On Not Being Chosen as Godparents

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NoTenganMiedo

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First let me explain that I believe being a Godparent is a privilege, not a right. I don’t feel entitled to be a godmother to my friend’s children, although I would love to be and would be greatly honored. I am writing this in the hope that people wiser than myself can help me sift through why I have not been asked, so that, in humility, I can move beyond this petty hurt that I am feeling.

I have a very small family (one sister) and am a convert. My family is not religious. My husband’s family is Catholic in name only. We were blessed to have found a wonderful group of friends in college through our campus ministry and are equally as blessed to have remained close friends to many of them even though we graduated a while ago. In fact, two of these friends I consider to be “sisters” as we were always together in college and have remained very close. Other than this particular situation, it seems that feeling is mutual. My husband is also very close friends with their husbands, and similar to my girl friends and I, they were all friends before any of us got married. We’ve all been in each others weddings in some format as well. Our common faith has always been a very important part of our friendships with each other.

When my husband and I had our first child we naturally asked one set of these friends to be godparents, as we would never consider asking a non-Catholic or even a non-practicing Catholic to be a godparent. Our second child we asked the other set of friends. We did not expect the same in return because they both come from (practicing) Catholic families and have family members they could ask first, which they did for their first and second children.

Now we are all on our 3rd and 4th children. Both of my two friends and their husbands are godparents to one of each other’s children. After that, they asked other mutual friends who are of course wonderful choices. I have to admit, however, that I struggle with feeling overlooked. It hurts. A lot, to be honest. My husband and I and these two other couples spend a lot of time together, attend Mass together, and have a long history together. We take care of eachother’s children. I love all of their children as if they were my own family.

My only conclusion is that there must be something about us (my husband and I) that makes them see us as unfit choices for Godparents? I respect them and their choices, but I really need to try and understand what makes us a bad choice. It is really weighing on me and causing a lot of heartache.
 
Im sorry for your pain.

I would encourage not to assume the reason that you have not been asked is because they think you would make bad godparents. That is trying to read their minds, an ability you dont possess.

It’s possible that even though you have the intellectal understanding that being a godparent is not a right, that you still had some expectations of being asked?

I would encourage you to examine your conscience to see where this coming from? Perhaps you have some needs that have not been met since both your and your husband’s families are not active Catholics, or not Catholics at all.

There are so many possible reasons for your pain and your heartache, and it’s very possible that it has nothing really to do with the reality that your friends haven’t asked you to be godparents, but more about some of your own deep wounds you need healing of.

It’s a reasonable possibility that your friends have prayerfully chosen the godparents that God may want for their children. With that in mind, offer up your pain and heartache, and be supportive of them.

God’s blessing and healing to you.
 
Thank you for your response. I’m sure a lot of this has to do with what you said regarding unmet needs. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like most people might feel a little hurt in this situation, even if they knew it was not right to feel that way. I agree that the depth of my hurt probably has a lot to do with emotional baggage unrelated to my friendships.

I was hoping someone could offer some reasons why they would find someone unfit to be a godparent? I would really like to work on those things, just for the sake of being a better person.

If my friends prayerfully considered their choices and God led to them to not choose us, well, again, I clearly have some things to work on and would really appreciate some insight.
 
I believe that you may be reading too much into their motives. It could have been no more than a simple slip of the tongue. They could have simply mentioned to their other friends that they were going to baptize their child and the other couple could have volunteered themselves as godparents. Believe me , some people are like that. That could have put the parents under pressure to acquiesce, you said the other couple was qualified so they couldn’t be ruled out on that account. It probably wasn’t meant to slight you or your husband. Just a thought.
 
This is a time for “emotional intelligence.” Pray for such.

You understand that Godparenting is not a right, and that only one of the (presumably) dozens of male/female groupings in the parents’ life can be GPs to the wee one.

So you haven’t lost anything that should have been yours, but it hurts anyway.

Methinks as others have said, there is more to this hurt than appears on the surface. Pray for wisdom to understand.

God Bless and ICXC NIKA
 
For another perspective as a parent, when faced with several choices for Godparent(s), we often didn’t choose the person(s) to whom we were actually closest because we had faith they would already have a special relationship with the child. The more people who served a loving models for our children was considered a very good thing.
 
There could be any number of reasons why someone isn’t asked to be a Godparent. It may just be a matter of convenience - whoever happened to be around when an upcoming baptism was mentioned. People sometimes just choose someone without thinking who would be a better Godparent over someone else. In other words, it’s not necessarily because you are lacking something but because they may just be selecting someone without giving it much thought. It could also be that the people feel closer to the people they chose than they do with you even though you are all friends.
I agree that something else is going on within you - it wouldn’t bother me at all if someone didn’t select me to be a Godparent. I’m not saying this is true but maybe you have issues with rejection and so it is easy to see something like this as another rejection in your life. I don’t know - just a possibility.
 
