"Baby Shower" - Family Drama - Help!

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noryar2025

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Hello,

I had one of the strangest experiences of my life this past weekend. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, it’s hard to understand unless I elaborate a bit.

We are an Irish/French catholic family… A fraction of our family has broken away from the Church, initially became protestants, and now has gone totally off the deep end. We still try to be close to them as of course we still love them. They are hostile to the Catholic faith and aren’t afraid to let us know it. One of my cousins in this part of the family got “married” in what could best be described as a Pagan ceremony. It was bizarre. Nonetheless, my Mother wanted to attend for her nephew, so we went.

They are now having a baby. This past Saturday, they invited us to her baby shower. Mom and I were excited as we love babies! I made a special baby blanket. We figured the party would probably be a little off the wall, but, we love them and want to show love for the new baby. What’s more fun than a baby shower, right? 🙂

One of the requests in the shower invitation that was sort of lost on me, was that they asked everyone to being a special “bead” that would be used to make a necklace for the mother to wear during labor. In fact, there was going to be a “bead ceremony.” The invitation also said that there would be an “altar” (!!) if you wanted to bring something to put on it for the health of the baby or whatever. What exactly this was supposed to be, I didnt’ know, but it sounded weird, but sadly typical of them.

Mom and I discussed and decided this was sounding really inappropriate, and we sadly decided that we shouldn’t go after all. We would send our gifts down with another relative instead. When we expressed our reservations to one particular aunt, she said that “If you ever want to be invited back, you should go.” Eventually, against our better judgement, we decided to attend. We decided we would not acknowledge the altar, and would go in another room when the “bead ceremony” was taking place.

The entire focus of the party was on the mother, “birth visions” (?), and the “ritual” bead ceremony. The worst part was the aunt whom we expressed reservations to brought extra beads for us, and said that it was nothing. She was enraged when we wouldn’t accept them. I was upset that she was trying to force “compliance” for something that was supposedly a silly party game.

Long story short version: after speaking with other relatives and doing some of my own research, I concluded that what we attended was actually a “Wiccan Blessingway Ritual.” My aunt is still furious that we did not participate, saying that it was harmless and no big deal.

This shower had nothing to do with the baby. They did not open any of the gifts that we brought with us and were excited to share. We left feeling sad for the baby, and honestly, a little sick to our stomachs. What has this world come to?

Do I need to go to Confession for attending this “shower?” How do we handle these relatives going forward? Mom and I feel like we can no longer attend any of their events.

I would appreciate your thoughts. <3
 
If you or you mother are particularly close to this young lady, then my suggestion would be to keep doing what you’re doing: celebrate holidays-- both Christian and secular (Indepence Day, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, etc), and pray for her to come back to the Church. You did nothing wrong in attending her baby shower, especially since you did not participate in the pagan religious aspects (and were quite respectful at the time, if your description is accurate). I don’t get why your aunt was “enraged” and “furious”, unless your lack of participation shined a light on her own lack of courage. In that case, pray for her, too, but don’t make a big deal out of any of what happened.
 
So I would say what happened is you went to a babyshower for someone who has very different beliefs than you and your mother. That is sort of the beginning, and the end, isn’t it? Surely you don’t expect everyone to believe exactly the way you do, do you?

Yes, some of the activities during the shower aren’t what you typically see. But it doesn’t sound like anything was harmful. I am really not sure why you had issues with any of it, other than it wasn’t a traditional baby shower.
 
Hi Juno! It’s actually my cousin who is the father. We don’t know the mother all that well yet.
 
It sounds weird, but you did nothing wrong. It was good that you attended and brought gifts for the baby. They should not be upset that not everyone is comfortable participating in a pagan ritual or whatever it was, as long as you were still respectful, which it sounds like you were.

