agonyaunt | Care & Feeding: My In-Laws Are Way Too Far Into Our Business

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Care & Feeding: My In-Laws Are Way Too Far Into Our Business

[n.b, that is NOT the problem, or rather, ti is a dilution of the actual problem]

Dear Care and Feeding,

My in-laws are pretty great in every way, but there’s one major point we disagree on: religion. My husband is atheist; I was raised agnostic. His parents Catholic, attend services weekly, and participate in tons of church activities. They were absolutely shocked when we had a friend marry us instead of a priest, but other than the occasional cross necklace for my birthday, they haven’t really bothered us about our lack of faith. However, they have started to push religion more now that we have children. Our daughter is 3; our son is a newborn. My in-laws been regularly gifting things like holy water and children’s Bibles that I’ve carefully set aside, should the kids show any interest when they’re older. Recently my mother-in-law texted us to mention that she bought two fairly ornate crucifixes she would like to hang above the door to each child’s room. They are somewhat graphic, in my opinion. We firmly refused, saying we were not comfortable hanging such things in our home. But the decision seems to have hurt my in-laws’ feelings, seeing as they haven’t spoken to me since. I’m not sure what to tell them about future gifts, or if and when they ever want to take the kids to church.

—Clashing Over Crucifixes

Dear Clashing Over Crucifixes,

I hope when you firmly refused, you did so while acknowledging your in-laws’ good intentions, their love for you and their grandchildren, their devotion to their faith, and your love for them. If you did not, I would follow up by doing so now. This is unlikely to be the last time such a thing comes up. And in fact it’s not the first—it’s only the first time you weren’t able to sidestep without a confrontation. You note that your in-laws already know you and your husband are nonbelievers. There’s nothing wrong with the two of you making it explicitly clear you aren’t raising your children in the Catholic faith. But there’s also nothing wishy-washy about recognizing that your in-laws mean well. If you make yourself absolutely clear (right now, and again and again as necessary), it will get easier, I promise. It will take fewer words each time. You may be tempted to make a blanket rule about this—no gifts related to religion ever, no church, no proselytizing—but I wouldn’t. I’ve found that people are often tempted to try for one big fix, hoping they’ll never have to deal with a version of that problem again. But this hardly ever works (unless one counts an angry confrontation that leaves everyone with bitter feelings as “working”). I would take each thing as it comes up in the spirit with which it is meant until your in-laws finally get the message and give up. (Or until the children are adults and their grandparents still haven’t gotten the message, and it’s their own problem to deal with.)

—Michelle

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Dear Michelle,

your advice is so wrong I don't currently have time to write out all the ways in which it's wrong.

Dear LW: go ahead and impose that no-religion ban, and check on your in-laws' ability to sue for custody in your state. And hug your kids for me..

The grandparents do not, in fact, mean well.

i hate this advice soooooo much, but i have a LOT of religious trauma. I'd burn the fucking crucifixes in front of the in-laws.

Please take me with you when you do. I'll bring overproof rum for firestarter and refreshment.

I want to tell the columnist to fuck right off into the sun.

Has Care and Feeding's advice always been this terrible? I had a vague positive impression of them, but this advice is...something else.

Care and Feeding has really gone downhill since Carvell Wallace left :(

I know, right?! 😱 I mean, seriously, that response was some next-level "Dear Annie" magnitude of sheer idiocy... 🙄 ...like, WTF?!

What is this that this is giving 'holy water'? Are they expecting a vampire invasion? What is it for?
(I mean, how does this come under any kind of heading of 'acceptable gift'? Isn't it supposed to remain in churches?)

Household holy water gives me "pre-Vatican II" shivers. It's clear that respectfully agreeing to disagree is only encouraging the in-laws to target the children instead. I'd be very reluctant to leave them alone with the kids, frankly.

It's protective against bad influence and luck in general, and is sometimes used for healing.

I wouldn't think anything of a Catholic friend offering me a vial of holy water any more than I'd think twice at a friend offering a packet of herbs to burn to cleanse the house's energies or a hand of Fatima to keep the evil eye away, it's a general "I care about you and want you to be safe so I am sharing my culture's traditional protections with you" thing.

Yeah, but with anything Christian the imperative to evangelize affects the gesture. Also, your friend would listen to you and refrain from pushiness while parents/grandparents who hold to an "I know better than you do" attitude might not. In this case it's not gift of the holy water itself, holy as it is, but that it's part of a Christianizing campaign the grandparents are carrying out.

(I wonder if holy water would burn me. Hahaha.)

Edited 2022-05-06 19:59 (UTC)

It hasn't burned me yet!

We do kind of suspect if anyone drinks the Lourdes water it will kill them, but that's because it's been in the bottle for at least 35 years through several moves and we don't how the bottle was originally sealed.

