I recently came across a heartbreaking article at National Catholic Register that underlines why all of the books aimed at young Christian women telling them to focus on having fabulous lives in th…
I recently came across a heartbreaking article at National Catholic Register that underlines why all of the books aimed at young Christian women telling them to focus on having fabulous lives in their “season of singleness”, they are a prize to be won, etc. are so cruel. The article is by Emily Stimpson Chapman, and is The Cross of Infertility: Finding Companionship With the Saints
When I read articles like this, I think “Why didn’t someone warn her?” From her bio at emilystimpson.com it is clear that despite her claim to have always wanted marriage and many children, she focused her youth on career and education
This is of course the feminist life script, and is not coincidentally the path men traditionally follow to attract a wife. It also has become the standard UMC life script, as Novaseeker describes. Most UMC women are able to pull this off, because as the clock is ticking down they get intensely pragmatic in their search for a man. Sheryl Sandberg’s famous quote on the subject captures part of this pragmatism. There is also a ramped up sense of urgency for nearly all UMC women around age 30. Lori Gottlieb’s famous Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough article and book are reminders to UMC women not to wait around for Mr. Perfect.
But while large numbers of modern Christian women have adopted the UMC life script, they aren’t getting the warnings not to overdo it that their secular sisters are receiving. This is why you see Christian women like Emily Stimpson Chapman thinking that getting engaged at age 40 meant she could expect to have two children, and why she is shocked that at 42 she can’t conceive. Her secular sisters got the message, but she did not. Marriage delaying Christian women are being reassured that everything is fine. They consume social media posts and read books written by other marriage delaying Christian women, and they are urged not to act with urgency like their secular sisters are doing. I’ve written a fair amount about this army of aging never married Christian women writing on the season of singleness, including Wendy Griffith and Mandy Hale. Griffith finally married in her mid 50s. Hale is still unmarried, and blogged back in November of 2018 about her creeping doubts about the “You are enough!” message she has been selling to unmarried Christian women
The tragic thing is that when Hale should have been learning how to recover from her already failing plan, she was busy writing books encouraging other Christian women in the same situation. In 2012 she wrote The Single Woman’s Sassy Survival Guide: Letting Go and Moving On, and she wrote several others in the meantime. Now she writes articles on how to be a fabulous single retired woman for the AARP.
