Mommy Blogger Confesses in Blog Post that Mommy Blogging is a Bunch of Fake, Happy-Clappy B.S. – Kind of Like Most Christian Adult Singleness Blogs

Mommy Blogger Confesses in Blog Post that Mommy Blogging is a Bunch of Fake, Happy-Clappy B.S. – Kind of Like Most Christian Adult Singleness Blogs

I first got wind of this story via SCCL Facebook group ((Link): Conversation about this topic at SCCL FB Group).

A link to a news article about the Mommy Blogger is much farther below. I wanted to say a few things before getting to the article.

The (ex?) mommy blogger in question, Josi Denise, says in one of her blog posts that a lot of mommy blogging is fake and too happy-clappy.

Denise’s critique of Mommy Blogging is reminiscent of my views on blogs or magazine articles by Christians pertaining to adult singleness, which you can read here:

• (Link):  The Cloying Annoying Nauseating G-Rated Wholesome Saccharin Sweet Tone of Articles by Christians For Christian Singles

I find that a lot of Christian-written material for adult singles is too sickeningly sweet.

There is an absence in most Christian-penned material for singles that honestly, really gets into and grapples with, how hard, painful, or disappointing it can be to be single into your 30s and older, when you had really expected or had hoped to marry.

Stop Pressuring Women to Be Moms: It’s Insulting to Assume We All Want The Same Thing by R K Bussel

Stop Pressuring Women to Be Moms: It’s Insulting to Assume We All Want The Same Thing by R K Bussel

(Link): Stop Pressuring Women to Be Moms: It’s Insulting to Assume We All Want The Same Thing

Excerpts

• I used to wonder why my childfree friends were so adamant about what they didn’t want—but I get it now
• by RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
• We talk a lot about freedom of choice when it comes to reproduction, but there’s still one choice that women face an unconscionable amount of backlash over: the decision not to have kids. In an essay for (Link): Marie Claire, writer Starre Vartan details the opposition she’s faced in the dating and medical arenas over her choice to remain childfree, with a gynecologist telling her “That’s what we’re here for” and two boyfriends deliberately removing condoms during sex in a disgusting attempt to force her to change her mind:
• “I…explained how terrified I was, physically and mentally, to be pregnant, to care for needy small humans. Two different, otherwise wonderful, handsome, and brilliant men said they ‘understood’ after I opened up about my fears. And then they each promptly sabotaged the birth control that I was very strict about.”
• Assuming that all women automatically want kids is insulting—to everyone. It insults those who do plan to have kids or are parents already by diminishing the sheer amount of physical and emotional labor that goes into the undertaking. It insults those who don’t want kids, or aren’t sure, by elevating motherhood above every other option….
• …Nobody wins by coercing someone else into becoming a parent, or making someone feel guilty, damaged or ostracized for not wanting kids.

GOP Bill Attacks Single Moms: No Birth Certificate Or Financial Aid Without The Father – And: Republicans Idealizing the Past

GOP Bill Attacks Single Moms: No Birth Certificate Or Financial Aid Without The Father – And: Republicans Idealizing the Past

I am a Republican, but the older I get, the more I spot the Nuclear Family idolatry that goes on with a lot of other Republicans, and I find their views mystifying.

Yes, yes, I understand many Republicans claim to be “pro family values” and are concerned about the sky rocketing amount divorce, of out-of-wedlock births, and so on, but I don’t think I share their prescribed solutions for how to handle societal shifts in mores.

Not that I am fond of typical liberal solutions, which often includes things like increasing taxes on the middle class or business to fund all these programs that are to help single mothers.

Not that I’m completely sure what the solutions should be, but I don’t like either side’s knee-jerk reactions to things like this.

