Monthly Archives: April 2008

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Four Children and I've Never "Given Birth"?!?

Self-righteous women who take it upon themselves to decide that c-section mamas haven’t really “given birth” honk me off. Is having surgery to bring your child into the world ideal? Probably not, although I’d take a healthy baby born by c-section (and an equally healthy mom!) over a normal delivery with complications any day. But some women can be so condescending with their “all you did was lay there while the doctor did all the work–I made an effort to bring my children into the world!” speeches, it makes me want to smack them! I especially appreciated one women’s analogy between my baby and a bad appendix. Apparently, when you have a c-section, you are opened up, just like during an appendectomy, and instead of the doctor removing your appendix, he removes your baby. Nice. Please be more insulting next time.

Why do we insist on arguing over semantics, anyway? Is it really that important if I “delivered” my baby, or if I was “delivered of” my baby? Give me a break–all that really matters is a healthy pregnancy, a healthy baby, and the fact that, in the end, I’m a mom.

And just for the record, in my opinion, I’ve given birth four times, and no one will convince me otherwise!

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Fundies, Grape Juice, and the 24 Hour Day

I’ve been following a conversation for the last day or two on wine and the Bible. Was wine really consumed in the Bible (especially by Jesus), did Jesus really turn water into wine, or was it just grape juice, is it a sin to drink at all, etc. Some of my more conservative (if that’s possible) Christian sisters are under the impression that it is not OK to drink wine, that, of course, Jesus never would have consumed alcohol, that when wine is referred to in the Bible, it’s actually grape juice, and my personal favorite, and one that I’ve never heard before, wine is a result of sin in the world, because fermentation represents death, ergo, wine is inherently sinful.

With the exception of the last argument, I’ve heard all this stuff before. I don’t agree with it, because it’s my belief that if the Bible says wine, it means wine, and please don’t start spouting off Greek and Hebrew to me. Part of believing in the inerrancy of Scripture is believing that Scripture holds up even through translation. I don’t see any problem with someone having a drink once in a while, (alcoholics and people with medical conditions aside), and I would more than happily share a good bottle of wine with Jesus, so long as it complemented the meal I prepared for Him. Getting drunk is a different story, but to say alcohol is sinful in and of itself is just ridiculous.

Here’s my latest problem with this argument that the Fundies like to pull out, though. These same women will swear up and down that when the Bible says on the first day, on the second day, etc., that it means a 24 hour day. Not 1000 years, not an indeterminate long length of time, not a week or a month or a year. A day, as we know a day to be now. I’m on board with that; agree 100%. The Bible says that God created the world in six days and then rested on the seventh, and as God is the author of the Bible, I believe it. No need to delve into translations, possible other meanings of the word day, blah, blah, blah. The Fundies and I are in agreement! Day=day.

Now lets look at the wine argument. All of the sudden, these women, champions of the inerrancy of Scripture (which again, I totally believe), women who hound more liberal Christians for trying to put too much meaning into one word found in the Bible, and not just taking God’s Word at face value, are all of the sudden chastising everyone for not studying the word wine further. We must, according to them, research other possible meanings of the word wine, the cultural context in which wine was used, the alcohol ratio in wine from Biblical times versus wine of today (how would that even be possible?!?) and on and on. Suddenly, women who have such faith to believe that when the Bible says day it means day, cannot fathom that when the Bible says wine, it means wine. Can anyone say “does not follow?”

I could respect their argument more if they weren’t literalists about everything else (although I still wouldn’t agree with them). If they believed that Scripture could not be taken at face value in general, I would understand where they are coming from. Their passion for the inerrancy of Scripture in every other context, however, makes their inability to accept that wine in the Bible is some kind of fermented beverage (I will grant that as time has passed, it may not be the exact same drink we have today, but still, something generally recognizable) a total and complete contradiction in terms. I can only assume that Fundies like to sap the joy out of every possible thing that they can!

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Book Review: "The Girls Who Went Away"

I thought it might be kind of fun to review some of the books I’m reading courtesy of our public library, and, even though I have four children, I also have too much time on my hands, so I came up with a cute little rating system. Five stars–excellent book, probably going to buy it at some point; Four stars–good book, I’ll be requesting it from the library again in the future; Three stars–OK book, I finished it, but have no desire to read it again; Two stars–not so hot, I started to skip sections because I was bored; One star–So bad, I couldn’t even finish it!

Alright, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, the first book I’m going to review is “The Girls Who Went Away” by Ann Fessler. I’ve been meaning to read this book since I heard about it last summer, but I have to admit, I was a little leery of it because of the sub-title: “The Hidden History of Women who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades before Roe v. Wade.” I was afraid that because the author was so bent on mentioning Roe v. Wade on the cover of her book, that the tone of the book would be about the poor women who were forced to give up their babies for adoption because they didn’t have the option of abortion. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find that is not what this book is about, and abortion is actually rarely mentioned on the pages at all.

