On Being Circumstantially Childless by A. Pearson

On Being Circumstantially Childless by A. Pearson

I never cared if I had children or not. What perturbs me about being childless (or childfree) is how women such as myself are treated as, or assumed to be, selfish, losers, failures, etc. This is also true of churches and Christians.

I’ve read of never married, childless women talk of walking into churches and treated rudely because they do not have children. I’ve had similar experiences in churches. Being childless isn’t bad… what’s bad is how people tend to treat you like a freak once they find out.

Men, by the way, very seldom get the same harassment over being childless as women do – not the same amount and not the same kind. Men seldom get hounded or pestered over if they have kids, or why do they not have them or don’t want any, etc.

(Link): On Being Circumstantially Childless by A. Pearson

Excerpts

• They expected to have babies but found themselves at the end of their natural fertility without having done so. Perhaps it was due to prioritising work, study or travel. Maybe it was due to not having met someone they wanted to have children with.
• Whatever the case, the impact of “unintended” or “circumstantial” childlessness on women’s lives needs to be more widely acknowledged, University of Canterbury researcher Dr Lois Tonkin says.

  “They are in the unusual position of being neither voluntarily childless nor involuntarily childless …  an unexpected consequence of other choices,” she says.

• A GRIEF LIKE MOURNING

  Tonkin, who has a background in counselling, has written a thesis on the subject for a PhD in sociology, examining the experiences of 26 New Zealand women in their 30s and 40s who expected to have children but found themselves at the end of their natural fertility without having done so.

  “Circumstantially childless women very often grieve for the loss of the opportunity to become a mother and for some this grief is likened to the death of someone close,” she says.

  “My study participants often said they felt misunderstood, judged, unacknowledged, ignored and isolated by others around them. Many talked about feeling like a failure.”

Conservative Jews question notions on dating, marrying only Jews – Equally Yoked

Conservative Jews question notions on dating, marrying only Jews

It’s interesting to see people of other faiths question this (intermarriage).

(Link): Conservative Jews question notions on dating, marrying only Jews

As for Christians, I no longer accept or agree with the “Be Equally Yoked” teaching.

If you’d like to know why I’m no longer on board with it, I have several posts on that topic, including, but not limited to these posts:

• (Link): Christian Equally Yoked Teaching is Bunk Part 1
• (Link): Christian Equally Yoked Teaching is Bunk Part 2
• (Link): Christian Equally Yoked Teaching is Bunk Part 3
• (Link): Christian Equally Yoked Teaching is Bunk Part 4

If you do a search for the phrase “equally yoked” using this blog’s search feature, you can find even more, similar posts.

I’ve also done posts about Mormon women having problems finding Mormon husbands – there are more Mormon, single women than there are Mormon, single men.

When you tell women it is sin or wrong for them to marry outside of their faith, you are dooming them to a life time of singleness.

And I use the word “doom” there because some religious ladies want very much to marry – I was one. I find myself single past age of 40, however.

I’ve had to learn to grieve and cope with and accept being single, and there were next to no resources for me; I had to find my way alone. Most literature by Christians about singles like me shames and blames me for my singleness, rather than help me navigate my life as it is.

(Link): Conservative Jews question notions on dating, marrying only Jews

A few excerpts:

• Jan 08, 2015 by Lauren Markoe

• (RNS) Whether Jews should only date and marry other Jews is not a new question, but it’s one that has come into stark relief in recent weeks.

  In two separate instances in December, groups within Conservative Judaism—the second-largest movement of American Jews—appeared to challenge some of their own rules that discourage interfaith dating and matrimony:

  • A prominent Conservative rabbi asked his Massachusetts congregation to consider allowing him to preside at weddings between Jews and non-Jews, as long as the couples committed to raising Jewish children.
  • The Conservative movement’s youth group adopted a policy that seemed to relax a ban prohibiting its leaders from dating non-Jews.
• Unlike rabbis in Reform Judaism, the largest American stream of Judaism, Conservative rabbis may not preside at interfaith marriages. Conservative Judaism has stood fast on this, even as it has embraced female rabbis and same-sex weddings and welcomed the non-Jewish spouses of congregants into its synagogues.
• But Rabbi Wesley Gardenswartz of Temple Emanuel in Newton, Massachusetts, said he floated the proposal because he wanted to keep families connected to his synagogue.
• … “Jewish tradition says Jewish marriage occurs between Jewish people,” she said. “As rabbis, our role is to teach, inspire, and promulgate that tradition.”
• … To Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, the Conservative movement stands at the same crossroads where the Reform stood about a generation ago. As he put it, an increasing number of Jews are recognizing that “intermarriage is a fact of life, as gravity is.”

That paper also contains quotes from conservative Jews who bemoan this (ie, intermarriage) as an affront to Judaism. Christians who are staunchly against Unequally Yoked marriages are the same way.

Once you start putting your religion, or rules, or the institution of marriage, above the welfare and happiness of human beings, you’ve made an idol out of marriage.

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Related:

(Link): When Mormonism Sounds Like Gender Complementarian Christianity – Also: Man Shortage in Mormonism Just Like Christianity

(Link): Should Christian Women Marry Non Christian Men? (discussed at another blog) Be Not Unequally Yoked Dangerous Teaching to Single Christian Women

(Link): ‘Chained wives,’ refused Jewish divorces by their husbands, take to social media

(Link):  Forced Child Marriages in Canadian Jewish Cult

(Link): Forget About Being ‘Equally Yoked’ – Article: ‘My Abusive ‘Christian’ Marriage’ (written by a lady at another blog)

(Link): Wife of Christian Preacher Shoots, Kills Him, Recounts Years of Physical and Sexual Abuse – So Much for the Equally Yoked Teaching and the Notion that Christian married sex is Mind Blowing

(Link): Christian Host Pat Robertson Tells Christian Woman Who Married Christian Man Who Turned Out to Be Totally Unethical That She has Discernment of a Slug – Single Women: toss Be Equally Yoked teaching in the trash can