atheist in the BB

[anatheist]

I am "an atheist in the Bible Belt". I am happy to be a non-religious, childfree feminist.

These positions were hard-won. I never had a true belief in Christianity, despite years of "trying", years of prayers for faith, years of Bible study. Eventually I realized that I could not force myself into a belief that I didn't have, but surrounded as I was by Christian family and friends, going to Christian school and going to church three times a week, it took me a long time to have the courage to "come out" as a non-believer.

Many of the things I feared did come true, such as being condemned or avoided by Christian communities that I'd previously been part of. At first, I was sad and angry at being so easily discarded, but I realized that it was better to be alone than to be living a lie. And although there are some Christian leaders that undeniably behaved badly toward me, I don't blame other former friends for being confused, feeling betrayed, or being afraid to talk to me. Maybe they thought that I had been deliberately deceiving them. From my POV, it was more that I had gone through life behaving against my will because there was a loaded gun to my head- loaded with condemnation, fear, and my parents' disappointment and sadness.

Although I was never in the Quiverfull movement myself, I was pressured to have a child by a religious husband with pro-natalist family members. The Quiverfull reasoning against birth control and for letting God determine your family size were very familiar to me. My husband saw himself having a similarly patriarchal role in the child's life- as revered and almost feared god-figure, not as daily diaper changer. I considered giving in and pretending it was a compromise. In the end, it was too heinous for me- bringing a human into the world with one parent who didn't want him/her at all and one parent who wanted to be an authority and not a nurturer. I feel strongly that parents should have 100% INTERNAL commitment and desire for having a child before taking deliberate steps to do so. This was one of the things that led to our divorce.

I learned about Vyckie and Laura's story in Salon. Although I knew several individuals who believed that way, I hadn't been aware that Quiverfull was a consolidated movement. I do believe that there are a great many people who have felt coerced by religion and/or pro-natalism. It's important to get these stories out to people who feel trapped- so they can know that even if they don't know offline a single person with truly differing beliefs, that there are others out there who have been there and left.

[aimai]

Hey atheist in the bible belt, nice to see you. Your personal story is so interesting. Its a huge challenge, of course, to the pro natalist myth that everyone should be/will be happier as a parent, or that everyone has a duty to be a parent, or that children are some kind of weapon in a mass social war. Your description of your husband's desire to be a patriarch to a hypothetical child reminds me of a dinner table conversation we had once with my old college roomate's southern husband. I guess we were all talking about parenting techniques since we all had young toddlers at the time. And he described his as being focused on getting his toddler not just to behave and learn but also to realize that daddy would always have the last word on stuff even when the kid was a father himself. It was all about teaching obedience to an authority that would always be *in* authority. I remember MR. aimai and I looking at him in absolute confusion because it simply didn't occur to us that by the time our children were parents themselves they'd need our detailed instructions on how to do things or how to think. I mean, to us the whole point was to raise mature,t hinking people who could get along without our helpful instruction.

aimai

[lisafer]

lol, everything you both just said!

Plus, I'd add that even with all the love we do share together, having children has meant for me is learning to get along with people I cannot really stand, much less share my children with...

My parents actually raised my older son, and my x-inlaws are actually raising my baby...and even though I know both boys were, and are, better for it, I often feel I'm being shamed in all sorts of subtle (and some not-so-subtle!) ways.

For most of Son#1's life, I lived with my parents too, and we were almost more like brother & sister, and I have very liberal visitation with Son#2, and don't have to pay child support. They wouldn't let me.

Nobody ever questions a father's not fighting for custody...

[tapati]

Welcome, atheist in the Bible Belt! I've been reading your blog comments with a great deal of interest.

I am glad you resisted the pressures to have a child and am sorry you were ostracized as a result of leaving. One of the common threads of people who reject the fundamentalist-style religions is that they are inevitably shunned. Fundamentalist leaning groups usually limit contact with outsiders so one finds one's self out in the cold.

However, it always seemed to me that life in the group gave only the illusion of community because everyone was living, to one degree or another, a lie. No one communicated honestly about their difficulties living the fundamentalist, idealized lifestyle. Therefore, no true intimacy existed. The only exceptions were the few who secretly told each other they were leaving and then did so.

[anatheist]

It's worth saying that a lot of the groups I was involved with were not fundamentalist and were quite large.

I was part of two of the largest churches in the areas I was living. This kind of behavior wasn't limited to the fundamentalists, or to a narrow class of people who interpret the Bible in a certain way. Although I know that many liberal Christians are approving of female pastors or female spiritual leadership, I think that we might be surprised, and not in a good way, to know how many liberal Christians and even non-Christians buy into the idea that the man is the "head of the house" and that it's "natural" for the man to be the breadwinner and the leader while the woman is more domestic and nurturing. They might frown on the words "patriarchy" and "submission", but their assumptions say the same things with different words.

