Being Childfree, Childless, Infertile, or Dealing With the Death of a Mother on Mother’s Day, Or Dealing With An Abusive or Insensitive Mother, Mothers Who Lost Adult or Young Children to Murder, Abortion, Miscarriages, or Sickness (links)

Being Childfree, Childless, Infertile, or Dealing With the Death of a Mother on Mother’s Day, An Abusive or Insensitive Mother, Mothers Who Lost Adult Children to Murder or Sickness (links)

Disclaimer: I am not anti-motherhood, nor necessarily against people taking their mothers out to brunch on Mother’s Day, or buying dear old Mom some flowers to mark the occasion.

I am, however, against the excessive focus on motherhood, the failure to acknowledge and celebrate childless and childfree women, the onslaught of syrupy Mother’s Day hoopla, on and before the day, and the church services that honor mothers because:

Some people (women included) were abused by their mothers and so find the holiday awkward or painful,
some people had or have mothers who are/were cruel or overly-critical,
some people’s mothers are dead and they miss them terribly,
some women desire to be a mother but cannot because they are infertile, their spouse is infertile, or they are single and cannot find “Mr. Right” (and don’t believe in getting pregnant outside of marriage, or don’t feel they could support a baby alone)
some women choose to be child free, but feel excluded or shamed by church and secular staggering emphasis on motherhood on the holiday

Some Christians have turned motherhood (as well as fatherhood and marriage) into idols, which they should repent of.

That is one reason why churches are losing visitors and members: despite the fact that 44% of American adults are single (edit: as of 2014 studies, (Link): that figure is now 51% or greater) and a big chunk are childless, most churches either…

– IGNORE adult singles/ childless adults,
or,
-preachers and Christian talking heads insult adult singleness and adult virginity from their blogs, pod casts, books, organizations, and pulpits, by implying or forth rightly saying, that adult singleness (or being childless) makes a person stunted, or makes a person not as “godly” as being married with kids.

Now, why the hell does anyone suppose I, a never-married celibate woman, would want to attend a church where I am insulted before I ever step foot in it?

Most churches spend mountains of money on “family” ministries, family dinners, programs for youth and married couples.

Most churches and denominations do not budget time or money for adult singles anything – not classes, social functions, dinners. The big message from that is, “At our church, we don’t care about adult singles or those without children. You have to be married with a kid to count here.”

If you are a church that has a “Mother’s Day” celebration or ceremony of some sort, even if it’s very brief, you should also have one the following Sunday for all the childless, never-married women, the child free women, and infertile- but- married women too, or women who have not been able to carry a baby to term (ie, miscarry) – it’s only fair.

If you are unwilling to honor ALL women in ALL situations, ages, and life stages, at one time or another during the year in your church, nobody should get a holiday or party, none, nope, nuh-uh.

This post discusses being single and childless or childfree on Mother’s day, or other circumstances that make Mother’s Day painful for some women.

—–THE LINKS—–

(Link): For the childless this Mother’s Day (and those who love them) by S. Burden

(Link): When Mother’s Day isn’t so rosy: 6 recommended ways to cope

Excerpt

More than likely the author of this article will attend church services with her husband and quite a few children will be passing out flowers for each of the mothers in attendance. When one of them reaches her and starts to place a beautiful blossom in her hand, she will gently refuse but thank him or her anyway.
The child may become confused but that will just have to be.
He or she does need to learn that not all the adult women that are in attendance for church are mothers.
The author is in her very early 40’s, an adult, and a wife but she is not anyone’s mother. For as long as the Earth has existed, the persistent ticking of most women’s biological clocks have equated their lives with one purpose only and that has been to have children.
However in today’s society, great numbers of married women have decided not to have them.
Happily the writer of this article was lucky enough to have been born at a time in history where such a choice was accepted with women, and also to luck out and find a husband who felt the same way she did about children.

(Link): ‘Childless’ or ‘Childfree’: The Difference Matters

Excerpts

Here’s the problem: While “childless” means the condition of being without children, it implies that everyone who does not have children would like to have them. However, being “childfree,” like Mirren—and like me—means that one does not want to have children at all.

