If Something Really Is Worth It, It Goes Without Saying

Of course, that is just my personal opinion. I’m sure there are others who would disagree. I mean, this cliché is used not only in reference to parenthood, but even the most mundane of activities…
“The concert tickets cost $150 per person, but it was so worth it!”
“It takes forever to mow my 2-acre front lawn, but it’s so worth it!”

(And I’m really referring to the “bitch and backpedal” use of that phrase. What seems to be different about the parenthood references is that they occur over and over and over. No one feels the need to tell you ad nauseam how worth it the concert or the big yard is.)

Personally, I try to avoid the cliché altogether, partly because I don’t feel the need to justify my choices to the world and partly because I believe that it should be self-evident when something is worth it. When I think about the things in my life that have meaning, or the things that have been my greatest challenges, or obstacles I have overcome, I cannot recall ever feeling the need to say that it was all worth it -- nor has anyone asked me if it was all worth it.

I think of graduate school. College had always been “easy” for me, so the challenge of graduate school was unexpected. I had to learn how to study and how to expend mental energy in ways I had never done before. I tell people about how difficult it was, how much stress and anxiety I was constantly under. I tell them how I awoke every morning feeling as if I were going to throw up. No one asks if it was worth it. The way in which my life has been positively impacted is abundantly clear.

I think about my animals and how they can be messy or annoying at times. It can be stressful to find someone to watch them when I travel. Veterinary care isn’t cheap, and most animal health insurance does not provide enough benefit for me to justify the cost. But I never feel the need to complain about any of that, so people never have to ask if it is worth it.

I think of home ownership… new roof, new furnace, backed-up pipes flooding the basement, painting, maintaining, repairing. Even when homeowners sit around comparing horror stories about collapsed ceilings or carpenter ant infestations, no one ever justifies home ownership to me with “but it’s all worth it.” It goes without saying that owning a house is what some people want, and it has its opportunity costs. You accept it for what it is, or you choose not to buy a house.

The list could go on about jobs/careers, marriages or other close relationships, charity work, feats of physical endurance, living a Christian life, etc.

On the other hand, I will be the first to say that something is not worth it if I believe that information will save someone time, money, energy, or grief. At the very least, I am willing to question whether something is worth the costs and to share my knowledge with others, not to coerce them into joining me but to educate them so that they can make an informed choice.

I love my job, but it definitely has its stresses and frustrations. I am willing to share those with others, and I am willing to admit that a teaching career is not for everyone. During the times that the rewards outweigh the difficulties, I find the desire to continue. But when times are bad, I make it no secret that I am considering my other career options.

For many years I have fostered animals for the humane society. There are times of fun and joy, and times of sadness, suffering, and death. Having to break the attachment when the foster service is over is always extremely difficult. I frequently ask myself why I do this over and over, and without hesitation I will share that sentiment with other people. I do feel as if I am making a difference, and I do know that I have saved lives… or at least soothed suffering. Is it “worth it”? I cannot say. I always leave it to the listener to decide.

Obviously, the major difference between these two examples and parenthood is that I can always change careers and I can always stop fostering animals. But what I think they should have in common is the absence of the cliché “but it’s all worth it.” Just tell the truth, and let the evidence speak for itself. Then leave it for those around us to decide for themselves.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

I’m terrified of most spiders. For as long as I can remember, the mere sight of a spider would induce panic, and spiders have been the subject of many a nightmare. A spider bite 10 years ago that has left me with a dime-sized scar has not helped my phobia either.

Particularly in the summer in my region, yard work needs to be done. And indeed, I actually enjoy weeding, tending to flowers, and raking leaves. Unfortunately, with gardens come spiders; and what’s worse, spiders are beneficial to the garden and should thus not be driven away. I am learning to coexist with them through the systematic desensitization of working side-by-side with them, but most of the time I just lie to myself.

“There are no spiders here.”
“That was not a spider web that I just walked through. And if it was, there is no spider dangling from me.”
“There are no spiders here.”
I keep repeating it.
I see a spider. “Well, that was the only one, and he has run away. There are no more spiders here.”

I lie to myself so that I can cope with the fear and discomfort of what lurks behind every shrub. I lie to myself so that I can function well enough to complete the work that needs to be done. I lie often enough so that I can behave as if I really believe it.

So when I recently heard the infamous “Bitch and Backpedal” it’s-all-worth-it speech yet again, it struck me at a much deeper level than it had before… is this self-talk the exact same coping mechanism I am using in my garden? Merely a lie so that one can endure the task at hand?

That idea is nothing new to me or to anyone else. Years ago, Wanda Sykes did a hilarious stand-up routine about it (watch here). Even I have blogged about related issues and potential regret in the past. What was new to me, I suppose, was an ability to empathize. Though I have always been puzzled and skeptical about “it’s all worth it” (because I never felt the need to justify anything in my own life in that way), I have only recently realized that I was doing essentially the same thing when it came to coping with my fear in the garden.