Maryland: Woman Charged For Contaminating Her Family’s Milk With Dead Skin Shavings From Her Feet – Happy Mother’s Day 2015

Maryland: Woman Charged For Contaminating Her Family’s Milk With Dead Skin Shavings From Her Feet  – Happy Mother’s Day 2015

I can’t say as though I plan on making Mother’s Day related posts every year. I just saw this and it fit – and I believe Mother’s Day is tomorrow.

You can see my previous posts on how terrible Mother’s Day is for people who are infertile, for women who never married, etc., and how churches wrongly hype motherhood year round only to make it worse on Mother’s Day.

Evangelical Christians like to teach that becoming a parent automatically confers godliness and maturity on to a person, but it does not.

Evangelical Christians, in addition to other types of conservative Christians, like to point to getting married and/or having children as markers of maturity, when the Bible itself does no such thing.

Jesus never married, never had children, but I doubt many Christians would consider Jesus an irresponsible, selfish, backwards, dolt, yet they do this constantly with the followers of Jesus who never marry, or who are childless or childfree.

Here’s yet another example of how motherhood or marriage does not make a person more honest, godly, loving, or mature (the woman in this story is a mother, I think, and I believe married, too. I could be wrong, though, as the story does not explain who “family” is… these could be her aunts or nephews – most of the time, culture and reporters equate the word “family” to mean “married person who has kids”):

(Link):  Woman ‘put dead skin shavings from her feet in her family’s milk’

(Link): Maryland: Woman Charged For Contaminating Her Family’s Milk With Dead Skin Shavings From Her Feet 

• Sarah P. Schrock, 56 of Mechanicsville, Maryland, was arrested on Wednesday. The charges against her are connected to an incident where she served her family milk that she contaminated with dead skin shavings from her feet.
• The Mechanicsville woman was jailed in lieu of 10 percent of a $10,000 bond related to food contamination, as well as second-degree assault on Allison Depriest and Jessica Whitney Hurry during an incident at her home located off of Golden Beach Road.
• According to the Southern Maryland Newspaper Online, Schrock was home alone until around dinner time when Hurry and Depriest arrived. Schrock served milk with dinner. Depriest began to choke and coughed up what appeared to be human skin.
• Court papers state that Hurry also gagged while drinking the milk. An unnamed witness found dead skin in the milk after pouring it into a strainer.

Beauty, Marriage, Motherhood and Ministry – from New Life Blog

Beauty, Marriage, Motherhood and Ministry

I have done many blog posts about topics mentioned in this other blog post from New Life Blog, which I have linked to farther below.

A lot of conservative Christians sound no different than the secular culture they criticize in terms of the subjects of sex, a woman’s physical appearance, marriage, and so on.

For example, conservative Christians will tell single women who desire marriage that they shouldn’t be too wrapped up in their looks, that any man worth his salt will value you based on your character and brains, remember that Jesus loves you for who you are, not what you look like, so don’t burn yourself out on dieting…

Yet, these same Christians will turn around a moment later and tell Christian single women something like, “But remember, God created men to be visually oriented, so you MUST stay thin, pretty, and attractive, and wear make-up all the time, if you hope to attract and keep a man, and here are some dieting tips for you.”

Yes, Christians often speak out of both sides of their mouths on this topic.

Another annoying tendency I have seen from male Christian speakers, authors, and pastors is to refer to a biblical woman character’s physical appearance, even if it’s a tangent to the text at hand.

Male Christians will sometimes pause in the middle of a sermon or discussion on Adam and Eve, for example, to go on and on about how surely, since Eve was the only woman created directly by God, she must have been a sexy, babe-a-licious fox, yum yum.

Seriously, one Christian guy – a famous author who has his own weekly TV show – I’ve seen who brings this topic up about every time he discusses Adam and Eve practically starts to salivate when thinking about how hot and sexy Eve must have been.

I suspect this guy must have a porn addiction problem, or something of that nature; his extreme fixation on Eve’s appearance makes him seem creepy, perverted, and sexist.

