For me the answer should be clear, the son of one is baptized by religious conviction. That is why my daughter is not baptized. However, that is not the reason most adduced by the people of my environment or other cases that I know and have baptized their babies.
It is even the case of unbelieving couples who end up baptizing their baby. It is a characteristic of our society, because the same could be said of communions or religious weddings. But focusing on our subject, then, Why do we baptize our children?
By religious conviction.
This is the only reason, in my opinion, to consistently baptize a baby, although we should also see what that baby thinks later and how he manages if he wants to stop being part of the Catholic Church, something that is not simple.
For the Catholic Church, the formal act of baptism is not a simple celebration, it is a sacrament that implies the entry of the newborn person into that religious community. You don't necessarily have to be a practitioner to be convinced of beliefs and want to educate a child in the Christian religious faith.
By tradition.
Many non-practicing parents who do not intend to educate their children in religion go to the secular tradition of baptism so as not to break it. Here there is no religious conviction, but custom, and the parents are trying not to break the tradition. In this group, as in the following, it is common for non-believers to be included.
For pleasing relatives.
It is one of the reasons that can be heard most. There are always grandparents or more frequently great-grandparents of babies who "push" for the baby to be baptized. We do many things for the family, however this may be one of the least consistent with our beliefs.
By ostentation.
Here we already enter a field that we could even say that opposes the principles of the Catholic Church and has little to do with the religious ceremony. It is about demonstrating to others that we can dress in the best clothes and make an expensive celebration after the baptism ceremony.
For meeting with the environment to celebrate the birth.
A birth is a reason for joy, and no doubt you want to share it with family and friends. Although I consider that, next to the previous one, it is the weakest option to baptize a baby, because that meeting can be given without baptism, in a kind of “welcome party”. In fact, the welcome rituals for newborns are ancestral and prior to Christianity.It is what you intend to recreate the "civil baptism", that although it is not yet installed in our society as something common, who knows if in the future it will acquire as much demand as civil weddings currently. With a difference that makes me not understand too much about civil baptism: for a couple there are still certain factors that make being married offer certain security or legal advantages. A civil baptism offers nothing other than a birth record.
Therefore, for this option, I consider that it is better to meet to celebrate it without another ritual than that one, that of the meeting with our surroundings and the enjoyment of good moments, generally enlivened with food and drink.
Of course, some of these reasons are not exclusive, and those who baptize by tradition can succumb to family pressures and take advantage to show off, for example.
There are probably others reasons to baptize babiesI have even been told that if I do not baptize my daughter, how will she get married in the future (also, told by a person who has not stepped on the church to be married). Other more humorous comments indicate that then my daughter will not be able to enter the church in case she suffers any adverse effect when entering sacred territory, in the style of horror movies ...