I think I finally understand.

Insights on Being Childfree and Christian: Part II

Part II of my interview with Laura Carroll, author of Families of Two.

Continuing my interview with childfree Christian blogger I.Am.Free:

Laura: Many childfree Christians have a hard time reconciling not having kids with their faith--you have. How?

Quite simply, during my formative years no one ever told me that such a thing was wrong! I attended church regularly from the time I was born, both of my grandfathers were ministers, my parents read me Bible stories and devotionals before bed every night, I went to a Christian school where I rigorously studied the entire Bible… I was completely immersed in Christianity, and yet I never saw anything in my Bible nor heard anything from the pulpit to convince me that there was something immoral about not having children.

I should probably add that while I attended churches that some might describe as conservative and fundamentalist, they were fairly mainstream Protestant churches. Individual opinions might have varied about birth control or family size, for example, but there was never a church mandate against birth control or a mandate to have children. As such, my personal experience with mainstream Protestantism is undoubtedly vastly different from the experiences of my Roman Catholic sisters and brothers who hear the opposite message from their pope.

Even now that I have been exposed to Christians who believe there is something evil or rebellious about purposeful childlessness, I have still heard no compelling spiritual argument against it. No one has been able to present to me clear, Biblical evidence that every (married) person must bear children. Even “be fruitful and multiply” is considered by some scholars to be a blessing to humanity and not a command; but if it were a command… well, humanity has been fruitful and multiplied to the tune of about 6.7 billion. I think we have fulfilled that directive.

Laura: How have you dealt with pressure from family, friends, and the church to have children?

I.Am.Free: I have always been a woman of my own mind, and I have been well-known for bucking societal trends in many areas, including my career, my marriage relationship, my gender role, my financial decisions, and so on. Though some of my family and friends have given me a little flack about not having children, they have come to realize that I think carefully about everything I do and that I will do what I know is right, regardless of what anyone else has to say.

Between that and about twenty years of me being matter-of-fact about not having children, most of my family and friends have seen no point in trying to change my mind. As for the church, I have experienced no direct pressure to have children. Whenever I do feel any indirect pressure, I focus on the relationship I have with God and the confidence I have that I am following the right path. I also seek out churches that welcome people from all walks of life, and I would not hesitate to leave a church if I found it to be intolerant.

Laura: What advice would you give to other Christians who are struggling with being Christian and childfree (or who are wanting to be childfree)?

I.Am.Free: The first piece of advice I would give is to know what you believe and why. Some of what is taught in church is not based on Scripture or even church history, but is completely the invention of some person who misinterpreted or added to the Bible. Read the Bible for yourself. Look at the historical and cultural context of what you read. Question your church leaders. Determine which aspects of your church’s teaching are from God, and which are nothing more than human tradition.

The second piece of advice is to listen to what God is telling you. I do not want to sound as if God is some sort of crystal ball or the great vending-machine-in-the-sky, but I do believe that when we are open and receptive, earnestly seeking God, and prayerful, that God does give us direction and a peace about what we should do.

Lastly, stand strong. Doing the right thing is not always easy and often does not please others. For heaven’s sake, I have even heard of Christian parents who tried to discourage their children from becoming missionaries! But I think it will be difficult to be content unless you live the life to which you were called.

******

Thanks so much for your thoughts and insights. This topic needs to be talked about more to help those who may be struggling with being childfree and Christian.

So to you out there: Let’s hear your thoughts.

From I.Am.Free re: online discussion: In my experience with the childfree community online, many are quick to criticize religious viewpoints. I am certain that to the nonbeliever, much of what I have said about my faith will sound absolutely ridiculous, and I can appreciate that. While I am happy to answer any follow-up questions or make clarifications, I am not interested in defending my faith to anyone who is merely attempting to make me feel foolish.

As some of my dear friends are atheists or agnostics, I have had plenty of time to engage in challenging philosophical discussions on the spiritual and to analyze my beliefs in the presence of great skepticism. I welcome this, but I have found that it does not translate well into the online world. I hope that discussion will not deteriorate into a debate about religion.

Laura Carroll: I'm especially interested in sharing with others your stories about being childfree and Christian!

Dear readers, feel free to comment here or to share with Laura at http://lauracarroll.com.

Insights on Being Childfree and Christian

My interview with Laura Carroll, author of Families of Two.

Laura and I collaborated on the following piece, which is also available at her website, http://lauracarroll.com/. Here is what Laura had to say...

