Erin and Chad 3: Welcoming Baby Everly

[Jigsaw3]

Research has been done (sorry, no references at hand) on 'parentified' children and the impact it has on both them and their siblings, and it's not good.  I believe it makes it hard for the parentified child to move on and establish their own separate lives, and obviously it's difficult for the sibling when the attachment is disrupted. There's guilt and boundary issues and all sorts of other negative repercussions.

I've only heard of those studies involving children in more obviously neglectful contexts (eg drug use by parents leading to children caring for siblings) so I'm not sure if they're directly applicable to this situation, but I'm sure some of the findings still apply.

[Natalie22]

1 hour ago, Jigsaw3 said:

Research has been done (sorry, no references at hand) on 'parentified' children and the impact it has on both them and their siblings, and it's not good.  I believe it makes it hard for the parentified child to move on and establish their own separate lives, and obviously it's difficult for the sibling when the attachment is disrupted. There's guilt and boundary issues and all sorts of other negative repercussions.

I've only heard of those studies involving children in more obviously neglectful contexts (eg drug use by parents leading to children caring for siblings) so I'm not sure if they're directly applicable to this situation, but I'm sure some of the findings still apply.

It would definitely apply.  I was parentified as a child, and it didn't have to do with the addict parent, but the non-addict parent using me as a sounding board and a source of emotional support.  The sad, almost sick part of parentified children is that when they become parents, they can often parentify their own children, perpetuating the cycle.  

[JermajestyDuggar]

13 hours ago, Jigsaw3 said:

Research has been done (sorry, no references at hand) on 'parentified' children and the impact it has on both them and their siblings, and it's not good.  I believe it makes it hard for the parentified child to move on and establish their own separate lives, and obviously it's difficult for the sibling when the attachment is disrupted. There's guilt and boundary issues and all sorts of other negative repercussions.

I've only heard of those studies involving children in more obviously neglectful contexts (eg drug use by parents leading to children caring for siblings) so I'm not sure if they're directly applicable to this situation, but I'm sure some of the findings still apply.

Isn’t it amazing that the most common group of parentified children to study are those of addict parents? It’s survival because the parents are too deep in their own addiction to parent. So the children are forced to be in a parent role. And these fundies actually CHOOSE to use no birth control and CHOOSE to place their children in a parenting role. And often brag about it! It’s sick.

[Natalie22]

3 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

Isn’t it amazing that the most common group of parentified children to study are those of addict parents? It’s survival because the parents are too deep in their own addiction to parent. So the children are forced to be in a parent role. And these fundies actually CHOOSE to use no birth control and CHOOSE to place their children in a parenting role. And often brag about it! It’s sick.

I think them being addicts is the reason they're more often studied.  It's easier to identify them, to notice the problems that the addiction has caused, etc.  I think a lot of other people who are parentified don't see it if there isn't this big outside issue that comes to light eventually.  To them it is just that their parents were busy, or in a tough spot, etc. and needed them.   

[neurogirl]

In the past week Erin turned 27 and Everly had her baby dedication in the church (which I believe is different from Baptism but I'm not entirely sure). 

Also, Everly has some great faces right now.

 

[just_ordinary]

I was surprised about her Instagram post about the dedication. She wrote „so grateful that part of my family could join us.“ and she tagged Carlin and her grandparents. Gil and Kelly and the rest were nowhere to be seen on the two pictures. 

I would have guessed that this is an important day for the families? Isn’t that like a christening for „normal“ Christians? (Normal as having a baby christened in its first six months is the norm here. If they want to be full members of the church they have do conformation in their teens.)

[clueliss]

Many protestant denominations don't do baby christenings.  The dedication is a short ceremony done during church service that declares they'll raise the infant as a Christian and such.  I've seen it be a big deal for some families.  

[llucie]

1 hour ago, just_ordinary said:

I was surprised about her Instagram post about the dedication. She wrote „so grateful that part of my family could join us.“ and she tagged Carlin and her grandparents. Gil and Kelly and the rest were nowhere to be seen on the two pictures. 