….The taboo that surrounds women without children, childless or childfree, is potent.
We spend a lot of time explaining ourselves (or avoiding explaining ourselves) and looking for people who understand us, who don’t ask us to or expect us to explain. But at the same time, the difference between childless and childfree folks is important to take note of and apply correctly, because we are not, in fact, the same.
As a woman who’s childfree, I’m not experiencing reproductive challenges.
I’m not waiting for the right partner, or enough money, or the perfect geographic location.
I don’t feel like something is missing from my life because I don’t have children. I don’t want to have kids. There is no yet.
… That might be hard to swallow, for some—childfree folks constantly hear things like, “You’ll change your mind” and “You’ll regret it.”
Perhaps, because it’s still so unfathomable to the world that a woman wouldn’t want a baby, the term is deliberately misunderstood. If we keep confusing the language, the thinking may go, we can deny that childfree women exist.
The experience of not wanting children in a world where women are defined by their reproductive desire and potential—where women are expected to structure their lives around babies—is very different than being a woman who would like a baby or would like to be a parent some day. That difference has to do with desire.
If you’re a cisgender, heterosexual woman—especially a white woman—who doesn’t have a kid but wants one, you’re still in line with expectations about how a woman should behave.
You’re not threatening, you’re adhering.
A cisgender, straight woman who doesn’t want a baby is transgressive, subversive, pathological, a perpetual mystery to be solved.
Things may be different, of course, if you’re queer, trans, single, poor, or a person of color; as a society, we’re pretty clear on who we want to be having babies.

(Link): Mother’s Day After Abortion

Mother’s Day is a wonderful celebration – a time when mothers are honored for their constant love and daily sacrifice, and when life itself is recognized and treasured as the gift that it is.

But for many women who have had abortions, Mother’s Day is one of the biggest triggers of painful memories, regrets, and remorse over what “might have been.”
My heart breaks for these women.
Even though they accepted and believed the messages our society esteems so highly – messages about a woman’s right to choose and the importance of “family planning” – these women have learned, through bitter experience, the truth that abortion is tragic for women.

(Link): Why You Should Watch What You Say on Mother’s Day

Excerpts:

Dear Person at the Front of the Room,

I know you worked really hard on that homily about Mother’s Day/Father’s Day. It’s a time of joy and appreciation and community for almost everyone you address. Thank you for your special sentiments to soothe those in your audience who don’t have their mothers or fathers accessible to them. It’s a nice touch to bring in that compassion.
You may not know this, but there are likely other outliers receiving your message. That 30-something lady who pulled tissues out of her purse and filled up three of them with tears and snot? That man who had to excuse himself awkwardly? That woman who tried to hide the fact that she was sobbing on her yoga mat?
These are people who desperately want to be a mother or father, to join the parenting club at long last. To have the cards and commercials and 30% off sales apply to them. To bring into their lives what others are able to effortlessly.
These are the outliers in your audience.
Let me tell you about some of them.
Could be a woman who found out this morning that her third IVF attempt didn’t work — no line on the pee stick. To make matters worse, she turns 35 next week and her medical chart will be marked AMA — advanced maternal age. Her prospects for success with future treatments looks unbearably bleak.
Could be a couple who has been waiting in an adoption pool for 28 months. Each period she has — each turn of the calendar page — marks another month their prayers have gone unanswered.
Could be a couple who thought they were finally going to be admitted to the Mother’s Day/Father’s Day club, but whose hopes ended in a miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death.
Could be a couple whose planned surrogate is suddenly unavailable to them.
Could be a man who wore the title of Dad for a few months — until his baby died.
Could be a woman who experienced an unexpected pregnancy and took the course to place her baby in the arms of another mother.
Could be a couple who has exhausted their options and who has resigned themselves to living a child-free life. Not so much by choice as by circumstance.

Written by a Child Free, lesbian Woman (you do not have to be a lesbian or agree with or endorse lesbianism to relate to what this woman says):

(Link): On Not Being a Parent by Julie R. Enszer

As the United States moves into the frenzied celebrations of female parenthood, I want to register an alternate voice and declare my autonomy from children. I am not a parent, and I am happy to not be a parent.

