Childfree Confessions, #11 – Leave me out, please.

In the time surrounding Mother’s Day, I witnessed a variety of responses in the childfree world online.  Some childfree felt resentful or hurt that there is a day to honor mothers but no comparable day for the rest of us; some rejected the day altogether as crass commercialization, a sentiment that is undoubtedly not unique to the childfree; but some planned to celebrate as “mothers” of animals; others rejoiced in being appreciated as a “mothering” or nurturing figure (a doting auntie, a mentor, a teacher, etc.) and receiving cards, flowers, and such.

I suppose that some of the hurt feelings or the desire for inclusion is a reaction to our mother-worshipping culture (which seems like a bit of a contradiction to me, because all of the sexist stereotypes about mothers indicate that our culture also hates women for being mothers… I’m going to have to cogitate on that for a future post).  Mother’s Day is just one more day to tell us, the childfree and the childless, that you are nothing if you aren’t a mother.  You don’t matter.

As far as I am concerned, though, I want none of it for myself.  I celebrate Mother’s Day because I have a mother, I love her, and it pleases me to shower her with gifts.  In that sense, I feel no exclusion.  Further, aside from the tiresome cultural assertions that motherhood is the ideal for all women, I don’t begrudge anyone a day to recognize the responsibilities she has taken on.  For me, it is much like Administrative Professionals’ Day or Veteran’s Day – no one will ever celebrate me on those days, and I am OK with that.

The more I think about it, the more I would like to be invisible on Mother’s Day.  I personally would find it a little insulting if someone gave me a Mother’s Day card “from the cat.”  My relationship with my animals is not one bit parental, nor do I think of them as children or child-substitutes.  And while I would like to be seen as a kind, considerate, and reliable person, pragmatic yet compassionate, I would actually rather not have the reputation for being motherly or nurturing.  It has been bad enough to deflect the stereotypes that come with being a wife; I cannot bear the thought of being even remotely associated with anything related to motherhood.  On Mother’s Day, see me as the daughter acknowledging her mother, nothing more.  I am fine doing without the sappy cards, cheesy TV ads, and troubling stereotypes.

Pondering “Gifts from God”

I’ve heard it from sappy people gushing over someone’s impending motherhood, and I’ve heard it as a bingo, so I have been pondering, “What point are people trying to make when they yammer on about babies being a gift from God? What is a gift from God anyway? And how do you know?”

Actually, most of this thought process has nothing to do with children but more to do with my search for objective reality, my desire to understand the nature of God, and my attempt to make sense of the spiritual and physical world. I often wonder, what is a blessing? What makes something a gift? What is the will of God? When X happened in my life, was that divine intervention or mere coincidence? Undoubtedly, some of these questions are unanswerable, at least in this life. And sometimes I wonder, does the objective answer even matter? Is there a meaningful difference between God doing something and me attributing significance to that something?

I think, for example, about the word “holy.” In some contexts, that word means “set apart” for a spiritual purpose. That is, something is not holy because it is inherently good or godly but because we have imbued it with some special significance. I have come to believe that some of what we call “spiritual gifts” are an example of this. Suppose, for example, that I have the spiritual gift of compassion. Would I not have that gift regardless of my religious persuasion? Do not many non-Christians have a talent for compassion? As I explored the idea that most of these gifts are the natural talents that we share with non-Christians, I wondered what exactly made them “spiritual” gifts. The only conclusion I could draw was that we (i.e., Christians) attributed this significance to our talents; we chose to see them as such and to devote the use of those talents to God’s work. I suppose those talents might be enhanced by the Holy Spirit, but still it was a choice to interpret them as gifts from God and to treat them as such -- that is, to see them any differently from the talents God gives to all people of all faiths. (I’m sure plenty of other people have struggled with these questions, but having rarely encountered people who like to philosophize about such things, these thoughts are all very new to me. Others probably now think I am a heretic.)

What about other things that we might consider blessings/gifts? I have always considered my good health to be a blessing/gift… precisely because it is good. Of course, this led me to other questions -- are all blessings good? Are all good things blessings? (Is the stability I have with my job a blessing because of its security, or is this good thing not a blessing because of the boredom and discontent it causes me?) If I consider something bad, does that mean it cannot be a blessing/gift? (Just because my mental health is not as good as my physical health, does that mean my mental challenges are not a gift?)