I would have guessed that this is an important day for the families? Isn’t that like a christening for „normal“ Christians? (Normal as having a baby christened in its first six months is the norm here. If they want to be full members of the church they have do conformation in their teens.)

I assumed they could not come since they have their own church and Gil is the pastor, surely he needs to be there on a sunday. What i do find extrange is that the Paines do not attend the Bates church, since they do live near, its a bit weird...

[ColeJo]

1 hour ago, clueliss said:

Many protestant denominations don't do baby christenings.  The dedication is a short ceremony done during church service that declares they'll raise the infant as a Christian and such.  I've seen it be a big deal for some families.  

My church does it often. However, it is not just limited to babies. I asked my parents about when I was dedicated. It was at my aunt's wedding and my grandpa insisted upon it. It was kind of a "kill two birds with one stone" thing, since the pastor was already there. I was two.

[just_ordinary]

5 hours ago, clueliss said:

Many protestant denominations don't do baby christenings.  The dedication is a short ceremony done during church service that declares they'll raise the infant as a Christian and such.  I've seen it be a big deal for some families.  

That is why I said it is the norm here, it seems to be very different in other countries. From what I gathered an infant christening and a dedication are basically the same thing. Done while a normal ordinary service, the parents and godparents promise to raise the children as Christians and everyone has good wishes for the child. Some believe you put the child in god’s sight for protection with it. It is a bit g deal for most families and many will celebrate afterwards together.

 I was surprised that with all their godliness a dedication doesn’t seem to be important enough to make it a big family thing. Wonder if there is a theological reason behind it or just the realisation that with more and more potential babies per year it might too much things to attend? Or is it because babies are only important as long as they are in the womb? As soon as they are out they shouldn’t get used to being the center of attention.....

[Audrey2]

5 hours ago, llucie said:

I assumed they could not come since they have their own church and Gil is the pastor, surely he needs to be there on a sunday. What i do find extrange is that the Paines do not attend the Bates church, since they do live near, its a bit weird...

Well, Chad would be the headship, and maybe he wants a larger church, or just one that isn't controlled by his father-in-law...

[feministxtian]

Aren't Erin and Chad members of the church that is attached to Crown College? 

[BeccaGrim]

Not to mention 3/4 of the people they know and associate with think they should all be pastors on their own. Who's left to go to who's church when they're all leading one? 

[Coconut Flan]

12 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

That is why I said it is the norm here, it seems to be very different in other countries. From what I gathered an infant christening and a dedication are basically the same thing.

Not really.  A baby dedication is just a statement in front of the church body saying we are going to raise the child as a Christian.  A christening is a baptism completing a rite of the church.  The dedicated babies will have their baptism later when they can allegedly decide for themselves. 

[VelociRapture]

9 hours ago, feministxtian said:

Aren't Erin and Chad members of the church that is attached to Crown College? 

They were for a while. I don’t know if they are anymore.

For anyone interested, this appears to be the Church Erin tagged in the post. I linked to the “What We Believe” page:

http://clearspringsbaptist.net/about-us/what-we-believe

Paraphrased highlights:

1. The Bible is 100% accurate y’all!

2. God is all knowing and all powerful (he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake...) 

3. Who is your daddy and what does he do? Your daddy is God and he rules everything and everyone.

4. But God is also the Son.

5. And he’s the Holy Spirit too. Wait. How are we monotheistic again?

6. The gift of gender is part of the goodness of God’s creation... so, Transgender people need not apply. 

7. People are sinful from the moment they can commit moral transgressions - so sorry little toddlers, but you going to Hell if you don’t pray hard enough. 

8. Every person of every race is worthy of respect and Christian love. I’m assuming (based off a later portion) they’re still ok harassing people who aren’t Christian though.

9. Salvation is only possible through accepting Jesus. Pretty standard for Christians.

10. Believing in God and repenting of sin is necessary for salvation. See above.

11. Peace is better than war and Christians should strive to put an end to war. Oversimplistic and maybe naive, but I don’t think I can snark on this one much. 