I am a child-free woman. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2008, about 17 percent of women between the age of 40 and 44 had not had a child. This is a significant number of women without children in the United States today.
Child-free women do not speak out enough. We are not necessarily women who wanted children but could not have them; we are not necessarily women who forgot to have children; we are not necessarily women who missed a crucial life milestone. Being child-free is not necessarily a source of shame or regret.
I want to say plainly: I am blessed to not have children. I have more time and energy to devote to creative pursuits and projects that fuel my passions in the world.

(Link): A Bittersweet Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day can be such a bittersweet time. It is a special day to celebrate our mothers, but for those of us who have lost our mothers, did not have a caring mother or have not been able to experience the joys of motherhood despite trying, it can be a painful reminder.

This Mother’s Day will be my third year without my beloved mom and my sixth as a mother myself. I miss my mom everyday, but there are certain days — like her birthday, Christmas and Mother’s Day — when her absence is felt more strongly.

(Link): Let’s Be Sensitive on Mother’s and Father’s Day

(Link): Happy Not-A-Mother’s Day to Every Woman Without Children

(Link): When Mother’s Day Hurts Just a Bit

(Link): Mother’s Day can be difficult holiday for those remembering loved ones

by Katherine DeClerq, Special to CTVNews.ca

But for others, Mother’s Day is a painful reminder of loved ones lost.
Those without people to dote on — the motherless, the childless — often feel left out of this global holiday. Instead of celebrating, they grieve and remember the people that passed away.
… Garceau’s 55-year-old mother passed away in March, 2012 after a battle with lung cancer.
“It was a really quick, aggressive battle,” she said. “It was really hard.”
Garceau didn’t do anything to celebrate Mother’s Day that year, even though she has a child of her own. She visited the cemetery and brought her mom flowers — sunflowers, her favourite — an experience she describes as being “extremely difficult.”

(Link): The pain of childless women on Mother’s Day

(Link): Childlessness tests faith of Mormon, Catholic women [I would also add any Christian woman, since the majority of Christian churches and demoninations have turned motherhood into Deity and tell you that you are Worthless if you do not have children]

Excerpts

by Peggy Fletcher

First Published May 10 2014 08:22 pm
To any guilt-prone women, the annual idealization of motherhood that sweeps across the country at this time of year can be agonizing.
Motherhood, the LDS Church declared this week on its website, is “the highest, holiest service assumed by humankind. It’s the definition of selfless service. It’s both a daunting responsibility and a glorious opportunity. The divine role of motherhood is a gift from God, and key to his plan of happiness for all his children.” [From Christian Pundit: this is the same exact LIE and SLOP Christians tell Christian women]
Biblical tales of “barren” women abound, but they all end up with babies (sometimes becoming mothers in their old age, but still…). And church magazines about infertility typically end with “miracle babies.”
Nearly 11 percent of women in the United States ages 15 to 44 — 6.7 million — have “impaired fecundity” (impaired ability to get pregnant or carry a baby to term), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some of them may eventually become mothers by marriage, medicine or adoption, but until then, many feel ashamed, frustrated and excluded. For others, childlessness becomes lifelong.

(Link): The Founder Of Mother’s Day [Anna Jarvis] Hated What The Holiday Became

(Link): Mother’s Day – For many women, it’s a reminder of absence and loss

NEW YORK — Kristine McCormick has spent the years after the sudden death of her newborn trying to forget Mother’s Day exists.

Cora was five days old, seemingly perfect, when an undetected congenital heart defect claimed her as she fed at her mother’s breast on Dec. 6, 2009.
“Every commercial about Mother’s Day gifts, every Facebook post reminding people Mother’s Day is upcoming and every Mother’s Day display at the store are like a new knife blade running over the scar tissue on my heart,” said the 32-year-old McCormick, who lives in Indianapolis and has been battling secondary infertility since.
…Family-focused holidays can be hard in general for some, but on the merry day set aside for mothers, infertility, the early loss of a mother or a strained relationship due to a mother’s incarceration, addiction or mental illness is tender ground.
Let alone the potential strain on singles still looking for love when Mother’s Day rolls around, or women living childless by choice who feel the weight of the holiday’s marketing machine.
Hope Edelman, 49, is happily married with two daughters, ages 12 and 16, but the loss of her mother 32 years ago lingers.
“My daughters want to make Mother’s Day about me, but my impulse is to make it about my mother,” said Edelman, who was 17 when her mom died of breast cancer.
…”Mother’s Day was horrible,” recalled O’Donnell, who was 10 when her mom died of breast cancer, at age 39. “I dreaded it.”
… “Trying to push the feelings of loss aside or not acknowledging a mother’s importance on that day only adds to our distress,” Edelman said. “It can be something very, very simple. I’ve spoken with women whose mothers loved to garden and they’ll just go out and spend an hour in the garden on Mother’s Day with their hands in the earth.”