Huh, I would absolutely give a mezuzah to a religious Jewish friend or a hamsa or chai to a Jewish friend of any religiosity, but would never give either to a non-Jew, because protective talismans are culturally dependent. Nor would I give holy water to a Catholic friend or sage to a pagan friend, because the giver's belief in the talisman is part of the relevant context. And I would be deeply weirded out, at a minimum, if my not-in-laws gave me Christian talismans -- or Jewish ones, for that matter.

Hmm. I deliberately didn't list mezuzah there because I get the impression that one *does* have aspects that would make it weird to give to a non-Jew. (Hamsa is interesting because I didn't think of it as a specifically Jewish thing, I've seen it in generally Middle Eastern/North African cultural contexts including Christian and Islamic communities here, but I guess it's become strongly associated with Judaism in particular in some contexts and I missed that.)

I guess I feel like there are some protective talismans that are okay to take outside the believer's community and some that aren't. Like if someone gave me a crucifix or a rosary or a saint's medal without knowing we were both Catholic, that would be weird, and a bible definitely smells of proselytizing, but holy water and some kinds of votive candles feel different, as do some but not all of the pagan ones and things like evil eye talismans and so on.

I definitely wouldn't give anything like that to a friend who I didn't know was okay with it, but if someone who I knew was steeped in the belief system it came from gave one to me, I would assume it was them offering protection to me, not them trying to push their beliefs on me.

Is there a single part of this advice that isn't bad?

In theory, maintaining rapport when negotiating with a loved one might be a good idea. Yet prefacing every "no" with "I know you mean well" is NOT good advice when you're dealing with someone who is trying to bully you by continuing to push something against what they know to be your preferences. (And it's also not really true, because they meant to bully you, and that is not benign, even if their attempt to override your own adult judgment is motivated by concern or love.) The conciliating note comes across as softening the message, and encourages them to continue to push against the boundary. The boundary should be firm and unequivocal.

And it's not good advice when someone keeps trying to convert you when they know you're not interested in their religion. And it's even worse advice when they are a member of the societally dominant religious majority.

And it's definitely the WORST advice when it's a grandparent continuing to push and bully their adult offspring to override their parenting about anything... because as others noted above, that's a major red flag.

Edited 2022-05-06 16:56 (UTC)

I cannot enumerate the ways in which Michelle is wrong wrong wrongty wrong on this - I hope LW ignores the hell out of this 'advice' and puts down a strong ban. these grandparents can keep their religious gifting to themselves and provide stuffed animals and legos like sane people.

and unless Grandpa is a priest, I'm not sure how they're getting holy water to 'gift'. last I knew (though it's been many a decade since I darkened the doors) the Catholic church doesn't sell little vials in a gift shop

They use it in rituals and the priest just blesses more water (with a pinch of salt) when it runs low, apparently. I suppose this means there's a holy water font and it's easy enough to dip some out. I gather that there have been occasions when the holy water was given directly to parishioners as a substitute for a blessing received from the priest in person, to satisfy social distancing.

Every Catholic church I've ever been in (and I've been in more than a few) has had either a wide enough basin of the water people use to bless themselves when entering and exiting the church (a thing we are supposed to do, especially entering) that someone could dip a small bottle (sold in many varieties) in to fill it with the holy water, or a kind of sports-drink-like dispenser, only in metal and with more crucifixes, for the same purpose. Very few Catholics I know actually keep the stuff around the house (we can't really perform the sacraments and other rituals it's used for except in emergencies, one of which is baptizing a baby, btw, so I can pretty much guarantee you that those kids have been baptized), but some people just like having it around for a small household shrine or something.

Edited 2022-05-06 19:01 (UTC)

I remember the font, but as I stopped attending mass around 13, I can guarantee I wasn't paying attention to people enough to see if they were dipping out water. I don't recall my grandmother keeping any at home, but we weren't encouraged to dig through her stuff, so maybe?

Very few Catholics of any age I've known keep one, or at least not publicly. I took some when we were required to create a shrine to Mary in the 4th grade. Don't ask me why.

Fun story, only tangentially related: I was actually baptized four times because I had some health scares when I was born: my mom baptized me the minute she got her hands on me, the NICU nurse baptized me just in case, my mother's mother baptized me ditto, and finally the priest at my actual baptism used the conditional baptism because none of the three people who'd already tried to baptize me had actual holy water, just the water out of the glass next to the bed!

Heh. I'm just the opposite. I was baptized before I was adopted, so no one I know was even there.

Sorry, that should have been in response to

dine.

I was literally a child the last time I attended mass; knew about the font, but don't recall people dipping some out to take home - but then I wasn't really paying attention to it.

I can totally see social distancing having affected how blessings were conferred (loved the pictures priests with a squirt gun early on)

They do, actually, if it's fancy holy water - you can buy Lourdes Water from their gift shop on the internet, some of my Catholic friends have some.