What this book is about, is the heart-wrenching tales of young woman (and even some who were not as young, but were unmarried) who were forced by their families and “social agencies” to give their children away. They were not given any choices or support to keep their babies and raise them, but were told every step of the way what they were going to do, in order to help their families save face, and to provide couples who couldn’t conceive babies of their own in the post-war baby boom the children that everyone expected them to have.

I was not surprised (although I was saddened) by the treatment of these girls by their families; I was shocked, however, at the tactics used by social workers to ensure that the girls did not change their minds about adopting out their children. They used scare tactics on these young women by telling them about the horrible lives their children would have–they would never be able to provide enough material things, their children would be mocked on the playground and friendless, just because they were raised in a single parent home. They were threatened that they would have to pay back the cost of their stay at the unwed mothers’ home, and how could they possibly do that with little education, no job, and a baby to support (never mind no family support on top of all that!) Even though some of these women may technically have been offered the choice to keep their children, it was made clear to them that the only real choice they had was adoption.

Each chapter of the book had a theme, such as “The Family’s Fears,” which contained a lot of statistical information, as well as snippets of women’s stories as they remembered surrendering their children. Following the main body of the chapter were two longer essays, each focusing on a different woman’s story of pregnancy and the adoption of her child. I found myself crying many times in reading these stories, as even after several decades since their loss, these women’s heartache was palpable.

Something that I found very interesting about these women’s stories is the similarities of their labor and delivery experiences. Despite the fact that they lived all over the country, the same fears and indignation kept coming up. Almost all of the women remembered humiliation at having to be shaved prior to delivery. They also tended to recount not being prepared for what would happen in the child birth process, being left alone to labor, and having cruel nurses tell them that they deserved to suffer alone, without any medical intervention or support, throughout the labor process, because of their unwed status.

There were mixed reports on whether or not the women chose to see and spend time with their babies. Some refused to see them at all, realizing they could never give them up once they laid eyes on them. Others set their minds to make the most of every moment, realizing that was all they would ever have. Still others tried to find a way to keep their baby once they bonded with him or her, but were always dissuaded from doing so, either by family, social workers or clergy. Most of them remembered the things every mother relishes about a child–the baby smell, the softness of skin and hair, the number of fingers and toes, the smallness of limbs and of clothing.

This book gave me a completely different view of adoption. I had always assumed that for the most part, unwed mothers would happy to be “relieved” of the burden of having a child at a young age, without a husband, without an education or a job. This is obviously not true. Every one of the women in this book struggled with what she was required to do, and most of them never got over the loss. The maternal instinct is clearly stronger than even I had realized, seeing how badly these teenagers wanted their babies.

The (somewhat) happy ending is that many of the women were reunited with their biological children later in life. I say somewhat, because even a reunion does not make up for the 20+ years of life together that both mother and child missed. It was also sad to see that for the most part, these women had to suffer in silence for such a long time, because there did not used to be resources to help birth parents find the children they had lost, and vice versa. While I still sympathize with the conflicting feelings adoptive parents must have when their children go off in search of their biological families, I also have a greater sympathy for those people connected by DNA, if nothing else, especially realizing that many mothers did not, and still may not, want to give their children up. When you add that to a person’s natural curiosity regarding his or history, medical and otherwise, and from whence he or she came, I understand why both parties would be searching for each other.

I give this book four and a half stars. It really deserves five stars, because it was such a good, emotionally engaging book, but I’m not sure of it’s re-read value, which is why I’m not currently planning on purchasing it. Who knows, though, I may change my mind. I’m sure I would pick up even more on the emotion of those decisions a second (and even third) time through!

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Something the Mormons Are Doing Right

I will admit to lurking on a Mormon message board. Partly because of the train wreck phenomenon, and partly because I will admit to admiring their devotion to family life. Anyway, today I was reading some comments about a rather innocuous children in church issue, and thinking that I wish more Christians had the same dedication to keeping their children in worship with them. For the most part, the posts were very supportive and encouraging, until a resident evangelical lurker pops in to add her two cents. In summary, what she basically said was “why don’t you people throw your kids in the nursery every Sunday? I look forward to that hour I can sit uninterrupted with my husband every week, and they can have a fun, child-appropriate time playing.”

Pardon me while the eye-rolling begins. Leave it to an evangelical to make Christians look ridiculous, while the Mormons have their priorities in order. First of all, I was not aware that church existed to provide parents with free babysitting. How foolish of me not to realize that! Second of all, I will never understand how parents expect their children to behave in church at age five or seven, or whatever the magical age for church attendance is (if they even bother bringing their children at all–maybe they just have them go to Sunday school until they graduate high school instead of insisting on the family worshipping together. Perhaps I’ve stumbled across most churches poor retention rates when it comes to post junior high and high school aged youth!) when they have not been accustomed to going from infancy on. Sure, it can be a struggle to get little ones to sit through a service without being distracting, but you have to start learning sometime, and I know from a lot of personal experience that they are learning, even when they’re little. Just watch my two year old sing along with the doxology sometime!

If mainstream Christian churches would pay attention to the welcoming attitude most of the Mormon church has toward children, we may be able to solve the problem we’re facing of our youth leaving church after confirmation or graduation, and not returning until they have children of their own. Something worth looking into.