I recently connected with blogger I.Am.Free at her blog--Childfree Christian: Thoughts on the intersection of Christianity and childfreedom. She has some great thoughts and insights on being childfree and Christian. I hear from Lots of Christians who struggle with this, so I asked if she’d co-post an interview, and I am happy she agreed!

First a few words from I.Am.Free:

I want to thank Laura for inviting me to “co-blog” with her. I have a great deal of respect for her, and I am grateful for her support of people who wish to be true to their faith while living a life without children.

What I have to share is coming from the perspective of a married Christian woman. Unmarried people in the church certainly have their own challenges (such as being single in a pro-marriage environment!), but I do not feel qualified to address those. And I may be wrong about this, but my observation is that unmarried Christians are given a “pass” for not having children (yet). No one in the church seems to have a problem with singles, nuns, Jesus Christ, etc., not having children, but in the church -- and the culture at large -- there is an expectation that marriage leads to babies. As such, much of what I am about to say pertains to married people who have chosen not to have children.

Laura: How did you come to decide you did not want children?

I.Am.Free: I do not know if it was as much a decision as it was a realization. I do not ever recall wanting to have children, but when I was a child I assumed it was just something that happened when a person grew up. However, as I entered my teenage years, I began to dread the possibility of someday having children…the idea of pregnancy and childbirth, the thought of being around babies and small children. But I remember my mother being quite open about how she used the Pill until she was ready to have me, and one day it struck me: if you could use birth control to delay having children, why not keep using it so that you never had to have children at all? This realization brought tremendous relief and clarity to me. I simply knew that I would not have children.

Laura: What factors did you consider that relate to your faith in making this decision?

I.Am.Free: Because I was such an early articulator, I cannot say that my faith had any bearing on my initial decision. At that time, it never crossed my mind that these things might be considered inconsistent or mutually exclusive.

However, as time passed, I discovered that not bearing children might actually be an expression of my faith. The Bible is full of commands and reminders to care for the poor, the suffering, and the orphans. Upon being deeply moved by stories of orphans and adoption, I began to feel as if God were calling me to be a voice for discarded young people, especially the older children who are less adoptable. I felt compelled that IF I were ever to have children, it would be through the adoption of an older child. I also realized that the cares of bearing my own children would only detract from my compassion, my drive, and my financial resources to care for others. I set to work on sponsoring a couple of adolescent girls in other countries, offering financial and moral support for other people’s adoptions, and mentoring young adults through my profession.

Stay tuned for Part II right around the corner~

Childfree Confessions, #8 (no grandkids)

I truly do feel badly about not giving my mother grandchildren. While she can still hold out hope that my younger siblings will do so, I’m the only one who is married right now… and in the meantime, she has to watch her peers and family members become grandparents time and again. It is painful for me to watch her congratulate them year after year, knowing that she wishes she could be the one receiving the congratulations.

Mom came from a large family, and she and all of her brothers and sisters each had three or more children. Most of the children are grown now, and so my uncle has nine grandchildren and a tenth on the way. Mom’s sister (younger sister, to add insult to injury) has six grandchildren and a seventh on the way. With the way she oohs and aahs about her grand-nieces and -nephews and the way she dotes on any small child she meets, I know Mom would be a wonderful grandmother. She has told me herself how badly she wants a "grandbaby." Unfortunately, all I could do was firmly tell her that it was not going to happen with me. Don’t think for a moment that I enjoyed looking into the face of someone I love and telling her that I couldn’t be what she wants.

Unfortunately, no matter how badly I feel about it, I need to live the life to which I was called. I have disappointed my family over and over again in other areas of my life as I followed that path God laid out for me, so this is just one more disappointment for them to accept. My dad would have loved for me to follow in his footsteps in the business world; instead I was called to education. My sister wanted me to stay in our home state, but I was called across the country for graduate school. All of my family (parents, aunts, cousins, etc.) wanted me to come home after grad school, yet I was called elsewhere. And as I feel the leading for another cross-country move, I wonder how they will react to that when the time comes. (And with this thought, I note that even if I did have a baby just for mom, she would only see the child about 2-3 times a year. She would miss out on most of the kid’s childhood anyway…)

As time has passed, everyone seems to have grown accustomed to my ways. The questions of “when are moving back home?” and “do you still like your job?” and “why aren’t you having children?” have become few and far between. Even my mom has relented, but I still see that wistfulness in her demeanor whenever she sees a baby.

In the meantime, I’ll keep following the apostle Paul’s advice regarding family ties and ministry… Let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned. (I Corinthians 7:17)

These Are My “Kids”

While grading papers in my office one day, I became extremely discouraged, feeling that my students had not learned a single thing this semester and that I was completely ineffective as a teacher. I left my office to attend a student award ceremony, and it was there that I ran into “Jim.”

