"Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1)

“Judge not, and ye shall not be judged, condemn not and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven” (Luke 6:37)

"And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye." (Luke 6:41-42)

And Alan On, loved this: I've no idea if you're Christian enough for a Christening. Sorry on that point. I promise to be more judgemental in the future.

True enough. One of the risks with writing to an advice columnist and thus submitting yourself to the advice of not one but many is that these readers do not know you. But, there she has, written to Cary, someone who I might point out also has no idea who she is.

But, she has given us what she thinks are the important points in her story: my party, losing control, just blankedly labeling the siblings as dysfunctional, a bit entitled. Not even knowing her, one clearly sees her sense of entitlement, her lack of graciousness, her sense of drama from what she chooses to say and not say. (For example, if the siblings are willing to take care of teh parents, they sound not so extreme dysfunctional for this occassion. And, in Oprah parlance, dsyfunctional is not drug or alacohol related but rather personality-driven,i.e.i don't like the way they are passive aggressive.) These are important clues. She may not be despicable, but she shows a distinct lack of maturity or graciousness of the heart. In other words, she does, to quote a post, sound like a pill.

You won't always have to deal with all those people who "desparately" want to come to this for-show christening. You're only a baby-momma. In a few years, when your "fiancee" has actually taken the big step and married another woman and they have started their own family, your biggest problem will be collecting child support.

That might happen.

regardless, this is all a waste of whining and perfectly good pontification.

The facts are clear and simple to any adult.

1. If you don't want the church's opinion than don't engage in a religious ritual.

2. If you don't want family involved, than don't invite them.

And that's all.

please, please do post in for advice when you get married.

If you can make this much of a graceless hash out of a christening I just can't _wait_ to see what a ghastly mess you can make of wedding preparations!

The Cary Tennis advice column really turns out to be a Rorschack test sometimes.

Oh, more than you know.

Oh please...

please, please do post in for advice when you get married.

If you can make this much of a graceless hash out of a christening I just can't _wait_ to see what a ghastly mess you can make of wedding preparations!

Equinity, you took the words right off of my keyboard. It was the first thing that flashed into my head when I read the letter.

The second thing that flashed into my head was that a lot of the reason she is having the problems she is is *because* they haven't planned a wedding yet. Planning a wedding, large or small, that involves out-of-town guests takes a long time and gives the bride and groom the opportunity to think about and deal with many of these issues. (For example, when I was planning my wedding, I knew that culturally and financially some of my relatives were going to want to crash at my place. I also knew I would go stark-raving mad if I had to worry about guests before the wedding. Wedding forums and chatrooms gave me advice on methods for ensuring that people understood they were being invited to town, but not your home - sending a list of affordable hotels in-town, with a city map indicating their location, for instance. This worked perfectly well in our case and everybody got the message that we couldn't put them up.)

This woman is diving into a major family party on short notice. She hasn't had time to think about the pitfalls or do research on throwing big ceremonial parties with out-of-town guests and now she feels she is "out of control".

Her worst mistake was inviting people she didn't want to, nor did she think think would, come. I mean, frankly, that was just denial and stupidity. Again, if she'd taken some time to visit wedding or party-planning websites, one of the pieces of advice she would have gotten loud and clear would be, "if you invite them, the least likely of them will decide to show up".

Finally, her attitude towards her disabled in-law is inexcusable. I feel sorry for the in-law, who is suffering discomfort and inconvenience - and who just wants to see the grandbaby christened. What a cruel attitude in response!

And I feel for the fiance. Her attitude does not bode well for a harmonious interfamily relationship. Like it or not, you marry into a family. They're not going to disappear at your whim, although it sounds disturbingly like she thought that was going to be possible.

A christening is not a party, it's a religous rite, promising to raise your son as a christian. It's a pretty serious ceremony and if it means NOTHING to you but a party (and "yours" apparently), you should cancel it.

I'm not religous, but I wouldn't disrespect someone's religion by mocking their ceremonies. Since you don't care about the religious aspect, why do it at all?

Just have a party at your house, or focus on getting married so that baby will have a family.

Good luck with the future in-laws ! The sooner you decide what rules you want to enforce the better. It is important to be realistic and enforce the rules in a consistant manner. Only set rules that are really important to you. I wish I had set some rules with my in-laws years ago. I put up with years of abuse. I feel pretty stupid for putting up with it for so long. Forget about being "nice" or "gracious" or "Christian", those are just words people use to manipulate you. The inlaws will probably ignore your rules and make you crazy anyway, but at least you will feel better knowing you stood up for yourself. Find out what you want, and stick to it. 2BRnot2B