In an attempt to understand gifts, I began considering analogies. Imagine you tell a friend that your workplace is chilly and you could really use a nice sweater to wear at the office. A few days later, a sweater shows up on your doorstep. It may be a wonderful sweater, your favorite color and a flattering fit. Or, perhaps your wise friend knows that the bright yellow sweater you would prefer is not the best choice for your office environment, and she gives you a practical, professional, and versatile sweater that you don’t much like. You perceive one gift as good and the other as bad, but all the same, they are both gifts.

Or suppose you thank your friend for the sweater and gratefully wear it to work, but in reality a passerby found it on the sidewalk, assumed it was yours, and left it at your door. It wasn’t a gift after all, just a coincidence. Your belief that it was a gift might affect your attitude toward it but does not make it a gift.

What if you did not want or need a sweater at all? I would surmise that a friend who knows you well enough would not give you a sweater (good or bad) that you did not want… and a coincidental sweater would still be a coincidental sweater.

Going back to the cliché that prompted this post -- this insistence that babies are a gift from God -- I would have to say I don’t know. They could be like the good sweater, the bad sweater, or the coincidental sweater. Someone who wants a baby has reason to see it as a gift, whether it was truly a gift or whether the parent imbues the baby with that status. For others, a baby could be nothing more than a biological result (just as exercise produces sweat) or the consequence of careless or unwise decisions (just as one could get a blister from wearing ill-fitting shoes). For me, it would be the ultimate curse.

Regardless of whether or not it is a gift, not all gifts are meant for all people. This goes for spiritual gifts as well as physical gifts like wealth or enjoyment of our jobs. Not all of us want or value the same gifts (I don’t wish for the gift of evangelism, nor do I desire great wealth), and I can’t help but think that God knows this -- that God made us that way and that God will give to us accordingly. At least, that is what Christ said: “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11)

Overwhelmed by “Stuff”

I recently returned from a long trip, and while I was on the road, one of the things that struck me was how little we really need. I tend to pack lightly anyway -- ever since backpacking abroad years ago and realizing that I would have to spend hours carrying everything that I was traveling with -- so I have had many opportunities over the years to prioritize what I cannot live without, at least in the short term. And I have lost count of the number of time in my daily life when I have thought, “What if I just got rid of 90% of what I own?!” I have made a more concerted effort not to buy things (knick-knacks, home decor, souvenirs, etc.) unless I have a specific purpose for them (though I do have a weakness for art), and I have all but begged friends and family to stop buying me “stuff” for Christmas but instead make donations to charity.

Despite this, I still feel buried in “stuff.” My pleas for charitable donations have been acknowledged only halfheartedly as well-meaning individuals make a donation in addition to presenting me with more stuff. How many more trinket boxes, books, picture frames, and Christmas ornaments does a person need? I become my own worst enemy as I try to figure out what to do with the new stuff… give this unneeded set of potholders to a thrift store after Aunt Sophie spent her hard-earned money on them? Keep them, and give away my old potholders that I actually like much better? Or worse, when the old potholders are usable but ratty and the charity probably does not want them -- let them rot in a landfill for eternity? General sentimental attachments and packrat tendencies (I might need / find a use for this later!) don’t help me either. Also not helpful is the fact that I don’t need to clear things out for the space, don’t need to sell the stuff for the money, and am not moving in the near future. No pressing incentive to downsize.

So when I returned home from my trip and had to unpack, putting away all of my own stuff as well as finding places for the things people gave me along the way, I wondered again what it would be like to just get rid of it all. Unload the “stuff,” sell the house, buy an RV (inspired by all of the RV living I observed on my road trip), and live on the open road with the bare minimum of what we need. In reality, that is probably too drastic a move for me to make suddenly, but maybe I could ease myself into that kind of life over time. Now where to start?

[As a side note, this further reinforces how much it would drive me crazy to have children. They come with far too many accessories!]

Unnatural? Does it matter?

A recent blog post by Laura Carroll has generated quite a number of comments from her readers and from the Catholic blogger Laura quoted. Though many commenters expressed disagreement with each other, I found the overall tone of the discourse to be respectful, and I credit Laura for setting that tone in her blog. Indeed, Laura and I have differing views on truth and Christianity, yet she has been supportive of the Childfree Christian blog, and I appreciate that. But I digress!

