#im reading this one post where this woman didnt want kids was coerced into it she hates her life and isnt connected to her kids

[1eos]

reading anon's ask and ur response only serves to remind me how sickening it is for society to expect women and young girls to somehow be "naturally motherly caretakers instantly capable of taking care of children," to the point where mothers are considered the "default" parent and therefore the one expected most to do the child rearing while nothing is expected of men/fathers (in fact they are expected to be bad at parenthood which is why we have the whole "idiot dad" stereotype) 😐😐 reminds me of this reddit AITA where OP got sick of having her identity reduced to being merely a mother: she kept on getting gifts related to motherhood and nothing abt her own interests while her husband got gifts related to his hobbies/interests (like no father related items at all), which shows just how much the "the woman/mother is the default parent" crap has been normalized.

yeah....the 'all women are naturally amazing caretakers' is the bane of my existence tbh. the vagina to mother pipeline is getting a BIT better but the ideals are so ingrained in society it actually drives me crazy. and i saw that aita! that made me fucking sick like other adults in her life weren't even calling her by her name just 'mama'. 😭😭😭😭 i swear the more i hear accounts from women who have kids the more i feel like i would rather die than have kids. ppl really will act like you exist for nothing but popping out kids! dark sided! but this also raises my respect for ppl who DO have kids. like wow............you're made of sterner stuff

and speaking of reddit i feel like that's the easiest way to see just how fast ppl are to shit on a woman for not wanting to take a bullet for literally any child or infant on earth. they will light women UP for not wanting to swoop in and breast feed some other man's child regardless of how weird and manipulative he is abt it. a man could literally bring his children to a strangers house and if she's a woman someone will get mad that she didn't take them in and sacrifice her whole being to raise them when she didn't want to. it's VILEEEE

and even tho my family has.......issues.......i'm thankful p much everyone has seen my lack of """"""motherly warmth""""" from birth and accepted that it's not gonna change 😭 apparently when i was a kid i begged for one of them dolls that acted like a real baby and when i got it and it started crying i immediately asked my mom to get a refund lollllllllll. but even with this bare minimum im INCREDIBLY lucky like soooooooo many girls are basically being harassed by everyone around them to be a mother and if they're not perfect at raising a child they may not have wanted they get vilified.

which is my main problem tbh and shows that most ppl don't respect children like coercing ppl who don't want kids to have them and then do a BRUNT of the child rearing will inevitably negatively affect the kids? the kids you are so desperate for? 89% of shit around children i don't understand but it's like? by forcing ppl via societal pressure to have kids there's a slim chance these kids are gonna have the upbringing they need? and they think oh suck it up even if you resent having kids they'll suffer without you but they'll also suffer.........with you....bc you resent them? children are a gift but they don't raise themselves and the fantasy that everybody w a womb who don't want kids will change their mind when they look into the baby's widdle eyes is literally just misogyny lol

[nothorses]

Your posts about cultural christianity being more of a systemic than individual experience resonate with me alot. My father made christianity forbidden. Im familiar with christmas, but I didnt even know what bible study was until college. when Ive been coerced into attending a church service (bc they wont let me say no for some reason? its really uncomfortable) I learned that I stood out like a sore thumb for looking vaguely confused and tense! I cant even pretend to be christian bc theres so many prayers and bible stories and such that Im unfamiliar with. At most, I thought I knew what christianity was bc of fictional media, but its nowhere close to whats actually believed by christians. unless I convert, which will never happen, I cant describe myself as a christian by any means.

I can recognize that a lot of politcians, media are influenced by christianity. Cultural beliefs about purity work its way through education and recovery centers, too. The systemic ties to christianity are visible the more I learn about it. But on an individual level, I cant relate to christian families or churches at all bc I literally never experienced it growing up!

Yeah! Yes! That’s so similar to my experiences. My religion goes unquestioned until someone learns I’m not Christian- and that’s easy to learn, because I am woefully unprepared to try to lie. I don’t know a damn thing about Christianity, I have not read a page of the bible, I’ve never really been to church, I never watched Christian media...

I have had conversations with friends that grind to a complete halt because they reference some Christian kid’s show or bible story or something and I have to feel like a complete dumbass asking what reference they made- because I am one of ten people in the US, apparently, who did not watch Veggietales.

I don’t know the story of Noah’s Ark, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.

I was caretaking for an elderly ex-missionary who asked me if I’d found God, I lied and told her I was “interested in learning about all religions but hadn’t really decided on anything” (because lol I’m not going to get into an argument with this woman about how I Do Not want her to convert me- and then get fired). And she waxed on for an hour about how she was gonna buy me some special bible books to read and insisted I come back to work for her, so she could Help Me Find God. I quit, because, uh, no.

But my Christian friends told me I should’ve just pretended to be Christian to get her off my back, and... how? I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t want to learn enough to be able to. I’d feel grossly, massively uncomfortable pretending even if I did. But folks just assume everyone at least knows enough to do that, because Christianity is the default, and atheists are just Christians without the God part.

My experiences are vastly, obviously, glaringly different from a Christian or ex-Christian’s. I’m not “culturally Christian”, I’m an atheist in an atheist family in a society that is culturally Christian- which is part of the problem.