The churches I’ve attended regularly have offered a choice to parents as to whether they want their babies (or very small children) baptized or dedicated. They are very much alike - at the dedication, the parents and the church community commit to raising the child in Christian care and love, but the kid is not actually baptized.
Speaking only partly tongue-in-cheek, if it’s good enough for Jesus it’s good enough for us. He was baptized (albeit symbolically) and instructed His disciples to go do the same.
Catholics renew their baptismal promises every year and a re-baptism wouldn’t ever happen. Most Christian baptisms “count” for Catholicism; in fact if someone is being baptized Catholic as an adult and doesn’t know their history, the priest will say “If you have not been baptized before, I baptize you…”
Anglicans would agree with you, Rick. But to improve your analogy, you would have an Orthodox Jew having a second bar mitzvah at 70 because “he didn’t really understand what it meant at 13.”
Yeeessss… The point of that analogy was that the man WAS bar mitzvah at 13, regardless of the presence or absence of any ceremony. A 13-year-old is, by definition, bar mitzvah, and no external action, certification, word, gesture, or ceremony makes him more or less so. So that when he hits 70, the idea of “having” his bar mitzvah then is utterly meaningless.
Your example is more illustrative, I imagine.