12. Church should be separate from the state. The state is responsible for ensuring religious liberty and shouldn’t favor any specific ecclesiastic group or denomination. The state has no right to impose taxes or penalties for spiritual beliefs at any time... so, basically, don’t punish them for not baking cakes for gays?

13. Marriage is between a man and a woman. So no gays. Sorry, not sorry.  

14. Husband and wife are equals before God... cool story bro - except the husband controls the family and the wife should go along with what he says. 

1 minute ago, Coconut Flan said:

Not really.  A baby dedication is just a statement in front of the church body saying we are going to raise the child as a Christian.  A christening is a baptism completing a rite of the church.  The dedicated babies will have their baptism later when they can allegedly decide for themselves. 

I was raised Catholic, so I was baptized as an infant and that bothers me sometimes to be honest. I respect my parents (and every parent) for doing what they felt was best, but it bugs me that I had no say in something so important. To be honest, it’s one of the major reasons why I wouldn’t be able to return to the Catholic faith. I want my daughter (and future children) to have a say in whether they associate with religion or not. 

I do find it interesting that some Protestant denominations do baptize as infants though. I stood as Godmother for my nephew when he was baptized into the Episcopalian faith at 3 months old and I think my cousin had her son baptized in the Methodist faith when he was a toddler. It’s interesting to see how the various denominations are similar and different.

[Coconut Flan]

24 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

9. Salvation is only possible through accepting Jesus. Pretty standard for Christians evangelicals and fundies.

Sorry I had to fix that for you.

[pandora]

14 hours ago, just_ordinary said:

That is why I said it is the norm here, it seems to be very different in other countries. From what I gathered an infant christening and a dedication are basically the same thing. Done while a normal ordinary service, the parents and godparents promise to raise the children as Christians and everyone has good wishes for the child. Some believe you put the child in god’s sight for protection with it. It is a bit g deal for most families and many will celebrate afterwards together.

What @Coconut Flan said about dedication being different than baptism is spot on, I just want to add. The difference isn't in countries but denominations, for many groups whether you believe in a believer's baptism  (person needs to profess faith for themselves) vs infant baptism is a foundational part of their doctrine. Growing up Catholic, I was surprised to learn that churches who practice believer's baptism tend to do immersion baptisms, while the only ones I've ever been to involved pouring a little water on someone's head. I'm not religious now, but I always find the doctrinal stuff around baptisms interesting- like the belief in limbo (horrible, horrible concept imo), or how Mormons in part don't practice infant baptism because they don't believe in original sin.

@VelociRapture I too was baptized Catholic as a baby, and while it doesn't bother me, I did always think it was unfair that adults who wanted to join the church had to go to classes before getting baptized, but because my parents brought me as an infant, I just showed up, probably peed myself, and joined the church.

[Melissa1977]

Wait, is it not a quiverful church? 

[VelociRapture]

17 minutes ago, Melissa1977 said:

Wait, is it not a quiverful church? 

I didn’t see anything about number of children when I skimmed through, but I don’t think that means very much to be honest. The Church could believe that and not have mentioned it online, I could have missed where that was said, or (what I relieve most likely) they may have no opinion and individual families decide for themselves how many kids to have. 

4 hours ago, pandora said:

What @Coconut Flan said about dedication being different than baptism is spot on, I just want to add. The difference isn't in countries but denominations, for many groups whether you believe in a believer's baptism  (person needs to profess faith for themselves) vs infant baptism is a foundational part of their doctrine. Growing up Catholic, I was surprised to learn that churches who practice believer's baptism tend to do immersion baptisms, while the only ones I've ever been to involved pouring a little water on someone's head. I'm not religious now, but I always find the doctrinal stuff around baptisms interesting- like the belief in limbo (horrible, horrible concept imo), or how Mormons in part don't practice infant baptism because they don't believe in original sin.