I notice these male idiots never mention that Adam must have been a smoking hot, sexy, hunk of man. And believe you me, most women, even Christian ones, are also “visually oriented” and prefer a hot, good looking, buff man, to an ugly, scrawny, obese, or bald one.

At any rate, I present to you a link  to another blog page which discusses some of these topics and other ones:

(Link): Beauty, Marriage, Motherhood and Ministry from New Life Blog

This blog starts out by describing how women are frequently depicted in the Old Testament: often, women’s physical beauty or virginity is mentioned, and women are usually identified in relation to a man, such as their father, brother, or husband.

Here are excerpts:

• Women in the New Testament
• So, how many New Testament (NT) women are described as being beautiful? None. Not one.
•   Moreover, Paul and Peter dissuaded women from concentrating on their appearance; instead they encouraged women to focus on their character and good works. Admittedly these instructions were given mainly to wealthy married women, and not to potential brides.
• [cut pertinent Bible verses the blog author cites]
• Women in the New Testament are mentioned primarily in reference to their Christian faith and ministry, and not in terms of their beauty or marriageability.  We simply do not know whether any NT woman was particularly good looking, or not.
• Also, many NT women are not mentioned in connection with a male relative. This is unlike OT women who were (Link):  typically identified as either a wife, daughter, mother or sister of a certain man.
• We don’t even know the marital status of several NT women.

Mother Kills Her Son (Ten Years Old) Because His Ears Are Too Big

Mother Kills Her Son Because His Ears Are Too Big

Here we go again. Women who are childless or child free are treated like selfish jerks or weirdos by most Christians. Women are only valued by Christians if they have gotten pregnant (even if said pregnancy resulted in abortion).

Doesn’t seem to matter to these jokers HOW these women treat the children they give birth to.

Some Christians also teach that being a parent causes a person to become more loving, mature, and godly, while staying childless supposedly makes a person endlessly immature or stunted.

Please explain to me how I’ve managed to make it to middle-age without harming or murdering so much as a lone child, but almost DAILY, I see stories of women who starve their own toddlers, women who burn their infants to death?

How can Christians keep teaching this bull that being a parent makes a woman more godly or giving, when it sure as hell is not preventing things like this from happening:

(Link) Mum ‘kills son, 10, to save him from embarrassment because his ears were too big’

• Feb 17, 2015

• A MUM who throttled her 10-year-old son to death because she thought his big ears were ruining his life is facing murder charges in Turkey.

• Nuray Sacan, 37, had paid for the boy to have cosmetic surgery in Gazi Hospital in the capital Ankara, but when she turned up to see the results she told surgeons she was unhappy with the way it turned out.
• So she took the youngster to the women’s toilet in the early hours of the morning and choked him to death with her own scarf.
• She was caught when she fled the hospital in her car but hit another vehicle and confessed to the killing while she was being taken back to hospital in an ambulance.
• ….Gazi Hospital chief surgeon Dr Kadri Altok added: “We can’t understand it. The boy’s mother did not seem to have any psychological problems and the operation went perfectly.”Police spokesman Alper Tore confirmed: “A 37-year-old woman is in custody over the death of her son.”

(Link):  Mother ‘killed son, 10, because he had big ears’

(Link):  Mom Says She Choked Her Son To Death Because His Ears Were Too Big

(Link):  Woman Strangles Her Son Because Of His Big Ears

• Nuray Sacan, 37, is accused of strangling her son to death after cosmetic surgery failed to make his ears smaller and less prominent.

Virginity For Sale: Carnation Mother Tried To Sell Her Teen Daughter’s Virtue To Her New Trucker Boyfriend For $400

There are so many news stories like this I have a hard time posting them all to my blog. I often skip several of them over.

Again, this is evidence that being a parent does NOT necessarily make a person more mature, godly, or responsible. Christians often teach that a person has to marry and have children to become mature and godly, and they depict childless, single adults as being immature, unethical, or irresponsible losers.

