Woman gets 'hilarious revenge' on religious aunt after 'baptism incident.' AITA?
When this woman is upset with her extremely Christian aunt, she asks Reddit:
"AITA if I refuse to 'de-baptise' my aunt?"
My parents believe in the freedom of choosing one's own religion. My mother was raised catholic, while my father believes in a god without participating in any church. I (14) honestly do not care too much about the topic.
To the dismay of my aunt. During my childhood, she constantly tried to pressure my mother into getting me baptized.
Whenever I visited them, she would try to push Christianity on me (she would read the bible to me and take me to her church - among other things). This made me very uncomfortable to the point where I did not want to visit anymore.
I recently developed an interest in herbs and plants. This somehow convinced her, that I practice witchery.
Now she constantly switches between trying to 'save' me and making a point of avoiding me. Most of the family thinks her silly - but like always, when she is acting crazy, everyone just accepts it. Since I did not budge, she focused on my brother (5).
He is friends with my cousin (6) and therefore spends a lot of time at their house. On his latest visit, my aunt decided to make an appointment with a priest, forge my mother's signature, and get my brother baptized.
After my brother told my mother about the incident (which my aunt told him not to do), she confronted my aunt on her next visit. My aunt proudly confessed to having 'saved' my brother and a screaming match ensued.
As I already mentioned, my parents strongly believe, that everyone should be able to choose their own beliefs and not join a church until one is old enough to make an informed decision.
To summarize my aunt's words: she could not believe that our mother was willfully condemning us to hell and that it was no wonder I had become a satanic witch.
She HAD TO act because my mother obviously couldn't be brought to her senses and someone had to save the boy.
In a moment of anger, I went to my room to get one of my pots (I have one pot in the shape of a skull) and filled it with water. While they were still screaming at each other, I poured the water over her.
Then I declared her to be now baptized a witch and the lawful wife of Satan. I will be honest, I enjoyed the expressions of shock and then panic on her face. She told me to undo what I did. I refused.
Once she realized, she could not convince me, she stormed out of the house. Now, she told the whole family about it and my grandparents and other relatives have been bombarding my mother with hateful messages.
My mother says she understands why I did what I did, but that I need to 'undo' it to keep the peace. I am supposed to make a show of 'de-baptizing' her and declaring her Christian again.
I am just tired of everybody constantly talking about religions and fed up with my aunt and everybody's endurance of her. If she can just go around and baptize my brother, why can't I do the same to her? AITA if I do not comply with my parent's wishes?
Let's find out.
rogueslytherin writes:
NTA. The priest definitely has a right to know, too. They want baptisms to be consensual, and frown upon randomly baptizing unwilling minors. I’m so sorry your aunt is acting this way,
I’m guessing she drank the Kool-Aid and it was strong. I’ve heard of people being removed from their congregation for this same shenanigan, so you might want to give people a heads up (like close family members) if that turns out to be the case.
She sounds like the kind of crazy that needs to regale the whole family tree with her version of events in which she is the perpetual victim.
Also, I hope you’re enjoying your plants! It’s great to see another generation of gardeners, and, from one gardener to another, should she decide to darken your doorstep again, grab some garden twine, gather some herbs in a bundle...
and throw that bad boy in her general direction (for bonus points, hide it in her bag or car for her to discover later). The possibilities are endless! Have fun, OP.
butterflywings66 writes:
I absolutely adore your dark sense of humor LOL! Yes she will be in trouble for lying to the church.
Im still laughing at the image of you dousing her with unholy water lol! You’ve prob never seen the old 70s movie Carrie based on the Stephen King novel but her mother is a crazy Bible freak like your aunt.
I live in the “Bible Belt” of the US and we call bible zealots “bible thumpers”. Jokes aside, hope you and your family can get some peace from this drama. No one should be forced into religion. NTA!!!
farsical7 writes:
Yes, a real Catholic who understands her faith would know she couldn't be 'unbaptized' and especially against her will be a 14 yr old herbalist. I'm surprised the water didn't melt her aunt like Dorothy melted the Wicked Witch.... Think OP's aunt is just trying to get everyone's attention and create chaos.
NTA.