This is from the AP and contains the same content as the link above:

The traumatic side of Mother’s Day: How the Hallmark holiday can trigger the most painful of memories for those who lost their moms too young

Same editorial from the AP, but on another site:

(Link): Beyond bouquets and brunches: Mother’s Day can bring sorrow, remembrance for survivors of loss

(Link): Not Always a Happy Mother’s Day

Excerpts:

A note to moms missing their children on Mother’s Day due to incarceration:
Mother’s Day is upon us once again, this Sunday, May 11, moms everywhere will relish the attention lavished on them by their children, spouses and family, as they are shown special attention for, being a mom and all that comes with that very broad territory.
However, as I look forward to that special day, I can’t help but feel a sense of melancholy when I think of all the moms that will spend that day pinning for their children who are incarcerated hundreds of miles from while incarcerated in adult prisons.
You see, unfortunately, I empathize with these moms; my son and I were also separated on Mother’s Day for years.

(Link): When You’re Not a Mother On Mother’s Day by Tracy Strauss

Excerpts:

by Tracy Strauss

The Mother’s Day cards are out. At CVS, I avoid them, walking the long way around and through the far aisle that contains the school supplies, things I don’t need. Still, I can’t escape my feelings of loss and longing for my mother, who is dead, and for what I am lacking: children.
Some women don’t want to have children. Others do but can’t for physical, financial or other reasons. Of course, motherhood is no panacea or walk in the park, as I’ve learned from my friends who are moms. But to me, motherhood is a gift not all of us get, and it shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Several years ago, a friend of mine who is a mother told me she hoped I’d decide to have a child because, she said, “Nothing in this world compares to nursing your own baby.”
She had no sense of what it was like for me to see the kind of life I wanted so far from reach.
She had no idea how the sight of parents and children at the local playground, or Facebook status updates and Twitter photos of moms and their kids, touched a grief-filled void I sometimes didn’t know how to bear.
When my mother was 65, a year before she died from cancer, she announced that her life was “miserable” because she didn’t have grandchildren. She thought of herself as a “have not.” It was my fault: I was 36 and single.
I despised my biological clock and the women’s magazines that pointed out, with unrelenting persistence, that time was running out, if it was not already too late.
Colleagues and acquaintances suggested that if I ever wanted to have a child I should become a single mother, a “choice mom.” I shouldn’t wait, they told me, sounding the alarm, I had to do it right now.
…But I was in no position to have a baby. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I didn’t have a secure job. And I was coping with a PTSD diagnosis and struggling with debilitating anxiety and depression. I wanted to be a mother, but I wasn’t going to have a child just because that was my desire, or my mother’s wish.
I’d learned, from my experience growing up in an unstable and abusive home, that it was imperative to raise a child in circumstances conducive to shaping a healthy life. That was, and still is, my stance.
…I’m 40 now and my mother is gone. This will be the third Mother’s Day since her death. I’ve finally come to accept my life for what it was in the past, for how it is now.

(Link): Thinking of the mothers who have lost their children

On this Mother’s Day, I think of all the mothers who have had to bear the pain of losing a child, whether through illness, accidents or violence. I particularly feel for those moms whose children have been murdered.
I’ve gotten to know several families who are bonded together because they have that one thing in common. The very fact that there is a need for an organization called Parents of Murdered Children is sobering.
…Just last week I told the story of a grandmother who raised her daughter’s four children after their mother had been murdered. Despite the family’s pain that has lingered the past 14 years since that tragic event, there is joy in that household this day.
… Hundreds of mothers in Nigeria are mourning the loss of their slain children and the kidnapping of more than 250 girls by a militant group opposed to “western education” in general and to any education for girls.

(Link): Mother Receives Final Text From Daughter 2 Years After Her Death

This week, Robinson got that text from her daughter.
ABC News reports that the owners of the Texas ranch where the plane went down found the teenager’s cell phone, and there it was: “Love You Mom.”