Note that I am not saying it is wrong for a couple to decide that one partner have more home responsibilities and for that partner to be the woman. However, I hear women saying that they have a right to choose between staying at home or going to work. And IMO this is one of the biggest double standards that feminism perpetuates. How often do you hear about a man having the right to choose to stay home? How many self proclaimed feminists would not want to marry a man who had those desires? I realize that things like nursing can make it more practical for a woman to stay near her children during a certain time in their lives, but that's not really what these women are usually talking about when they talk about that choice.

The flak that I've gotten for being childfree has also not come exclusively from Quiverfull types. This got very off topic, but I think it's good for us to remember that while these things may be taken to extremes in the Quiverfull movement, they are still things that many women of all beliefs face in some form.

[lectio]

I was part of two of the largest churches in the areas I was living. This kind of behavior wasn't limited to the fundamentalists, or to a narrow class of people who interpret the Bible in a certain way. Although I know that many liberal Christians are approving of female pastors or female spiritual leadership, I think that we might be surprised, and not in a good way, to know how many liberal Christians and even non-Christians buy into the idea that the man is the "head of the house" and that it's "natural" for the man to be the breadwinner and the leader while the woman is more domestic and nurturing.

Yeah. I have noticed it a lot in filling out paperwork, forms, etc. The man is the "head of the house," and the wife is the "spouse." Interesting. I mean, even the secular federal government sees marriage as a hierarchy. So, yeah, the patriarchal churches are more intense about it, but it's a pretty strong underlying current in the culture itself. I think it would be the rare person who wouldn't adopt it one way or another...

[krwordgazer]

Hi, Atheist in the BB!

I, too, have enjoyed your insights and perspective.

It seems to me that it's one thing to try to get out of patriarchy, and another thing entirely to get patriarchy out of ourselves. It's bound deep into the roots and fabric of our society-- not just religious society, but all of society. However, I would like to believe the current resurgence of hyper-patriarchy among fundamentalists is one of patriarchy's death-throes, and that one day patriarchy and racism will both seem as archaic as horse-and-buggies.

For now, though, we are all breathing it, swimming in it without being aware of it, like fish in the ocean. One of its symptoms is that a woman gets judged no matter what she does. She is continually being inspected and found wanting. Too many children, not enough children, too permissive, too strict. Neglectful of her children by going to work, or being a hovering "helicopter-mom" by staying home. If the kids are high achievers, she's pushing them too much. If they're below average, it's her fault. And if she's single, or in a same-sex relationship, or childless-- then she just doesn't fit into anyone's pigeonholes, so she gets shoved to the side.

Patriarchy is also hard on men, though this is less obvious. But they, too, are kept from being themselves by the roles thrust upon them. The question asked is a good one-- why shouldn't men get to choose to stay home? Or better-- why shouldn't husbands and wives together decide what arrangement of outside work and inside childcare works best for them?

[jemand]

Apr 18, 2009 0:48:55 GMT -5 lectio said:

Yeah. I have noticed it a lot in filling out paperwork, forms, etc. The man is the "head of the house," and the wife is the "spouse." Interesting. I mean, even the secular federal government sees marriage as a hierarchy. So, yeah, the patriarchal churches are more intense about it, but it's a pretty strong underlying current in the culture itself. I think it would be the rare person who wouldn't adopt it one way or another...

Another reason why I support Gay marriage! It will force such forms to change Then legally ALL marriages will be seen as more equal.

[aimai]

I wanted to come back and add that I totally agree both with the observation that women are damned if they do and damned if they don't (neglectful/helicopter etc...) and also that the trick is going to be getting the patriarchy out of us, and not so much us out of the patriarchy.

But in that context I'd like to say that I just had a very amazing conversation with my 12 year old daughter. She loves those books by Tamora Pierce which are all sword and socrcery with girl heroine stuff. She loves them but she said with a little puzzled frown that its very tedious the way all the heroines seem to need to express a feeling that boys are better than girls, need to emulate "boy things" to get ahead, and become somehow androgynous boy like beings succeed. She was just objecting because *in her world* she doesn't assume boys are smarter, faster, stronger, or better than girls at all. Quite the contrary. So she doesn't really start from the kind of...penis envy for lack of a better term that women my age started with. I've been noticing more and more that the absolutely ground breaking things (to me) that women were doing as I was growing up are now taken completely for granted. I was listening to an NPR interview with a truck driver who just won an award for driving 2 million miles without an accident. That truck driver was a woman, she'd been driving heavy rigs for 31 years. Well, that means that when I was a young woman she was breaking a job barrier because I well remember how gendered those jobs were and what a huge deal it was for a woman to infringe on the male prerogative in blue collar jobs like that. But by this time she's just one of many women doing this job.

Truly, its a brave new world for our daughters and if they are lucky our self imposed limits and our lack of imagination won't hold them back.

aimai

[rosa]

Aimai, I heard that interview too...that woman is one of 2 female drivers at her company.

It's not the same as it was when we were little girls, but it's not as good as it could be, either.

When I worked at the newspaper, I worked with a lot of women who started there when our department was all female (classifieds) and the other departments were all male (automotive sales, all the production areas, management, etc). It all sounded very far away and long ago...until someone brought in a Classifieds section from the 1960's where the jobs were listed in a "Men's" column and a "Women's" column.