IrishAm said:
For another perspective as a parent, when faced with several choices for Godparent(s), we often didn’t choose the person(s) to whom we were actually closest because we had faith they would already have a special relationship with the child. The more people who served a loving models for our children was considered a very good thing.
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Indeed. That’s the thinking my wife and I are going for with our first due in May. My sister I feel has always had an expectation that she’d be picked as a godparent, or at least that she’ll be disappointed if she’s not picked. But we’re not picking her as with my wife being an only child, she’s our child’s lone blood aunt (and only local aunt). Same for my brother who is the child’s only uncle. Both siblings already will have special and unique relationships with my daughter. Additionally neither sibling is particularly religious, never mind Christian so if we picked them it would be in the secular view of "god"parents only.

The couple we are choosing are my wife’s cousin and her husband, and they’re being picked for a couple of reasons. One, they’re the most religious Christian couple we know and would be true godparents to my little girl helping to raise her Christian and watching out for her if anything should happen to us. Two, they’re an established couple, which my sister isn’t being single and my brother isn’t yet as he just married last month. Third, they’re tragically unable to have children of their own despite desperately wanting to have a baby, and on top of that the cousin’s sister wasn’t allowed to baptize her boys so the cousin was never given the opportunity to be anyone’s godparent. So while someone might seem like a natural fit on the surface, or feel they are a perfect fit, when choices are actually made the parents might have other priorities or knowledge as to why those particular people might be a better fit for their particular child.
 
As others have said, there are a lot of reasons why they could have skipped you that don’t mean they think ill of you. Off the top of my head:
  • One of the couples they chose would have no other opportunity to be godparents.
  • They think you have other godchildren and are “booked up”, for lack of a better term.
  • They didn’t realize how interested you are.
  • Their family pressured them to choose someone else.
If you are close enough to be in each others’ weddings, I’m sure no slight was intended. Pray for understanding, and remember that not all disappointments are personal attacks or signs of your shortcomings. (I have struggled with this one myself!)
 
Some very sound and wise insight here. 🙂

I just want to add one more thing, since you asked what reasons could there be as to why they didn’t chose you, in an effort for you to better yourself. What kind of qualities, etc.

My thought is, the baptism of their child isnt about you, your husband, or who they asked to be the godparents.

It’s NOT about the godparents ultimately, though good people, catechized in the faith is important.
It’s about their child. Perhaps if you stopped looking inward at yourself, and looked outward and rejoiced over the child’s pending baptism would be helpful.

In other words, though your hurt and disappointment is real, don’t become self-absorbed over it. Don’t become narcissitic or the victim in this. Pray for the grace to keep the real focus on the child, and not you.

We do live in a culture where we tend to think “what about me?” and that can get us in a self-centered if we are not careful.

God’s blessings.
 
SJG1759 said:
As others have said, there are a lot of reasons why they could have skipped you that don’t mean they think ill of you. Off the top of my head:
  • One of the couples they chose would have no other opportunity to be godparents.
  • They think you have other godchildren and are “booked up”, for lack of a better term.
  • They didn’t realize how interested you are.
  • Their family pressured them to choose someone else.
If you are close enough to be in each others’ weddings, I’m sure no slight was intended. Pray for understanding, and remember that not all disappointments are personal attacks or signs of your shortcomings. (I have struggled with this one myself!)
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Some good points here. I was asked to be a godparent once…the couple started by saying “We know you must have been asked a hundred times already, but we really would be honored if you would agree”.
(I work in a parish and used to work in a Catholic school). I said no, actually, not so much! They were amazed, figuring I simply KNEW so many people that I had been asked a lot. Nope.
Ditto to the family pressure.
Be at peace.
 
I appreciate the constructive insight from everyone. Really. Some of those things I haven’t really thought about before.

Marie, I assure you there is no expectation that I should be asked, or that I’m “special”. In fact I think the opposite. I am not special, not deserving of anything. I find myself surprised that I even have friends some days. I start to feel comfortable in my friendships, that maybe these people really do care about me, and then something like this happens and I feel stupid for ever feeling secure with them. I don’t fault them for not choosing me. It makes sense to not choose me if we’re not actually as close as I think we are, which seems to be the case. I would love to think that it’s the situation some of the other posters offered, that we are so close that they know I’ll have a special relationship already. I don’t see that.

My friends can choose whoever they want to be godparents. My point in posting this was to find out why one might ask someone and not another, because I simply don’t know the reasons and was trying to sift through this without feeling completely awful about myself. It seems you think I should feel like complete scum and that it would be good for me to feel that way. I did not grow up Catholic so this whole process is quite new to me, so I asked. I found your 2nd response to be extremely uncharitable and malicious. Why would you encourage a person with obvious self-esteem issues to think even worse of themselves? I promise that everything you said, I already agree with and feel, constantly, on my own. No help needed. Please don’t respond again. I’m trying to figure out how to delete this post as it’s causing me a lot of stress.
 
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