True – we get inundated in churches and media about how important, godly and lofty parenthood is, but I see a ton of parents on the internet griping and complaining about how they detest parenthood and consider it a pain in the ass:

(Link): Hey, Whiny Modern Parents, Tell Us What You Love About the Gig

And in real life, most of the under-35 parents I know are in a constant hand-to-brow state of self-pity.
It’s rather irritating esp since there are far more safety nets and handouts for parents today than for previous generations, not all of whom lived like June Cleaver.

(Link): Don’t Call Me Grandma: Births to ‘Older’ Moms on the Rise BY JOAN RAYMOND

The average age for women giving birth for the first time has risen during the past 40 years — with a veritable baby boom among women age 35 and older. For example, the number of women ages 35 to 39 giving birth for the first time soared to 11 per 1,000 in 2012, from 2.1 women per 1,000 in 1970. For women ages 40-44, the rate grew to 2.3 per 1,000 in 2012 from 0.4 per 1,000 in 1970.
From 2000 through 2012, 46 states and Washington, D.C., showed an increase in the first birth rate for women aged 35-39. For women age 40-44, rates increased in 31 states as well as Washington, D.C. Some areas including D.C., Minnesota, Nebraska and South Carolina rose 60 percent or more.
“This (trend) has been going on for a while, and when we see statistics changing it can be a reflection of what’s going on in society,” says lead researcher T. J. Mathews, citing that in 2012, there were nine times as many first births to women ages 35 and older than there were four decades earlier.
Women are waiting longer to give birth due to many factors, including later marriage, educational pursuits and financial reasons, says Elizabeth Gregory, director of the Womens, Gender & Sexuality Program at the University of Houston and author of “Ready. Why Woman Are Embracing The New Later Motherhood.”
… In fact, the chance of having a baby at age 40 is only about 10 percent, without the help of assisted reproductive technologies. Yet, she is aware too, that having a baby when a woman is younger can have a long-term economic effect on the family.
… Indeed, older moms believe their maturity bring an added benefit to their children.
“I’m a doctor, I know how to read statistics, and I know about the risks of advanced maternal age, but I also know how important it is to bring stability into children’s lives, and you generally have that stability when you’re older and established,” says Katy Ferguson, a Cleveland, Ohio, podiatrist, who had her first child, Benjamin, at age 38, and her second child, Alexander, at 40.

(Link): ‘I’m a single mom and I freaking hate Mother’s Day’ by Eden Strong
(the same editorial is hosted on (Link): XO Jane)

Excerpt:

I freaking hate Mother’s Day, I really do.

A day designed to celebrate the fact that I devote my life to the two small people that I allowed to use my body as a human incubator for nine months and then pushed through my very tiny birth canal, therefore allowing them to take their first real breaths.
A day designed to celebrate the fact that as if that weren’t enough, I now tend to their every need, every day, just to make sure that they not only stay alive, but that they make it to adulthood as productive members of society.
Yep, that’s what Mother’s Day is all about right?
Praising the unselfish acts that we, as mothers, go through on a never-ending, never-ceasing, never-slowing basis, am I right?
I freaking hate Mother’s Day because I am a single mom.
I drew an even shorter stick on this one because not only am I a single mom, I am an only parent, which means that I am the ONLY one invested in my children’s lives without any help whatsoever from their sperm donor of a “father.”
After eight years of marriage I was left with a seven-month-old and a three-year-old when the sperm donor decided “kids weren’t for him” and disappeared off the face of the planet.

This is from an Irish paper, but American women and women from many other nations can probably relate (I know I did, and I’m American):
(Link): Who’s to blame for women not having babies? Men, of course