Plain holy water wouldn't be worth it, because yes, the last Catholic church I was in, they had a little thing by the door where you could fill a bottle to take home.

I think it depends a lot on what kind of Catholic you are, but a lot of Catholics I know will keep a bottle or two of holy water around the house just in case.

I'm a thoroughly lapsed Catholic *g*

I hadn't even thought about holy water from special sites like Lourdes! I can see how that would be available.

I think I was about 13 when I stopped attending services; while I remember the font, I didn't notice anyone dipping water out to take home - it probably happened, but didn't register with me. I don't think my grandmother kept any at home, though my aunt might have.

I mean, my recent experience is solely "attended a friend's relative's funeral a couple months ago partly to serve as a buffer against their other relatives", but they definitely had a place to bottle your own holy water, it was the most interesting thing there! I considered grabbing some in case of vampires but I decided a funeral was maybe not the time.

I think my cousins' Catholic church, the only other one I've been to in recent memory, had a font but no easy way to take any home, but it's been a lot longer since I visited there, so maybe it's a new thing or maybe not every church has one.

Dear LW,

Don't leave the kids alone with these people.

Yeah. While the Mortara Case (you can look that up in wikipedia) was a while ago, these lovely people seem to me to be capable of baptizing the kids whether or not the parents (or kids) would want that.

I said above, I bet a shiny nickel that's already happened.

LW, you need to sit down with your husband and work out very clearly just what your feelings are on religion and your kids, and come to an agreement on lines you are both willing to hold to. Do either of you have religious trauma that means you don't want it anywhere near you? Do you want to actively keep your kids away from organized religion, or do you just not feel strongly? Do either you or your husband have reason to believe his parents will get coercive or abusive or traumatic about it? Do you know the story of how and why he broke away from his parents' beliefs, and how they reacted when he did?

Nothing you mentioned in the letter sounds like a clear warning sign that your in-laws are going to be outright coercive or abusive about their faith. (Also, it's unlikely the kids were baptized without your knowledge, because that would be difficult to do within current Catholic doctrine, unless you have reason to believe that their specific church/priest would do it anyway.) What it does seem like is that they've decided to act as your kids' godparents even absent the ceremony, and are trying to do for them the things they expected to do for a grandchild who was also a godchild.

Are you okay with the kids being exposed to Christianity by their grandparents? Are you willing to talk to them in age-appropriate ways about differences between your beliefs and their grandparents'? From what you said about 'setting things aside', it sounds like you at least aren't upset by the idea that they might decide to become Christian for themselves, later. (Does your husband agree?) There's nothing wrong with exposing them to the religious aspects of their heritage through their grandparents early on if neither of you feel strongly against it, and teaching them about religion in a reasonable way from early on can be protective against people trying to exploit them with it when they're older.

That said, especially if your husband has any qualms at all about how his parents handled religion with him as a kid, you should keep communication open with the in-laws, and the kids as they get older, about what they are being taught and being exposed to. If you want to keep a relationship you might find that "we want the kids to know about your religion but not feel like they're required to be part of it" will work a lot better than just shutting down about it.

On the other hand, if you or your husband do have reason to believe that they will get coercive or abusive about it, then you need to figure out what hard boundary you are going to set and get ready to hold it against all comers.

(Also, it almost seems like the actual problem in this letter is "we told them we don't like their crucifixes and now they aren't talking to us". LW, did you turn them away in a way that implied you aren't comfortable with visible expressions of your in-laws' traditional culture, or did you turn them away in a way that explained you didn't want graphic torture scenes in your kids' rooms? Because those are probably going to ring very differently to the in-laws and you should probably figure out which one they heard you say before you go any farther.)

This may have been what Michelle was trying to say, in which case you said it MUCH better. (But I would still watch out for the grandparents trying to make off with the kids.)

Oh, yeah, this is definitely a "be very careful" situation.

Even if the grandparents *do* mean well and agree to try not to overstep, LW should still make an effort to sit down with the kids and talk over whatever the grandparents tell and show them and help them put it in their family's context. And that will hopefully let them catch it early if the grandparents cross lines.

Just a note on the baptism: There's a sort of loophole called "Emergency baptism," which technically this case should not fall under, but I know that even as recently as my parents' generation, grandparents and other older relations would do a quick splash in the sink when the parents were determined not to baptize. Does it "count"? Probably not in the eyes of the Church, although were the children to die without an official baptism, they'd probably count it. Not that it quite matters the way it used to, as limbo is no longer a thing.

Catholicism, man.

Yeah, I'm leaning a little more toward maybe they did do a baptism just because it really does feel like they're trying to be godparents.

But we really don't know much other than that list of gifts so it's really hard to say. I do feel like with changes in the church over the last generation (including the limbo changes) it's probably a lot less likely, though.

