Friendly Atheist

Why not “honorary parents”? If you’re not attaching a religious job to the role, then that’s really what you’re asking them to be.

I’ve heard “guardians” used. Or how about “spirit sponsors”? But yes, I have actually heard of “guardians” used in place of god-parents. Maybe that’s the correct word.

And I want to even be able to ask the potential “godparents” officially. They don’t even know I’ve ever considered it.

Maybe the reader should go ahead and ask them to fill the roles. Discuss those roles. The “godparents” (or all of them together) might come up with an alternative that is especially meaningful to them.

I’ve encountered “guardians” and “mentors.”

To be honest, I don’t see the problem with the phrase godparents. “God” is a meaningless word, afterall. But, I assume you could go with “secondary parents”, “guardians” as mentioned above (though, of course, guardians is the name typically given to adoptive parents, not potential adoptive parents, so it may require some adjustment), or something along the lines of “parental successors”.

I really like the term “mentor.” I think I will use that when I have kids, actually.

I would go with mentor, or some variant of it.

How about just “uncle/aunt”? We do that with close family friends, and it maintains the family connection. Seems cool to me.

Mentor just sounds a little too Obi Wan Kanobe for me.

HJ

Luckily we have a more neutral term for ‘godparent’ here in Finland, but the problem still remains at least for official baptisms, since if the parents want a priest to perform the christening, as is very common, the chosen godparents must belong to the church. I hear once in a while of cases where someone ‘can’t’ resign from church because their sibling/best friend etc. wants them as a godparent for their child.

The even more pressing reason why people don’t resign is church weddings, which are of course an even more important tradition. At least one of the couple must belong to the church in order to get a church wedding. It’s even common for people to rejoin the church so they can get a church wedding, I don’t know whether you have the same problems in other countries.

So there is definitely a need for ’secular traditions’, I would say.

My partner, who is an atheist like me, is a godmother to her friend’s daughter. As a word to describe the role “godparent” works well enough. Or “godlessparent” might do.

It is my understanding of the term godparent, as “guru” mentioned above, to be more of a sacremental or spiritual bestowing of parental obligations, which would include material support of course, but also religious guidance in the event of the unthinkable happening to the parents. In my opinion, the term is obfuscating and unnecessary for the nontheist. “Honorary Parents,” as mentioned above seems like a fine substitute for me. But then to each their own.

My brother had a Humanist naming ceremony for his kid, the term “Guideparent” was used.

In reference to Fergus.

I have also attended more than one “name ceromony”.

The particapents were not Christian. But word ” Godparents ” was still usesd in repect for the moral guides of the children.

I suppose this doesnt help though.

huh, I didn’t think anyone really did the ‘godparent’ thing except for Catholics. I never had one and I can’t say that anyone I know has one.

Just be sure that you name explicitly who gets the kiddo in the will, that’s the important part.

@Skeptigator

I think that god-referencing figures of speech (e.g., swearing) are in a very different category from consciously naming a rôle. Terms like “chairman” are no longer used for a female chair/chairperson. [FWIW, I squirm whenever someone says "Bless You" to me whenever I sneeze!]

For me, using a non-theistic title is a small consciousness-raising step.

As an aside, in the Catholic Flat Earth Society Church (at least), “Godparent” is a particular rôle where the incumbent is responsible for the religious indoctrination of the child, and so is especially at odds with a non-theistic world view.

The term mentor originated from Greek mythology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentor

Does that make it “as bad as” the term godparent? I don’t think we should let the origins of words or practices bother us. Lots of things have origins that are now only loosely tied to their present forms. Christmas and Easter are prime examples – originally pagan celebrations, now quite secular. Historically interesting, but in practice who cares?

I always thought the whole idea was a bit morbid and silly.

Hi – This was my question, and I greatly appreciate all the responses. As far as Skeptigator’s post, yeah, what Fergus said. I really feel as though I consciously need to not use the word “god.” My family is very religious, and they’d have a field day thinking I’ve “come back” despite how much I explained that my use of godparent isn’t what they’re thinking. Using god in this case would be entirely different than swearing or even holidays, IMO. I do think I’m overthinking it. I’ve probably overthought my overthinking. But I know it won’t go away until I pick!

Geru – I would be interested in knowing the term you use in Finland. The Finnish/Swedish/Norwegian culture is one we have great respect and affection for. In fact, my husband’s father’s day gift is a lapland bracelet.

“The B Team” is hilarious and would totally suit us. There are a whole lot of terms in that vein we could use: JV, second string, etc. But The B Team is awesome.