On one hand, women are continually being told how our egg supply is dwindling and how our ovaries will one day shrivel up and die. On the other, statistics suggest that we are increasingly in mass denial about the fact that fertility, like all things, must come to an end.
Yesterday, a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development revealed that Irish women are fourth on a list of ‘women past childbearing age who haven’t given birth.’ It is clear that Irish women are waiting quite a while before they finally get down to babymaking.
The so-called ‘socially infertile’ are delaying having children because of the rising cost of living, but by the time they are financially secure many discover that it’s too late for them to conceive, even with IVF.
But haven’t we invented Botox injections for crows’ feet – surely something similar can be invented for the ovaries?
Acknowledging the biological reality is not a matter of putting women down. It’s science. A woman who wants to be child-free in her 20s and 30s is risking that she may never be able to carry a pregnancy.
You see, in the end it does all come back to biology and you can’t escape the fact that the easiest time for a woman to become pregnant is in her early twenties.
… My generation struggled to have it all and then ended up failing to achieve that perfect work/children/relationship fantasy.
There are a myriad socioeconomic realities that make it hard to decide when is the right time to have a baby.
For every women out there who’s telling herself that she has plenty of time, I’ll bet there are several who’d like to have a baby right now but don’t have the right job or savings or home or health insurance.
Unfortunately, you then find out that your body isn’t as co-operative with your professional schedule as you’d like.
To further complicate matters, men are hardly blameless for infertility.
Having a baby does require two people. Women shouldn’t be made to feel wholly accountable when they reach their 35th birthday and find out they’re barren.
But you never hear anyone going on to men in their late twenties and early thirties about the need to have a baby while still young.
Biologically, we had assumed we didn’t need to but a study published earlier this year showed the risks of older fatherhood.
Researchers at Indiana University and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden used data from more than two million births and discovered that children conceived by fathers over the age of 45 were 25 times more likely to have bipolar disorder than those born to a father 20 years younger, 13 times more likely to have ADHD and were 3.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with autism.
It’s time to include men in the fertility debate because the biggest problem for would-be mothers right now isn’t their career ambitions but the attitudes of men.
It’s men who are aggravating our social infertility. It’s not just women who are squandering their fertile years, it’s their male peers who also want to climb the corporate ladder while they are childfree or don’t feel ready to settle down and start a family.
Many only start thinking seriously about finding a partner in their late thirties, which is almost too late for their female peers.
..How many women do you know who are desperately trying to mute the sound of their ticking biological clocks just so they don’t frighten off their emotionally immature boyfriend who is unable to commit to anything more elaborate than a minibreak weekend for two in Amsterdam?

(Link): Why Mother’s Day isn’t always happy

Excerpts:

As many of you know, both my grandma’s and my mom passed away by the time I was 17 years old, and I didn’t become a mom until I was 34 years old.
That’s a full 17 years of not having a mom to celebrate with, and not being a mom the way I desperately wanted to be.
Most of the time, when mother’s day came around, I tried to ignore it.
When I was younger and had no wedding ring on my left hand, people would ask, “Doing anything special with your mom this weekend?”
I never knew what to say in response.
Usually, I wanted to scream, “NO!! My mom’s DEAD you idiot!!”
…Later in life, after I was married, people would ask, “So, your kids doing anything special for you this Mother’s Day?”
I don’t know if I was able to mask the auto-flinch or not, but I tried to not bite the person’s head off. I’d politely and quietly answer, “We don’t have any children.”
My hubby and I struggled to get pregnant for nearly 5 years..
… We also lived in a suburban neighborhood on a cul-de-sac where so many women were pregnant, a friend carelessly said, “Boy, there must be something in the water!” I immediately did bite his head off with, “Not for all us!” and walked away.

If you are having a difficult time dealing with Mother’s Day – for whatever reason that may be – I am sorry. I know. I understand.

My mother died a few years ago, and I miss her.

Also, I’m tired of being judged by Christians for being “less than” or for being a freak, or for not fulfilling my supposedly only godly role in life, because I never married and never had a kid, so the Mother’s Day holiday, and other holidays in the year, can be annoying or painful to get through.

I’m sorry that churches in particular, and Christians on forums and blogs, are not more sensitive about how holidays like Mother’s Day can be difficult for folks to get through. Not everyone marries by age 25 and has three kids, or has a loving and/or still-alive mother.

Some people who are mothers are not able to share the holiday with their children, so the day can be hard for them, too.

Do churches care about any of this? Does Christian culture care? Nope, about 99% of them are FREAKING OBLIVIOUS to anyone who doesn’t fit the June Cleaver, nuclear family mould.

If you are a single who admits to a Christian to wanting marriage, or a person who would like to have children, you will get insults and cliche’s from other Christians, such as, “You are making marriage/ having a baby into an idol” or “be content with your singleness or childlessness,” and note, these are usually said by people who are married with kids.