(Link): Mother Tried to Sell Her Daughter’s Virginity for $400

• The Washington State Patrol said on Saturday that a 38-year-old truck driver was arrested in Oklahoma on Friday night as part of an investigation into a Seattle-area woman’s attempt to sell her 14-year-old daughter’s virginity to make rent money.
• (Link): According to Seattle’s Fox Channel 13, 46-year-old Mary Miles of Carnation, Washington was arrested on Jan. 27 and charged on Jan. 30 for setting up a plan for her daughter to have sex with a 36-year-old Miami, Oklahoma truck-driver who (Link): KOMO news identified as Bryan T. Murphy.

Mother Allegedly Tried to Murder Her Children by Crushing Poison Into Their Apple Juice

Mother Allegedly Tried to Murder Her Children by Crushing Poison Into Their Apple Juice

As I was just saying on the previous post about the mother who burned her infant child to death:

And some conservative Christians like to teach that becoming a parent is necessary to be loving, responsible, mature and godly.

If that is so, why didn’t motherhood produce those effects in this woman?

(Link):  Poisoned Kids Saw Mom Crush Pills Into Their Apple Juice, Say Police

• Jan 17, 2015
• Police say two children who were allegedly poisoned by their mother remember seeing the woman crush pills into apple juice that they were then forced to drink, according to ABC News affiliate WLS-TV in Chicago.
• Krystale El Khatib, 29, is being held on two counts of attempted murder after she allegedly tried to poison her two children this week.
• “One of the children indicated that he observed mom crushing the pills into a powder form, and put in a substance, and forcing them to drink it with their juice,” Schiller Park Police Chief Anthony Brzezniak told WLS-TV.
• …Khatib also took medication and after she passed out her children were able to text their father that they were sick, according to WLS-TV. The children’s father then took them to a hospital, where the medical team alerted police about the alleged poisoning. The children were treated and released from the hospital and are now with their father, according to WLS-TV.

Newborn baby dies after mother ‘douses it in flammable liquid and sets it on fire’

Newborn baby dies after mother ‘douses it in flammable liquid and sets it on fire’

And some conservative Christians like to teach that becoming a parent is necessary to be loving, responsible, mature and godly.

If that is so, why didn’t motherhood produce those effects in this woman?

(Link): Newborn baby dies after mother ‘douses it in flammable liquid and sets it on fire’

• January 17, 2015

• Young child was found burning alive in Pemberton Township, New Jersey  
• Medics rushed to the scene and airlifted child to a Philadelphia hospital 
• However the newborn succumbed to its injuries a short time later 
• Hyphernkemberly Dorvilier, 22, has been charged with murdering the child 
• One resident said the woman told them she was burning ‘dog feces’   
• She has since been arrested as Burlington County Prosecutors investigate 
• A newborn baby has died after its mother allegedly doused it in a flammable liquid, set it alight and left it burning in a road.
• Witnesses say 22-year-old Hyphernkemberly Dorvilier got out of her car and stopped in the middle of Simontown Road in Pemberton Township, New Jersey, on Friday night and burned the child alive.
• Medics rushed to the scene and airlifted the young child, which was still alive and breathing when they arrived, to St Christopher’s Hospital in Philadelphia with severe burns.

• However the baby succumbed to its injuries a short time later.

  Emergency services were called to the scene after residents described a ‘commotion’ inside a nearby home before the horrific act

  The woman, who witnesses say lit the child on fire, was taken to Deborah Hospital, in Brown Mills, New Jersey according to NBC Philadelphia.

  She was then arrested after her condition stabilized.

  Neighbor Dave Joseph, 45, told Bucks County Courier Times the woman said she was burning dog feces and said she had a calm demeanor.

  Mr Joseph’s wife then notice what was really going on and screamed. The woman then tried to flee but residents stopped her.

• ..’Officers from the Pemberton Township Police Department were dispatched to Simontown Road just before 11 p.m. yesterday after a resident called to report the fire in the roadway.

