NOM

We have had a recent unfortunate family circumstance, but one good thing that has come from it, is the opportunity for my husband and I to have some meaningful conversations with each other over important things. A few very good discussions we have had are about the spirit/holy ghost, answers to prayers, do things happen for a reason, and I finally told him I didn’t want to baptize our oldest child. That last topic was a big one. It was a big step for me to say it and he understands why I feel that way, but disagrees of course.

I can’t say that much has changed, other than I feel like he at least knows where I stand, what I believe, and where I’m headed. I went through the change of faith on my own and didn’t realize where I had gone until it was too late to include him without a deluge of feelings and information he had little to no preparation for. I feel like we’re slowly catching up. The biggest impediment is his family. I truly do not know if he can leave them behind. The good thing is, just like the church, his parents (and some others) are doing plenty of damage to him just by being themselves, far more damage than I could ever do by pointing things out.

Anyway, just sharing that things are slowly moving along. In a lot of ways I can say my husband is probably where I was about ten years ago.

Hi MerrieMiss

This sounds an awful lot like what I'm experiencing right now with my wife. She has expressed some concerns here and there, and empathizes with some of the points that I've brought up to her recently. She even agreed (maybe) to start reading some of the things like the gospel topics essays, Rough Stone Rolling, and CES letter so she can understand where I'm coming from.

But my oldest son turns 8 in July. I've already started preparing her that I felt it was really important for baptism to be his choice (like, actually his choice and not a platitude), and that we have the responsibility as parents, not the bishop, in determining his readiness. It's clear to me that our almost 8-yr old doesn't have the capacity to make that decision right now. If he were to decide he wants to, it would be purely socially motivated. After we talked, we mentioned that the "requirements" for him should be a developmentally appropriate version of the requirements for any investigator: he should want to pray on his own and be developing a relationship with God, he should want to learn on his own (i.e. if we decided to stop going to church, then he should want to go on his own), etc. But he is far from that point. And after explaining to our son what baptism actually means and how he needs to prepare if he really wants to take that step, he has decided that he isn't ready yet. So we will likely delay.

I guess I want to raise a free-thinker, able to make his own decision. If I were to tell him "no" then to me that could be just as short-sighted as telling him "you are getting baptized when you are 8." Not sure if any of these thoughts help.

As I'm new here, I'll look forward to hearing more about your story to see what I can learn from your process. Thanks