Most of the alternatives seem silly: Mentor, sponsor, guardian, etc. Use “godparent” and strip it of its religious connotation.

One of my best childhood friends has asked me to be godmother to her two daughters, and she knows I’m an atheist. All she wants, should the unfortunate happen, is for someone to make sure they know who their mother was, what she was like (which would include her own very strong faith in God), her hopes and dreams for them, and teach them in general to be wise about the world. They’ll therefore also know how I feel about religion, and their mother is fine with me letting her daughters come to their own conclusions. I was honored to be asked, and feel fine wearing the label “godmother.”

having mucked about on an online translation site, theses were my 2 personal favourites for godparent;

???????? ???????? (russian)
???? (chinese)

might be a lil difficult to pronounce tho…

Or maybe “Willparents.” Uh…indicating that these are who the kids go to in your will? And also that you are exercising your free will?

I guess I’m lucky, since these figures in my life are an aunt and uncle, so no extra titles necessary.

I’ve heard of people using ’sponsor’ and ’supporter’.

Our language is in a constant state of change. It mainly boils down to common usage. Even Christmas and everything about it has ancient origins.

I’ve got it:

Metaparents

(I see that someone is squatting on http://www.metaparent.com already!)

I’m more worried about finding suitable metaparents than what title I give them. Both sides of our families are too religious, and friends are too transitory.

I was born Louisiana Catholic and I’ve always called my godfather Parrain (pa-RAN) which is French for godfather (duh). The funny thing about that is he’s the only other atheist in the family. So I guess my parents knew what they were doing. But it’s a pretty word that doesn’t immediately evoke religion, even if you know what it means. Marrain is the feminine, but I’ve never used that. For some reason we all call our godmothers “Nanny.”

As to how you ask and what sort of ceremony to have, fuck if I know.

I like ‘guidemother’ / ‘guidefather’ .. it is not as formal as guardian and not as general as mentor.
it has the same protection and teaching aspect, but without the religion.

Btw: I don’t think that the whole concept of godparents is a bad/outdated one. I grew up in an atheist household and i had (the german version) of godparents (= Pate). I wasn’t aware that this was actually a religious term until much later.
Maybe I was a really morbid child, but knowing that I wouldn’t be alone in case something would happen to my parents was good. After reading fairytales (parents are always dead or there’s the evil stepmother), I knew in a very childlike way that I was taken care of should I ever wind up in a fairytale.

I like the Spanish terms, madrina and padrino.

Once you become a child’s madrina or padrino, you become the comadre or compadre of her parents, so you also share a special relationship and have a special name in relation to the adults in the family.

You’ll often hear Spanish speakers addressing someone affectionately as “comadre” or “compadre” when they just mean friend, but it’s like a very close family friend.

Stella: Guideparents is pretty cool. I don’t know technically if it’s outdated or not. I never had godparents, and I had always been under the impression that it was primarily a Catholic tradition, which none of my family is. But I like the idea of it.

Scott: It’s true. We are very lucky to have quite a wide range of potential . Whether any of them ever get a title or not, our daughter is one incredibly lucky kiddo to have so many caring people looking out for her.

This discussion has been so helpful. Thanks for posting it, Hemant. My husband and I have lots of ideas, and he’ll have lots of opportunities to tell me to stop thinking!

I like sponsor, or mentor.

In Finnish the term is “Kummi”, which I believe would translate to sponsor.

In Swedish the term is “Fadder”, which is close to the Spanish compadre. So you become the co-parent (co-mother or co-father). We have the word godparent (gudmor, gudfar) too, but I don’t know how widely they are used, because I have always used the term fadder.

We call our kids’ godparents “mentors” … but godparents sounds so much less weird. People know what you’re talking about if you say “godparents” but not so much if you say mentors. Luckily, they’re also my husband’s sister & brother-in-law, so usually we stick with aunt & uncle.

My father is atheist, and also godparent _(padrino, actually as we’re in Mexico) to a child of the neighbors next door, as they have lived long enough so as to develop a very close friendship.

When I asked about it to my dad, he simply said that the formality of the ceremony meant that it was a very serious oath. He said that he knew it was important for them, and so he took it seriously. If they had asked more lightly probably he would have taken it more lightly too.

I also happen to be “witness” to some friend’s wedding (two weddings and four friends, actually), but in this case was at the civil ceremony (here people have to sign a legal document, as religious institutions can’t give certificates with legal power, just religious).