Could it be better to delay baptism till a child chooses the sacrament consciously?

[TheresaEmilyAnn]

How bad would it be not to have a child pretty much immediately baptized after they were born? Would there be harm in waiting till the child chooses the sacrament themselves when they are a bit older and can consciously choose what they are doing. They would then be better prepared and take their religious beliefs more seriously than just having their parents choose it because of the parents beliefs or traditions. Wouldn’t it be better to wait? I think the sacraments should mean something to the person who go through them. Would God just forget about or ignore a child who isn’t baptized??

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Let’s use another example: should parents withhold their love until their child chooses to love them? Baptism bring God’s grace and love into a child’s life and soul, why would we want to deny that to a child?
Children also come into the world with original sin. Baptism takes that away and helps the child to overcome sin once temptations arise.
Salvation is not something we achieve through our own actions, it is a gift given to us by God which we cannot earn or achieve. Baptism of infants perfectly reflects that reality.

1250 Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,” allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

Imagine a child crying for his parent and the parent responds, “I’ll wait until he’s old enough to love me back before I let him experience my love.” It makes as much sense to withhold baptism…