Your aunt’s reaction of being enraged and furious is way over the top. Something I have observed, though, is that sometimes people who have left the Church become irrationally angry at Catholic family members who express reservations about participating in activities that go against their beliefs, no matter how respectful the Catholic is about it. Often there is no winning in a situation like this. Just keep on loving them, as you already are, and continue to be a good witness for Christ the best you can. I agree with the poster that said try not to make a big deal out of what happened, and hopefully it will blow over.
 
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JMMJ said:
So I would say what happened is you went to a babyshower for someone who has very different beliefs than you and your mother. That is sort of the beginning, and the end, isn’t it? Surely you don’t expect everyone to believe exactly the way you do, do you?

Yes, some of the activities during the shower aren’t what you typically see. But it doesn’t sound like anything was harmful. I am really not sure why you had issues with any of it, other than it wasn’t a traditional baby shower.
Click to expand...
It sounds like OP felt pressured to participate in what they see as a pagan ceremony.
 
You did not participate in the ritual so that is a good thing for you. I don’t see anything sinful since you did not participate. However if you think you have some sin regarding the way you handled it you could bring it up at confession but from what you have stated I personally wouldn’t.
As for the family and the baby I would not be “sad” for the baby but rather concerned. In a spiritual manner I think dabbling in these “new age” things can be a doorway for demonic activity and attachment. but that is not something you can know now.
From your account the rest of the family was incredibly inconsiderate of you. Imagine if you invited someone to a Catholic event and they did not feel comfortable partaking in the rituals or sacraments and you threw a tantrum about it! It was incredibly rude of them to have any sort of force compliance feeling of their guests.

Now with all that said, these situations are too common with families and I usually just shake my head. Why in the world can’t people just employ the “polite decline”? Your mistake was telling the aunt you had a problem with it instead of just saying “We would love to celebrate the baby with you, unfortunately we cannot make it that day.”
My family and my wife’s family is not Catholic. We get invited to things all the time. religious and secular. We attend those we can and feel comfortable attending, and politely decline the others.
No drama…

And a final thought. No real loss offending them either. They seemed intent on forcing you into a practice and situation you did not feel comfortable in. So you won’t be invited to pagan rituals anymore… too bad. Did you get a thank you card for the gift?
 
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You went to what you thought would be a baby shower involving gifts for the baby and figured you’d just skip any parts of the shower that seemed “pagan”. Since you went in good faith, bringing appropriate shower gifts, I don’t see where you committed any sin here.

Also, if you don’t get invited to further events by this person, that just means you won’t have to be fretting over whether future events will involve practices you’re not comfortable with and whether you should accept the invite or not. So, no great loss.

I personally don’t think a “blessing way” ceremony is the end of the world, but if you are not comfortable participating in it then you should not be made to feel bad over that. If I had a baby shower and asked everybody to pray the Rosary with me and some of my Protestant relatives or atheist friends didn’t want to join in, I wouldn’t be angry at them. It’s better to have baby showers be secular events. I’m sorry your relative who’s having the baby didn’t understand that, and maybe have the “blessing way” before or after the main shower for those who felt comfortable being a part of that ritual.
 
<Your mistake was telling the aunt you had a problem with it instead of just saying "We would love to celebrate the baby with you, unfortunately we cannot make it that day.>>

I absolutely agree. Our initial instincts were correct. Thank you for you post!
 
We do not expect everyone to believe as we do. We also reserve the right to politely decline if it seems to be anti-Christian. We tried to attend, while at the same time trying to “opt out” of the parts we didn’t want to participate in. We said nothing to anyone at the party there about our thoughts/objections - it was my aunt who made a stink that we weren’t going to participate in the “ritual” bead ceremony. We didn’t even bring it up.

I feel sad that this child will not be baptized, and will learn a false earth based religion, and will not be taught our family traditions (this was made clear to us in our conversations with other relatives). It’s not our place to say, we won’t bring it up to them, we just think it’s sad.