  ‘At approximately 11:15 p.m., the baby was airlifted to Saint Christopher’s Hospital in Philadelphia and was reported to be alive and breathing at that time. The baby died approximately two hours later.

  ‘The investigation revealed that the infant had been doused with an accelerant prior to being set ablaze. Dorvilier was taken into custody at the scene.

  ‘An autopsy will be performed by Burlington County Medical Examiner Dr. Ian Hood.

  ‘The details of the baby’s birth are being investigated. The investigation is being conducted by detectives from the Pemberton Township Police Department and the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office.’

Mother Says in Interview: ‘I Wish I’d Aborted the Son I’ve Spent 47 Years Caring For’

Mother Says in Interview: ‘I Wish I’d Aborted the Son I’ve Spent 47 Years Caring For’

And how do stories like this fit with the usual conservative Christian propaganda that motherhood makes a woman more mature, godly, loving, and self-less? It does not.

Stories like this go to show that becoming a parent does not necessarily make a person better or more ethical or caring than a person who does not procreate.

(Link):  ‘I wish I’d aborted the son I’ve spent 47 years caring for’: It’s a shocking admission – but read on before you judge

by GILLIAN RELF
 22 October 2014 | UPDATED: 21:12 EST, 22 October 2014

Gillian Relf, 69, regrets having her son, Stephen, 47

Stephen was born with Down’s Syndrome and needs constant care 

She worries about what will happen to her son when she dies

The pilot had been very patient but, after an hour of the plane waiting on the Tarmac at Heathrow, with my son Stephen refusing to get up off the floor, sit in his seat and buckle up, our bags were removed from the hold and he was carried off the flight, my husband Roy and I walking, hot-cheeked and humiliated, behind.

Our family holiday to Greece would not be going ahead, after all.

And no, Stephen was not an obstreperous toddler when this happened. He was 45 years old. This embarrassing scene happened two years ago and the episode is just one of the many challenges we have faced since Stephen, our second child, was born with Down’s Syndrome.

….Perhaps you’d expect me to say that, over time, I grew to accept my son’s disability. That now, looking back on that day 47 years later, none of us could imagine life without him, and that I’m grateful I was never given the option to abort.

AZ GOP (Republican) vice-chair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job

AZ GOP vice-hair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job

I am right wing and a Republican. Several left wing sites were reporting this story.

If it’s true, it’s strange and hypocritical. Although I am right wing and socially conservative, I do not agree with the habit of other right wingers and conservative Christians who place too much emphasis on family and marriage.

I’m rather puzzled when any right winger speaks out against helping families or single mothers, as this man has done.

Much of the time, right wingers complain about how single women are having abortions, or they complain about how many women are delaying childbearing or choosing to skip motherhood altogether, or they complain about how secularists and liberals are destroying marriage and the traditional family.

I don’t see how a party can on the one hand, say they support those things, but then turn around and want to punish or shame women who get pregnant prior to marriage but rather than have an abortion, decide to keep and raise the baby? That doesn’t make any sense to me, and I am a right wing Republican myself.

This politician’s views also work against the standard Republican or conservative Christian belief that a woman’s only, or most high calling in life, is to be a wife and mother.

You can’t be consistent by saying on one hand you’re deeply disturbed that women are choosing NOT to be mothers and wish they would chose to be mothers, and also arguing that women were created by God to do nothing but pop babies out (that’s supposedly their “highest calling or role in life”), then turn around and say you want to sterilize women so that they cannot be mothers and have babies.

(Link):  AZ GOP vice-chair calls for sterilizing poor women: If you want a baby, get a job

by Travis Gettys
Sept 12, 2014

The recalled Arizona senate president who proposed the state’s controversial anti-immigration law said he could fix public assistance programs by forcibly sterilizing women who receive aid and by requiring drug tests for all recipients.