@VelociRapture I too was baptized Catholic as a baby, and while it doesn't bother me, I did always think it was unfair that adults who wanted to join the church had to go to classes before getting baptized, but because my parents brought me as an infant, I just showed up, probably peed myself, and joined the church.

I do think that’s somewhat unfair. I’d assume that confirmation would be part of that ceremony though or done soon after. Maybe that’s why they have people do the classes?

@Coconut FlanThanks! I’m a (very) lapsed Christian at this point, so corrections are welcomed and encouraged when needed. 

[neurogirl]

@Coconut Flan and @VelociRapture in my experience, it's only the most liberal of churches that exclude the Jesus requirement for salvation on their website. So I would say the vast majority of christian churches still have that, or something softer but similar, in their What We Believe, even if the message preached in that church may be more nuanced. For example, I was raised in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, which is a nationwide mainstream Protestant church, fairly liberal (ELCA accepted openly gay and partnered/married pastors about 10 years ago) and not evangelical in the Southern Baptist term. Our church stayed out of politics and I never heard messages about "used pieces of chewing gum" or abortion or submitting to men in youth groups (could give more examples, but our church was not fundie at all) but "Jesus is the way" was definitely a main message of the church, and something certain members of the congregation (me) struggled with. 

While there are more and more churches that profess that Jesus is but one way or avenue to access/understand truth/the divine, churches that still have "Jesus is the way to salvation" are not all fundie. It's a pretty standard tenet of historically-understood Christianity, I don't want to use the term "fundie" too broadly, and in my opinion only the MOST liberal churches have changed this wording in their list of beliefs. 

[Coconut Flan]

2 minutes ago, neurogirl said:

@Coconut Flan and @VelociRapture in my experience, it's only the most liberal of churches that exclude the Jesus requirement for salvation on their website. So I would say the vast majority of christian churches still have that, or something softer but similar, in their What We Believe, even if the message preached in that church may be more nuanced.

The thing to remember is that if you count up all the Christians on this planet, the Catholics and Orthodox who definitely have a relationship with Jesus component, but definitely do not have an are you saved component, are the majority by far of Christians.  Then the ones like most Methodists,  Lutherans, and Episcopalians who again believe in a Jesus relationship, but aren't pushing the sinner's prayer are you saved personal relationship type approach, the sinner prayer group is far from the majority of Christians.  You can't dump Jesus from the equation and be Christian, but it's the way it's presented that makes the difference.  I need a theologian type to come behind me and make my muddle clear probably. 

[JoylessAnna]

8 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

I was raised Catholic, so I was baptized as an infant and that bothers me sometimes to be honest.

I was also raised Catholic (now an atheist) having had been baptized as an infant. While I see where you're coming from, I forgive the infant baptism piece. It is certainly part of the human experience for parents to want to raise their child with certain beliefs, teachings, and traditions.

I can respect the Catholic Church because it does have the sacrament of Confirmation, which, in theory, the baptized infant is to self-affirm his/her faith at an older age. Unfortunately, in my case, I attended Catholic school my entire life and I partook in Confirmation classes because "all the other eighth-graders were doing it." I was confirmed as a ninth-grader simply because it was the thing to do; a year later, when I began questioning my faith (ironically in a tenth-grade Scripture class), I began to regret ever receiving Confirmation.

7 hours ago, pandora said:

 I too was baptized Catholic as a baby, and while it doesn't bother me, I did always think it was unfair that adults who wanted to join the church had to go to classes before getting baptized, but because my parents brought me as an infant, I just showed up, probably peed myself, and joined the church.

The adults who are baptized into the Catholic Church basically get a full whammy of initiation sacraments at once: Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist (communion). It makes sense that they take classes.

The expected Catholic child route is:

1. Baptism, as per your parents

2. Catholic education through school or CCD

3. Reconciliation (Penance) and Eucharist around ages 7-8 

4. Confirmation (you, as an adult, AKA a young teen, decide you're gonna stick with this)

Lather, rinse, repeat, unless you fulfill JoylessAnna's fifth step of lapsed Catholicism-turned-atheism.