One thing I didn’t expand on in my initial post, was how much they despise that we are Catholic. They do make a stink about it and even mock our church.
 
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“What You Will Need”
“An altar on a small table, to represent the Mother goddess archetype”

Taken from:
https://www.thetetraktys.com/2019/wiccan-blessingway-ritual-spiritual-baby-shower/
The definition of altar:

the table in a Christian church at which the bread and wine are consecrated in communion services.
a table or flat-topped block used as the focus for a religious ritual, especially for making sacrifices or offerings to a deity.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=define+altar

I’m sorry, but mere fun things to do don’t include altars.
How would the aunt react if you put a two foot tall wooden cross on their “altar”?

It is what it is…, you did good Noryar
They said it three times and it still isn’t true.
 
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As you can see from the article, the author of that article wrote this ritual herself. I did not read to see if she is Native American or if it was a cultural appropriation.
 
Blessing Way ceremony is indeed traditionally Navajo. If Wiccans are using it, then it’s basically cultural appropriation.
It’s still okay if you don’t want to do it but it is Native American in origin.
 
Heck, that would be one thing I would be “outraged” over, cultural appropriation is just not cool.
 
I would feel a little “icky” participating in what seems like a mockary of another culture’s tradition. I would try to give them the benefit of the doubt about their intentions, but I don’t think I would want to participate. I would probably just watch the “ceremony” and enjoy the cake.
 
I doubt it is a mockery of another cultures tradition. Most indigenous cultures are pagan. Many have similar ceremonies called similar things for similar stages of life. My husband’s tribe has a ceremony very similar to the blessingway (he is Mayan, NOT Navajo) that the witches do and the witches also “shower the baby” when the baby is born. It would only make sense if the couple is pagan that they would participate in pagan traditions and ceremonies. What blows my mind is all the Catholics in various cultures, including my own and my husband’s, that say they are catholic yet follow these traditions. They even pay the witches to perform them for them.

The modern American “baby shower” is more of a “mockery” to these ceremonies than a pagan keeping it real is. Most cultures, even modern cultures, do not celebrate the birth of a baby until he or she is safe in mama’s arms after birth. Before birth the community surrounds mom with support, love and prayers. After birth the love support and prayers join together in celebration for the baby’s safe arrival.

No, I do not think an American baby shower is a mockery. Just pointing out that it would seem to be a similar custom but reversed which is usually how mockery’s work. I think cultural appropriation is a silly concept anyway but even if someone believes differently, how could that really be the case here? They are pagan having a pagan ceremony. It would be like Catholics accusing a non Catholic Christian of appropriating the rosary (I know non Catholics that have taken up the rosary), Orthodox Christians accusing non orthodox of appropriating icons, Christians upset when non Christians celebrate Christmas, or pagans upset that we placed All Souls’ Day around the time of their celebrations of the dead.
 
With respect to the “Wiccan Blessingway Ceremony”, Wicca was founded in 20th-century England and has gone on to appropriate pagan customs from all over the place. I understand that within Wicca, this is controversial and some practicitioners only cleave to one particular tradition of Wicca, such as British Traditional Wicca. It seems like a bit of a reach to me to have a Wiccan appropriating a Native American tradition, but since the overall ceremony doesn’t bother me that much (as I said above) and I haven’t been to a baby shower since I was about 10 years old, it’s not my issue to get het up over.

The typical American idea of a baby shower is to love and support the mom by gifting her with stuff that she will need for the baby and that she would otherwise have to buy. While this might not be the form of support that some moms want, and they might prefer something like the Blessing Way Ceremony where the focus is on prayers and good thoughts for the mom as I understand it, I think a lot of moms are pretty happy with the traditional shower and see it as a form of support.

Really, it’s up to the mom to decide what kind of shower she wants to have, but it’s also understandable that if she wants to have any kind of religious-seeming activity going on, and is planning to invite people of different faiths, some people might be uncomfortable and not want to attend.
 
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