I opine on that in other blog pages, so I won’t get into it here. I’m just saying I was brought up in Baptist/evangelical culture, and I know too well how insulting and demoralizing other Christians (and Republicans, social conservatives and right wingers – note: I myself am a so con and right wing and usually vote GOP) can be on these topics, because I was subjected to their prejudices and contempt.
——————————–
Related posts, this blog:

(Link): Lies The Church Tells Single Women (by Sue Bohlin) (Re: About Marriage, Being Single, Being Childless / Childfree Vs Being a Mother)

(Link): Do You Rate Your Family Too High? (Christians Who Idolize the Family / Marriage) (article)

(Link): Your Church’s Mother’s Day Carnation is Not Worth Any Woman’s Broken Heart – A Critique of ‘When Mother’s Day Feels Like a Minefield’ by L. L. Fields

(Link): Mother’s Day Ain’t A Happy Holiday For Some

(Link): Happy Mother’s Day From the Moms on Whisper Who Hate Their Kids

(Link): Un Happy Mother’s Day – universal church continues to worship parenthood, family

(Link): Sorry, but being a mother is not the most important job in the world by Catherine Deveny

(Link): Hypocrisy in Christian Culture – Those who idolize parenting chide infertiles for trying to have kids

(Link): Do Married Couples Slight Their Family Members as Well as Their Friends? / “Greedy Marriages” (Studies show that Married Couples (and ones with kids) are more selfish and self absorbed than Childless or Un-Married People)

(Link): The Netherworld of Singleness for Some Singles – You Want Marriage But Don’t Want to Be Disrespected or Ignored for Being Single While You’re Single

(Link): Singles Shaming at The Vintage church in Raleigh – Singlehood Shaming / Celibate Shaming (this is also by extension Child Free / Childless Shaming)

(Link): Is The Church Failing Childless Women? by Diane Paddison

(Link): Why all the articles about being Child Free? On Being Childfree or Childless – as a Conservative / Right Wing / Christian

(Link): Never Married Christians Over Age 35 who are childless Are More Ignored Than Divorced or Infertile People or Single Parents

(Link): Cultural Discrimination Against Childless and Childfree Women – and link to an editorial by a Childless Woman

(Link): Don’t Judge Me, I’m Childless (from Today’s Christian Woman)

(Link): Christian Patriarchy Group: God Demands You Marry and Have Babies to Defeat Paganism and Satan. Singles and the Childless Worthless (in this worldview).

(Link): 26, Unmarried, and Childless – by A. Mast

(Link): Are Older Men’s Sperm Really Any Worse? (study) Also: article author assumes men single and/or childless until their late 30s and older are probably autistic, retarded, or drooling simpletons

(Link): Southern Baptist’s New Sexist “Biblical Woman” Site – Attitudes in Total Face Palm of a Site One Reason Among Many This Unmarried and Childless Woman Is Saying Toodle-Oo to Christianity

(Link): Condescending Remarks About Single and Childless Women on Christian Gender Complementarian Site: ‘Motherhood or Singleness: Which Is More Sanctifying?’

(Link): The Isolating Power of Family-Centered Language (How churches exclude singles and the childless) by E A Dause

(Link): Cultural Discrimination Against Childless and Childfree Women – and link to an editorial by a Childless Woman

(Link): Why all the articles about being Child Free? On Being Childfree or Childless – as a Conservative / Right Wing / Christian

(Link): Widows and Childless and Childfree Have Better Well Being Than Married Couples and Parents says new study

(Link): The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings

(Link): Totally Obnoxious Parent: Childless Couple Who Donates to Childrens Charities Lambasted by Snotty Adult Sister for Not Showering Her Kids with Christmas Presents – Parents Who Discriminate Against the Childless or Childfree

(Link): Prejudiced Writer Stupidly Blames Slutty Halloween Costumes and Societal Ills on Childless the Childfree, and Unmarried Adults – but Married people and parents are not perfect either

(Link): The Fruitful Callings of the Childless By Choice (editorial)

(Link): Bearden: Staying childless right decision for many women

(Link): In terms of childlessness, US ranks near the top worldwide

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