Choosing Padrinos For Your Kids—Without The Family Drama

May 20, 2015

For some mamas, like my sister-in-law, it was not a question that a family member would be one of her son’s Godparents. But picking a family member, as I and many other Latina mothers know too well, comes with a lot of drama and chisme (gossip). Often, the problem isn’t getting a brother or sister on board, it’s telling another hermana or hermano that they didn’t make the cut. Eek!

Here are some tips to consider when making the big decision of who should be your kids padrinos while also avoiding World War Tres:

1. Spread the love across the familia
Some families choose Godparents based on religious affiliation, but then opt to have another family member (and sometimes a non-family member) be the child’s legal guardian in their will. Such was the case with Victoria Ibarra, a mother of one child in Brooklyn, New York; she chose her older sister to be her daughter’s Godmother and her sister-in-law to be the executor of her estate.

2. Have a second baptism
Consider appointing certain family members to be the padrinos de aqua, a traditional Hispanic spiritual baptism ceremony that is done in addition to the formal church baptism and usually involves a different set of folks to be the Godparents. New Jersey-based mom Idalia Nunez chose to include her husband’s side of the family in the spiritual baptism and her own brother and sister in the church ceremony for her three kids.

3. Get creative!
Who says you need a man and a woman to be Godparents? Or just two people, for that matter? You can have a set of women or men or three padrinos! Gloria Ramirez Castillo, of Queens, New York, chose to have two Godmothers for her daughter’s baptism. Talk to your clergy member about this option.

Photo: Getty

Yesenia Almonte is an experienced Editorial Beauty Director in New York City. She is widely recognized for her expertise in developing unique beauty content for a variety of top—selling publications that span a broad range of multi-media platforms. Yesenia has the ability to conceive, construct and transform beauty trends into personalized creative recommendations for diverse markets. She has comprehensive knowledge of the teen and Hispanic markets and has created a number of revenue-generating editorial packages across different mediums. Throughout her career, she has initiated collaborations with some of the foremost innovators in the creative industry, including Pat McGrath, Kenneth Willardt, Ondrea Barbe, Sarah Silver, Serge Normant, Orlando Pita and Gucci Westman.
Yesenia was most recently the Beauty Director of Seventeen. During her tenure at the magazine, she entirely redeveloped the magazine’s beauty editorial and direction by expanding and diversifying its content through creative and innovative features and looks, while also providing increased visibility to a broad range of beauty brands. In addition to overseeing the beauty content across all of Seventeen’s platforms, including seventeen.com and misquincemag.com, she created the massive multi—platform beauty franchise Seventeen’s Beauty Smarties, an initiative whereby real girl YouTube beauty vloggers create exclusive looks for the magazine and online videos. Since it’s inception, the Beauty Smarties franchise became a successful YouTube show, The Seventeen Beauty Smarties Showdown and became the backbone to the launch of Seventeen’s multichannel network on YouTube in partnership with AwesomenessTV. Yesenia edited Seventeen’s Ultimate Guide to Beauty, an in-depth how-to guide, and helped develop Seventeen’s extensive digital tool, the Seventeen Shopping Insider app. In an effort to reach readers everywhere, Yesenia also created customized beauty specials targeting the Latina and African American teen market, which have resulted in record-breaking advertising revenue for the magazine.
Prior to joining Seventeen, Yesenia served as Beauty Director of Latina Magazine, where she curated the beauty content for the Hispanic woman via the magazine and website. At Latina, she also developed Latina Beauty, a Walmart-only special interest publication for the Hispanic woman.