What inspired me today was one of the statements from commenter Annie, that “there are certain things that are objectively unnatural and the child-free choice is one of them.” I think many of us tend to use “unnatural” as a criticism of something we don’t like; I probably uttered something similar when I heard the story of a woman who wanted extensive cosmetic surgery in order to look like a cat. However, I have been asking myself more and more lately, Is unnatural necessarily bad? Does nature always know best? Is God not the author of the diversity we see in nature, allowing for tremendous aberrations from “normal”? Does not God allow us to follow differing paths as we look to God for guidance (Proverbs 3:6)?

Consider our acceptance of the unnatural when it suits us. I have written before about being left-handed, something that could be considered unnatural given the small percentage of the population who favor their left-hand. However, even though lefties are capable of choosing to adapt to right-handedness, these days we are seldom forced to do so. We are generally allowed to continue in our left-handed ways, despite some risks in remaining left-handed.

A person with a (naturally) large nose opts for cosmetic surgery. Someone who has difficulty with weight and limiting their eating chooses a gastric bypass. Doctors administer unnatural pain relief to women giving birth. Humans of all kinds accept unnatural treatments (chemotherapy, being cut open and sewn up, artificial hearts and joints, organ donations, being hooked up to machines to perform basic bodily functions, highly technologically advanced procedures that merge biology and machine, etc.) to artificially extend life or to make life more comfortable. There is little moral outrage over these “unnatural” choices.

There are plenty of other human attempts to thwart nature for our convenience: animal breeders artificially inseminating animals to produce a “better” food supply, pet owners sterilizing their cats and dogs, farmers using unnatural herbicides and pesticides to ensure more bountiful crops, people undergoing fertility treatments, travelers flying in airplanes. Does the unnaturalness of these activities make them immoral, or even odd? Or does unnatural become OK when “everybody else is doing it”?

I understand that some of the examples above do not involve choice in the same way that not having children involves choice, but I think the principle of assigning value to natural versus unnatural still fits. As a Christian, of course, my standard for determining good and bad is the Bible, and I have written several posts describing why I believe childfreedom is, at the very least, not wrong from a biblical perspective. And so even if a lack of desire to reproduce or a choice not to reproduce can be classified as unnatural, so what?

As a bit of a post-script, I feel that some of my ideas in this post could use some refinement or more organization, but I have other pressing responsibilities to attend to right now. I encourage any comments that might give me a chance to clarify or improve my thinking!

Childfree Confessions, #10 - Every Day It’s a Relief

I have written before about how my “decision” to be childfree was more of a realization or an epiphany that occurred when I was a teen. As I described this the other day to a friend, I used the word relief. As in, when I realized that I did not have to have children, it was a huge relief to me.

With that description fresh in my mind, I noticed that every day I breathe a sigh of relief that I don’t have children. When I watch people drag their children around a store (or restaurant or art gallery or movie, etc.), I feel relieved. When someone’s child won’t stop [insert annoying behavior or noise], DH will smile at me and say, “Thank you for not wanting one of those!” When I’m exhausted or ill, I can’t help but be grateful that I am able to get the rest and recovery my body needs.

But it is not just during the bad times that I feel this way. As DH and I lounge on the couch holding hands and watching Star Trek… as I frolic through a zoo… as I spend a quiet evening alone at home listening to music… climb a mountain, walk the steps of the Acropolis, straddle the Prime Meridian, sit around the Christmas tree sipping eggnog, savor paninis at a café – in all of these wonderful moments, I still hear it ringing in the back of my mind, “I’m so glad I don’t have children.”

I acknowledge there are many people out there who enjoy spending time with kids and cannot imagine their lives without them (hey, I feel the same way about animals!). I am happy for them. I’m just relieved that I realized early enough in life that I would not be one of them, and I was able to make decisions accordingly.

Some Thoughts on the Nature of God

Although I believe in the Bible as God’s way of trying to reveal God and a spiritual realm to us, I am forced to acknowledge that anyone as magnificent as an omniscient, omnipresent, eternal God who is not constrained to this physical realm would necessarily have to “dumb down” the revelation of a higher reality when confining that revelation to human language in terms that limited, mortal beings could possibly understand.