[pandora]

1 hour ago, JoylessAnna said:

The adults who are baptized into the Catholic Church basically get a full whammy of initiation sacraments at once: Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist (communion). It makes sense that they take classes.

Oh I completely understand why it's done that way, it just strikes me as unfair. Baptism is taught to be important for babies so it's always seemed weird to me that when someone comes to join the Catholic church as an adult they don't immediately get baptized, and then go through the process of having a sponsor, attending classes, and fully joining the church. It makes sense to me for a catechumen to be as much a member of the church as that baby drooling in the back. I get that it's not how it's done and adult baptism is of course gonna differ from infant baptism, that difference just always felt unfair to me.

[VelociRapture]

1 hour ago, JoylessAnna said:

I was also raised Catholic (now an atheist) having had been baptized as an infant. While I see where you're coming from, I forgive the infant baptism piece. It is certainly part of the human experience for parents to want to raise their child with certain beliefs, teachings, and traditions.

I can respect the Catholic Church because it does have the sacrament of Confirmation, which, in theory, the baptized infant is to self-affirm his/her faith at an older age. Unfortunately, in my case, I attended Catholic school my entire life and I partook in Confirmation classes because "all the other eighth-graders were doing it." I was confirmed as a ninth-grader simply because it was the thing to do; a year later, when I began questioning my faith (ironically in a tenth-grade Scripture class), I began to regret ever receiving Confirmation.

The adults who are baptized into the Catholic Church basically get a full whammy of initiation sacraments at once: Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist (communion). It makes sense that they take classes.

The expected Catholic child route is:

1. Baptism, as per your parents

2. Catholic education through school or CCD

3. Reconciliation (Penance) and Eucharist around ages 7-8 

4. Confirmation (you, as an adult, AKA a young teen, decide you're gonna stick with this)

Lather, rinse, repeat, unless you fulfill JoylessAnna's fifth step of lapsed Catholicism-turned-atheism.

Yes. That’s why I mentioned that while it bugs me I also respect the fact that my parents* (and many others) did what they felt was best at the time. I don’t resent them or hate them for choosing to baptize me as an infant, but I personally don’t believe in infant baptism and I do sometimes wish I had had a choice in the matter. My husband feels the same as I do, so we’ve chosen not to have our daughter baptized. We aren’t opposed to her being exposed to any religious beliefs, but if religion is a part of her life then we want it to be because it’s what she wants and believes rather than something she felt forced into. 

And I feel the same as you do regarding my Confirmation. My siblings and I didn’t have a choice in whether to attend CCD - Mom signed us up and pretty much made us do it. No one ever told me that Confirmation was a choice that I could decide against. To be honest, I do resent that a bit because I had doubts long before my Confirmation and I don’t think I would have gone through with it if I had been given the choice. I think in modern times that many 13/14 year olds in the states** aren’t always equipped to make such a big decision. I really feel like that’s a choice that should wait until adulthood. I respect that many Christian denominations believe otherwise though, which is why we aren’t affiliated with anything in particular right now.

*I say “my parents,” but it was actually my mom making the active decisions. She was raised Catholic and never took us to Mass, but she was the one who wanted us baptized and to go through all those years of CCD. Dad was baptized Catholic (like his mom), but was raised and confirmed Methodist after his parents’ divorce (his dad had primary custody and they lived with his paternal grandparents, all of whom were Methodist.) My Dad has never discussed his religious views with me, but I suspect he’s either unaffiliated, agnostic, or atheist. He let Mom make religious decisions because it was important to her and her family.

**I say “many” here because there will always be exceptions to this and I try to avoid sweeping generalizations.

[Coconut Flan]

Baptism is what makes one a member of the church so people going through an inquiry process should not be baptized.  Until someone makes their profession of faith they are considered inquirers (or intending to join but may change their minds catechumens) so profession of faith then gets all three sacraments together.