“You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations,” said Russell Pearce on his weekly talk radio program. Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

He suggested drastic cuts to food assistance for needy families, (Link): reported Phoenix New Times, and he urged strict limits items that could be purchased what little help was available.

…“No cash for Ding Dongs and Ho Hos, you’d only get money for 15-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and powdered milk – all the powdered milk you can haul away,” Pearce said. “If you want a steak or frozen pizza, then you’d have to get a job.”

He also suggested Spartan accommodations and strict rules for anyone who received government housing assistance.

“Ever live in a military barracks?” he said. “You’ll maintain your property in a clean, good state of repair, and your home will be subjected to an inspection at any time, possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or an X-Box 360, then get a job.”

Despite his apparent endorsement of draconian policies, Pearce insisted he favored a small-government solution to poverty.

(Link):  AZ Republican Wants to Sterilize Poor Women: ‘If You Want to Reproduce, Get a Job!’

(Link):  Arizona Republican Advises Sterilizing Women On Welfare

Edit. Sept 23, 2014:

(Link): Russell Pearce’s resignation isn’t enough for protestors

(Link):  Top Arizona GOPer Russell Pearce resigns after sterilization comments

The far-right former lawmaker who helped push Arizona’s “papers please” immigration law has resigned as a top official with the state GOP after making comments about sterilizing poor women.

Russell Pearce, a former state senator, resigned as the party’s first vice chair late Sunday, the Arizona Republican Party announced.

On Saturday, the state Democratic Party highlighted comments Pearce made recently on his radio show. Discussing the state’s public assistance programs, Pearce declared:
“You put me in charge of Medicaid, the first thing I’d do is get Norplant, birth-control implants, or tubal ligations…Then we’ll test recipients for drugs and alcohol, and if you want to [reproduce] or use drugs or alcohol, then get a job.”

The comments were quickly repudiated by Republican candidates for several statewide offices.

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Related posts:

OFF SITE:

(Link):  It’s come to this: Planned Parenthood now attacking GOP plans to expand access to birth control

THIS BLOG:

(Link): Why Are Conservatives Forcing Mothers From Their Kids? by M. Walther

(Link): Former Democrat Mayor Dennis Doyle Arrested for Possession of Child Porn During Term in Office

(Link):   Family Research Center (Christian group) thinks people (including the Nuclear Family) should be cut off food stamps

(Link):  Judges who Force Insane, Negligent Women, or Addicts to Get Abortions or Undergo Sterilization – Also: Court Ordered Male Sterilization – Being A Parent Does Not Make A Person More Godly, Mature, or Responsible

(Link):  Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

(Link): Southern Baptists Pushing Early Marriage, Baby Making – Iranians Pushing Mandatory Motherhood – When Christians Sound Like Muslims

(Link):  Baby Making Fixation at Christianity Today Magazine Online – Shaming Women For Not Procreating, or For Delaying Motherhood, or For Limiting the Number of Children

(Link):  Editorial at Christianity Today Actually Suggests that It Takes Motherhood To Make A Woman Become Mature / Also: Homeless Mother Stays In Hotel Room and Makes Her Toddlers Sleep on the Street

(Link):  Conservatives and Christians Fretting About U.S. Population Decline – We Must “Out-breed” Opponents Christian Host Says

(Link): Fox News Channel Guest Encourages Female Host To Quit, Get Married, Have Babies – Look, I’m Right Wing, But Also A Never-Married Woman, and I Find This Obnoxious

(Link):  Christian School Fires Single Woman For Having PreMarital Sex But Offers Her Job to Her Single Boyfriend Who They Know Had PreMarital Sex Too (and similar news stories – Re Christian Employers and Sex)

(Link):  Republicans And Women: Single Women Vote Democratic Because They Wish They Were Married, Pundit Says

(Link): Women in Sao Paulo Must Provide Proof of Virginity to Be Hired as Teachers