This is a fair observation, especially since the grandparents may well (ulp!) be closer to my generation than my parents'. Even they were both very much post-VII Catholics (my family's history with the Church is long and strange, but suffice to say that the only one of my grandparents who was Catholic wasn't the type to really give that much of a shit - not nearly as much as my Methodist maternal grandmother was), so much of my understanding of practices like that is second or even third hand.

(Funny story: A friend's mother was taught about emergency baptism, an example being if a baby were on train tracks and a train was approaching. She used to walk home next to tracks every day, always watching for a baby she could baptize. The thought that maybe she might want to move the baby didn't occur to her until much later.)

(This was also one of several reasons she always said you could tell Rosemary's Baby wasn't written by a Catholic. Rosemary was raised devoutly Catholic in the same generation. As soon as she saw that weird little demon baby, she'd have been throwing water at it while speaking Latin.)

(I'll spare you my talk on why Polanski made that who situation even worse, because no one here needs an extra reason to hate on Polanski.)

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Today I leanred something!

Also, it's unlikely the kids were baptized without your knowledge, because that would be difficult to do within current Catholic doctrine, unless you have reason to believe that their specific church/priest would do it anyway.)

I disagree - I think the grandparents have done a DIY baptism at home with some of that holy water...

Well, they sound like devout but mainline Catholics, and most devout Catholics would put a lot of stake in it being done by a priest, and I don't think the vast majority of priests would do it without talking to the parents.

Like Catholics can do home baptism in extremis like anyone else, but I think the kind of Catholics who are sending holy water to their relatives would feel strongly enough about the ritual that they wouldn't do the emergency version unless they really thought it was an emergency. I mean it's certainly possible they are so deranged they do think the kids are in imminent danger of going to Hell immediately, but all we really heard in the letter is that they are sending the kind of presents a godparent would send, so I really suspect they're holding out for a priest.

If they were some denominations other than Catholic it would be a lot more likely.

Actually, I would say just the opposite: super-invested Catholics, especially ones who sound like they, whatever their actual age, were raised in more traditional, pre-VII-leaning households/parishes, would be more likely to do a DIY baptism than someone like, say, me, who was raised in a very post-VII parish and an even less traditional, more "cafeteria" household (my father had gone to Catholic school, but his mother was Protestant of some stripe, and his father, who was Catholic, didn't really give much of a shit; my mother was raised Methodist and converted to Catholicism because her Catholic husband died and left her with four Catholic children to take to Mass every week, which is as Methodist a reason to convert to Catholicism as you can imagine).

And wow, I write long sentences.

Anyway, point being: IME, most cradle Catholics or serious converts who were very young Boomers or very old GenXers would prioritize getting the baptism done over who did it, limbo still being a thing then.

This seems to be the kind of advice that LW needed to hear.

I have more bottles of holy water than I know what to do with! It’s given out regularly in Orthodox churches.

I didn’t think the advice was great - firmer boundaries and a clear discussion would help. They need to be clear to the Catholic grands what is ok - Noah’s Ark play set, yes, bloody crucifix, no. I’m in a religiously diverse family so if I want to make a gift that has some religious aspect, I ask in advance.

But I really appreciated the mother’s wrapping up and setting aside religious gifts for later as a thoughtful way to give the kids a chance as young adults to decide for themselves about part of their heritage.

. They were absolutely shocked when we had a friend marry us instead of a priest, but other than the occasional cross necklace for my birthday, they haven’t really bothered us about our lack of faith.

I've identified LW's problem here. They've viewed an occasional cross necklace (!!!!) as a birthday gift as "not really bothering" them, instead of as outrageous overstepping of personal boundaries.

Gifting religious household decorations to a household that doesn't follow that religion is incredibly tacky, and that's without the weird proselytizing in the form of gifted necklaces, holy water, children's bibles. The grandparents are showing some bad manners here, and there's a point where assumed good intentions stop mattering.

Yeah I think ultimately, you need to be very clear that you aren't raising the children Catholic & about what gifts are ok. Possibly projecting but I am imagining a situation where they just... Haven't talked about religion with the grandparents (other than presumably that LW was not converting). That's basically been my route bc I am a coward, haha.

Fwiw I think most Catholic wouldn't think of a crucifix as graphic/weird or much different from a cross... I know that's probably strange outside the religion but just like, it's normal... Plus, I'd imagine the issue isn't with the aesthetic properties so better not to confuse the issue ('ah we just have to give them more tasteful religious art!!')

I'm interested in the husband's perspective on his parents & on catholicism. As an atheist lapsed/former Catholic, it's definitely a complicated situation for me. Thankfully, I'm never having kids.

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Care & Feeding: My In-Laws Are Way Too Far Into Our Business

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I really need a Catholicism icon

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