Do your children have god parents?

Seems like most Swiss children I know have a Gotti. I was wondering if (assuming we’ll stay here for the long run) my children are going to miss out by not having a godparent. Definitely the godparents seem to invest in their godchildren, also monetarily with investment accounts/etc.

I’d like to sample the distribution of the families in this community with a poll. I thought of 4 options, depending on whether you child/children have a gotti and on whether you are Swiss or not:

  • Yes - Swiss
  • No - Swiss
  • Yes - Foreigner
  • No - Foreigner

0 voters

Thanks for your vote and don’t shy away to share your opinion on this matter.

I (Swiss) don’t like the concept of godparents, probably because I had a bad experience myself and also lot of my colleagues made bad experiences.

More often than not, the godparent is supporting and has a good relationship in the first few years, but later on starts to neglect it. It may sound coldhearted, but I don’t care about losing a friend if he neglects his “responsibilities”, but I do care about the experiences and feelings of my daughter.
As I got older, my godfather visited me max twice a year, sometimes forgot my birthday, and I remember how I disappointed I was back then. I have lots of friends who share that feeling. Of course there are also cases where it is exactly the opposite, e.g. a friend of my wife still has regular contact with her godfather atter 30 years, they spend weekends together and formed a tight bond.

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It’s a Christian thing to have god parents. So I guess most people do, even foreigners.

For me (I’m Italian) it doesn’t mean that much though. It’s usually kept in the family, so it’s not more than a random relative that was in church with me once.

It’s just a chosen “uncle” or “aunt” not some best friend forever that I expect to give me expensive gifts on every birthday and christmas or take me to random trips… I always found those people kinda annoying that bragged about that in school.

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I haven’t any specific link with my godmother or godfather that were my parent friends. I am French and we are not catholic nor practising.
My godmother appears not to be a long term friend of my mom.
She still see my godfather but we haven’t got specific relationship and he is not interested to ask updates.

My brother has uncle/ aunt as godfather/godmother and it is better as he still have relationships with them.

In France, you can do a republican ceremony at the city hall and sign some certificates.

I may do the same setup for my kid with close family at the cityhall in france if possible as it is where live our family.
Is it possible in Switzerland ?

We do because my wife has an amazing relationship with her remaining Gotte (her Götti, who she had a great relationship with as well, died). I on the other hand have no Gotte/Götti, as where I’m from it’s only for baptised kids.

If my girlfriend hadn’t had her experience with her Götti/Gotte we probably wouldn’t have had any godparents for our son either though.

I like the idea though to have a couple people in your childs life that we care for, who care for us and someone he can turn to in addition to his family. They are basically just friends with a different title. No spiritual, no monetary or other responsibilities, we just like them.

Old fashioned, religion-based and not necessary any more in this day and age. To each his own, but thanks, I’ll gladly pass, neither asking someone nor accepting if I should be asked.

These Gotte & Götti were supposed to take care of you if your parents didn’t make it through the next plague. Doesn’t happen often these days, even in Coronatimes.

My Gotte & Götti were ok, but just about like an average uncle and aunt.

In these times I know a few Gotte and Göttis of small children, some are doing great & the status gives them and the child joy, others suck and disappointed (mainly) the parents a lot. (and probably thereby friendships were broken).

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We did Götti and Gotte for our children, while my husband has only a Gotte, reformierte Kirche in Switzerland required 2. I see this as a bonus, no obligation. It is nice for the children to have someone special only for them, not for sharing. It was hard to find suitable people though, most of our relations are not church members
I grew closer with my Gotte as an adult, I was closer with my Götti as a child.

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