday all alone with the 1 year old(youngest I have been totally alone with so far). Sister was all "she's easy to put sleep. Just change diapers, put on night gown, warm up some milk and put to bed". Well guess this time she was playfull mood...I did all that, put her to bed. For a while total silence. Then suddenly loud happy "bwaa bwaa bwaa bwaa! Bwaa bwaa bwaa bwaa!". She was doing mighty happy sounding solo discussion there Good thing this was the 2nd night where there was no rush to get her sleep as she can sleep in late next morning! Trying to play around and give bit more milk etc failed uterly. Again just happy baby talk.

Love these kids. Just feel like I would need to get couple more copies of myself soon. Bad enough when there was two girls demanding me to play different plays. What happens when 3rd one doesn't just settle copying one? Playing 2 different board games simultaneously is pretty hard thing to do! What about 3? Guess I'll find out soon enough...

(oh and I need to buy more phones. Somehow they love watching videos from MY phone. Even giving my old one to them for video watching didn't help. They instantly switched to my new phone. 4yo can't be that picky about phone quality can they? Reminds me giving my little brother my unneeded tablet to play with figuring I could keep my phone for myself. "It's more fun playing with your phone". Seriously? Small monitor vs big monitor is more fun? Kids!)

Not a Godparent, but a regular parent.

I view it partially as spreading some reassurance, my kids have different God parents (because the first set are almost family anyway). The idea is that I want to know I've got someone else to have their back if I'm not available. Whether that's collecting them from school if I'm on a work trip, or taking them in if something happens to me. I also hope it'll give them deeper bonds, and someone they can treat as family to go and talk to about stuff they can't talk to me about (because there will be something and that's OK).

I think a lot of people treat it as a symbolic gesture at best, so kudos for taking it seriously

Helps her Dad's a bit of scrawny numpty! I'm a more positive role model in that regard

My sister wanted me to be godparent to her son.

Except they are raising their children in an orthodox sect, and that group has very specific rules on who can and more importantly, who CANNOT be a "godparent". I fall into the latter.

As I'm not part of that faith (hell, I'm not part of ANY faith), their local priest would not have approved the choice anyway (The local priest INTERVIEWS the parent's choices - it's not an automatic rubber stamped thing. They take the "continues the religious instruction of the child in that faith" part of the duties VERY seriously. ).
Also, she got more holier-than-thou-religion after the birth of her second child and I can't stand to be around her. We haven't spoken in about 6 years now. Gotta say it's not been a bad 6 years, either.

I'm a god father to my nephew. I kept my lips sealed through the service and vows. Vicar didn't notice, in fact, he was half way down the street with his robes over his shoulder before we even realised that the service was over.

I'm Godfather to a 7 year old girl. As a non religious type I felt like a fraud throughout the service.
The only reason I agreed to doing it when I was asked 7 ish years ago was so that I could call myself The Godfather, and occasionally put cotton wool balls in my mouth and do bad Brando impersonations. My only approach to religious education is to encourage her to keep an open mind.

Despite sounding flippant and immature with the above, I actually do take my responsibility with regards to her welfare seriously and make sure I keep an eye on her and support her, particularly at the moment as her parents are in the process of separating.