A couple of springs ago, Jim was a student of mine, though about five to ten years my senior. He was a very slow learner and struggled immensely in my Level 0 (developmental / pre-college-level) class, but he had this inspiring tenacity -- perfect attendance, regular tutoring at the learning center (he would come to class with pages and pages of work that he had done with this tutor), always asking questions in class, reworking his online assignments over and over until he scored 100% on every one of them, and so on. Still, it was clear he would not be able to pass the course. He gave the course a second try with me in the fall semester, working as hard as ever, and managed to pull through with a solid C. His progress was clear and he undoubtedly deserved to move on from this course, but when I saw some of the kinds of mistakes he was making, I had concerns about how he would pass the next course, Level 1, which was also developmental.

Not surprisingly to me, he did fail Level 1, though he worked just as hard for that instructor as he had worked for me. He came to me at the end of the school year and said, “I understand you are teaching this class during the summer. May I sit in on it?” And so he did. Despite that he was not enrolled and was therefore earning no credit for the summer course, he attended nearly every session -- two nights a week for three hours a night for six weeks -- taking notes, working in small groups with the other students, asking questions, doing the homework, etc. While I worked with him, I was thrilled to see the progress he had made since he left my Level 0 class. It was slow going, but I could see that he had the ability to pass Level 1…at least eventually. He gave Level 1 another try the following semester, and he made it through. He could finally enroll in a college level course.

So there I was at the student award ceremony when I heard Jim, “Professor, professor! I have tried to catch you in your office so that I could show you my mid-term grades. I’m getting an A in my college level course!” I felt myself tearing up a little as I congratulated him and told him that I knew he could do it. I thought, Students like Jim -- these are my kids -- these are the reason I do this job.

Related: True Confessions, #4

You’ll Never Hear Me Complain

Anyone who is friends with a parent has probably at least occasionally found herself stuck in the middle of a conversation about potty-training, about children vomiting in their bed in the middle of the night, about the embarrassing thing Johnny said in public, etc. Anyone who is facebook friends with a parent is probably inundated with inappropriate newsfeed items containing hour-by-hour updates on potty training, gory details of a child’s illness (what he has, how often he has vomited), or complaints about how difficult life is with children.

If you dare call these folks out on their overshare or their complaints, you will likely be admonished with the all-knowing, “Just wait until you have kids,” or, “You wouldn’t understand unless you had children of your own.” Well, you know what? In the years I have worked at the animal shelter, fostered cats, kittens, and dogs in my home, and raised animals of my own, I have been pooped on, peed on, diarrhea-ed on, drooled on, barfed on, sneezed on, pussed on, snotted on, had earmite waste shaken all over me while cleaning ears, had upset cats “express” their anal glands at me, been bitten by fleas, scratched, nipped, and covered in filthy pawprints, just to name a few things.

I have dealt with coccidia, other intestinal parasites, fleas, lice, mange, ear mites, upper respiratory infections, coronaviruses, eye infections. I have administered countless medications in various forms. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to give a cat a pill? I have spread antibiotic ointment on pus-covered, oozing incisions. I have cleaned infected puncture wounds. I have had to syringe-feed kittens who were too sick or too young to eat on their own, stick my fingers in kitty mouths to force-feed nutritional supplements, and get up in the middle of the night to attend to animals in distress.

I have picked goobers out of eyes and noses, clipped the toenails of flailing felines, and cleaned dried feces out of many an animal’s fur.

And through all this, I never complain. When I pulled a roundworm out of my foster kitten’s rear end, did I feel the need to tell all of facebook about it? When I stepped on a hairball that was left on the rug, did I complain about it in your newsfeed? When Fluffy barged into my bathroom and accidentally jumped into the toilet before I could flush it, did I race to the computer to tell everyone the story? When I scrubbed diarrhea off the wall, did I post a status update telling everyone how hard it is to take care of sick kittens?

No one hears about the drudgery of me scooping litterboxes, picking vomit out of the carpet, breaking up cat fights, or trying to silence cat noises at 4am, because you know what? I don’t mind it. All of the hard work, all of the grossness, I take it in stride. Sometimes what I do is quite gag-worthy, but I love taking care of animals. I have come to believe that I love my animals and enjoy caring for them more than most parents love and enjoy caring for their children.

Now I know what you’re thinking… “But animals don’t keep you up all night long for days on end,” or, “Animals don’t talk back,” or, “Animals are far less stressful to raise than children,” or, “Animals express greater appreciation for what you do than a child will,” or, “Kittens are much easier to toilet train.” Eh, maybe, maybe not. I certainly won’t argue with anyone who implies that animals are much more wonderful than children. But even so, whatever gross thing that a parent has to complain about, I have probably dealt with something grosser. And you’ll never hear me complain.