Godparents? How many? What role?

[anna_r]

My husbands family are Catholic and we have baptised both our daughters, so they each have a formal Catholic godmother and different godfathers. Their godmother also happens to be their aunt and is their guardian should anything happen to them. These godfathers and godmother are all my husbands friends/family and live in the US. They were each there at their Catholic baptisms and played a role in the ceremony.

However I am not religious or baptised and I wanted my daughters to have 'godparents' from my side of the family/friends as well. So I asked two of my closest friends to be godmothers to each of them too. Neither of them are baptised and their role is more similar to that described by oimissus - just someone else to watch out for them, love them and have a particular interest in them as they grow up. Hopefully when they are older they will feel able to go and talk to them if they need another adult to talk to things about other than their parents.

[Saffron]

Interesting that people associate godparents with religion in particular, and not also with spiritulism which is not necessarily religious. Or do people actully mean sprituality when they say religion?

I find the term guardian confusing when used as the title for someone who is a child's guide/godparent. Legally, the parents whilst alive are the guardians! Or is "guardian" in a non-legal sense emerging as a new definition for the 21st century? (Quickly, someone phone the OED!!)

If my daughter was out with her Godparent and she said, This is my gaurdian Mrs C... With no further explanation, would people not wonder what happened to the parents? Whereas, if she says Godparent, people may make slightly different assumptions about her role, but one of them is probably not going to be that Mr Saff and I are dead!

We're definitely sticking with Godparent for a title, and I won't be offended if people think it's religious even though it isn't in our case. Paraphrasing Molly's post, we're not worried about offending the village elders! :)

[Otta]

"Interesting that people associate godparents

with religion in particular,"

I think it's the whole "God" bit ;-)

[Saffron]

Otta, god doesn't exist outside of religion?

[Saffron]

Also, there are plenty of godparents attending the ceremony, then never setting foot in a church again.

[Otta]

I was joking Saffron, I don't personally care what you call them. Traditionally though, a Godparent was tied in with the church.

[Saffron]

Yes, traditionally Christmas was tied to the Church too! ;-)

Anyone know what the Pagan equivalent was for a godparent?

[Mrs TP]

Aha what about 'civil godparents'?