Our minds are small. Physicists believe that we live in about 10 dimensions, maybe more (don’t ask me to explain it, but the math works out with the theory and with the physical observations scientists have recorded only if you allow for at least 10 dimensions); and yet we humans really only perceive three dimensions (length, width, height), four if you count time. When I talk about 5-dimensional vector spaces with my students, I usually joke, “…but don’t ask me to draw that in the 5th dimension!” Imagine a God who experiences and understands all possible dimensions, a God who is not locked into linear time as we know it. How could this God describe reality to us in a way we would understand? How would you, as a three-dimensional being, describe a sphere to an entity living on a flat plane who had only ever encountered a circle – and only ever experienced that circle by circumnavigating it, unable to look down on it from above?

Our language is flawed. Some languages are more descriptive or have more nuance than others, allowing people to use words to describe difficult concepts with the utmost accuracy. Consider one of the well-known limitations of English when parts of the Bible were translated from Greek: agape, eros, and philia, three distinct types of love, had no other translation into English than the less-descriptive word “love.” Yet in any language, there is still a possibility of misinterpretation and misunderstanding, no matter how clear the speaker is able to be. I encounter this frequently with my students. They read my simple and carefully worded instructions on a task, and someone will ask me, “Do you mean for us to do X?” I will realize, “No, that thought never entered my mind, but I understand how you might construe the instructions that way!”

And so we attempt to understand God, the spiritual realm, salvation, heaven, etc., in terms that humans can comprehend, using words that pale in comparison to what we are describing. Thus the Bible is full of analogy and metaphor, God as father (or mother, Isaiah 66:13), the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed (Mark 4:31), “I am the vine and you are the branches” (John 15:5), and so on. I think a problem arises when we humans begin taking these things too concretely, making God out to be a physical being with exclusively masculine (or feminine) traits, believing in pop culture interpretations such as a devil with horns and a pitchfork, or oversimplifying the concepts of heaven and hell. The ever-perceptive Michael Card sang, “We’ve made you in our image, so our faith is idolatry.”

Christ often spoke in parables to help seekers understand spiritual truths (and apparently to hide the truth from those whose hearts were hardened to hearing the truth, Matthew 13). For those willing to look deeper and make the connections, parables can be a valuable tool. In my own broken way, I have begun creating parables for myself lately to help me understand what God might be like and why God might operate in certain ways -- is God like a teacher, is God like a farmer, is God like a person repairing a house? In future posts, I would like to share some of these (this post is getting long enough already). In no way can I claim that my “parables” illuminate The Truth, but I can say that my ponderings expand my mind, opening me to greater possibilities of who God could be. They help me attempt to make sense of things I will never truly understand in this life.

For now, I’ll leave us with the humbling thought that it is arrogant for any of us to think we have all of the answers, given the limitations of mortal thoughts and words. Perhaps if we exercised a little more humility, we could be more effective for Christ?

Losing Another Friend?

So, not too long ago I wrote about my unhappiness surrounding becoming an aunt.  Though I talked about my fear of losing my dear brother as one of my closest friends, what I did not mention at the time is my fear of losing my sister-in-law too.

From the first time I met her, I loved her.  She was someone I was thrilled to welcome into our family, a good companion for my brother, an instant friend to me -- and I don't make friends easily.  Pretty much anything I said about my brother in that last post, I could say something similar in reference to her.

But now the facebook drama has begun... pictures of distended belly, unwanted updates about bodily functions or pregnancy side effects, attention-whoring photos and comments (although, yes, I realize that facebook is all about attention-whoring for all people in all areas of life!).  For each offending story, I click "hide."  Unfortunately, until I look at the image in front of me or read at least part of the update, I won't know if it needs to be hidden.  By the time I view it, I cannot wash it out of my brain.  I don't want to have to hide everything she posts; I don't want to lose her completely.  But I wonder how long it will be, how much more I will have to stomach, before I feel compelled to cut her off.

It's not that that I want to dump her as a friend just because she is having a child, and it's not that I won't be able to see her or speak to her anymore.  But I worry that she will never again be that same interesting person I loved.  Someone said to me, "You make it sound as if someone died."  Well, in a sense, this does resemble the death of one personality and the emergence of a new person who could be just a disfigured shadow of what she had been before -- the kind of person I would not have befriended if I had first met her in this state.  How can I not mourn that loss?