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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Godparents
My niece was baptised this weekend, and I'm her Godmother.
Are any of you Godmothers? What do you do for this special relationship?
What did your Godparents do for you/you do for your Godparents?
(should Godparent be capitalized?)
When I was growing up Catholic, my Godparents gave me a Christamas ornament every year. That was about it. I never felt they were more approachable than any other adult in my life, or encouraging me toward a more holy life than anyone else.
Just wondering what this role means to people in the modern world.
Willa 4.6.06 and Henry 10.18.08
Camp Sinki
Re: Godparents
I am not a godparent.
My godparents were best friends of my parents when I was born. However, they lived in Ohio/Indiana/Illinois, so I didn't know them very well. That said, they always sent me a Christmas gift and a birthday card. They also usually visited for big events in my life (First Communion, gradutation party, wedding).
Now that I'm an adult, I haven't seen them in years. We do still exchange Christmas cards though. They're super nice people, but they and my parents have grown apart over the years, so I don't have much of a relationship with them either (unfortunately).
I am a godparents to my bestfriend's oldest daughter. We are super close since it's my bestfriend. I visit them several times a year and they visit us too. For Katharine, I usually get her stuff here and there as a treat when I visit and try to do things for her at her birthday and Christmas. Mike is the youngest's god father and he really doesnt do anything for her since we pretty much do whatever we want for the 3 kids whenever we see them.
I am a Godmother to my nephew. He is 2 so right now my relationship is all about just building trust and having fun.
Part of my Baptism gift to him was a note with hopes/wishes for him. To have compassion, an open mind, have courage, be generous etc. and how these characteristics relate to living a positive life. The plan is, when he is older, do some volunteer work with him to put those words into action. Start with something simple, maybe make Christmas cards for the residents at St. Ann's home or donate his favorite foods to a food drive.
I see him 2-3 times a week as it is, so hopefully we should be able to pull this off. Maybe it will be a group thing that my sisters and SIL do with all the kids. Not sure how it will work out, but I do want to focus on good works.
Hoek, that's what I was thinking, too. I plan to write letters to both girls over the years, and give them to them when they turn... 12? 15? I don't know.
I want my relationship with these little ladies to be substantial. And I want to help with that character building w/out making their parents feel like "they need help" doing that.
For what it's worth, my maternal grandmother played/plays this role for me (and my brother and cousins) to a certain degree.
One thing that she does which I think is nice is that she takes each of us out for breakfast for our birthdays each year, just the two of us. This is really nice because even though we see her quite a bit throughout the year, is usually surrounded by lots of other family so it can be chaotic. This one-on-one time is great.
She also got us special gifts for our 13th birthdays.
She has lived in Florida off and on my entire life, but when we were growing up, she would always send us letters and postcards to say hi. It's always nice for a kid to get mail. :-)
Just a few more ideas.
I am the Godmother to one of my nieces. I haven't done anything "extra" as I'm already really close to her in the Aunt catagory.
Growing up my Godparents never did anything 'extra" for me either. They were/are an aunt & an uncle that I really don't have much interaction with. I love the special one-on-one idea though.
)
I understand this completely. I don't want my friends and family to think that I think they're incapable of providing the kind of moral backbone that I could. Hee hee.
But I want the relationship to mean something beyond a present.
When my sister asked me to be my nephew's Godmother, she explained why she picked me and we talked about what she wanted from me in the role. When she read the note I wrote him, she got teary eyed and said it meant a lot to her.
For me, I want as many positive influences in Henry's life. I want as much help as possible building Henry's character. But I also believe it takes a village, so to speak. Hopefully you can have a conversation some time about what they would like from you and you all can have clear expectations.