A Morning Poem

(This is not a poem.)

Good morning to waking up in the dark and watching the world turn colors.

Good morning to my body. It has at times been lean and muscular, and other times, like now, it’s a little soft and squidgy around the edges. I observe it without judgment. I’m thankful for what it’s done for me. I’ll whip it back into shape at some point, but not today.

Good morning to the voices of my children who shoot out of bed like canon fire and require no time to warm up. They wake up warm. They are ready to play and laugh and scream and twirl right when they set foot on the floor. When did we un-learn that?

Good morning to this particular tragedy-adjacent morning, a weird and melancholy day for all of us who remember where we were twenty years ago. I was in the hallway of my seventh grade classrooms and my best friend passed and told me what had happened. Wanting to appear detached (and having no idea what she was talking about), I shrugged and said, “Cool.” I knew immediately that was so irreverent that I’d regret it. All our teachers turned on the news and we stopped learning, or started learning, in another sense. In the fall of 2011 I’d be standing in front of a classroom of seventh graders, teaching them about this day because they didn’t remember it. They, who had so little, wrote letters to the families of the victims.

Good morning to the news cycle, where even an accidental glimpse of a screen and the push notifications from the New York Times can send me into a spiral of dread. I read these, of course, on my phone in a house, safe, with food and with air conditioning and heat and medicine. And even still I have thoughts like, “Reading about that cast a pall over my morning.” The world is on fire and I get to decide when I read about it.

Good morning to the cobbler in the refrigerator, staring at me each time I open it. Not today, Satan. (But tonight? Probably.)

Good morning to the new parenting rules that say emotions are normal and time-out isn’t what it used to be. We embrace the big feelings and try not to say things like, “That makes Mom feel sad,” because our feelings aren’t their little problem. That part I think we’re getting right, but I know we’re getting it wrong somewhere else the next generation will correct.

Good morning to the fall TV lineup and how this should be Ellen Pompeo’s last season acting on Grey’s. Right? Come on. It’s done. She is a queen and an icon and should get paid forever, but what stories are left to tell?? We’ve done it all! Bomb/flood/fire/plane crash/active shooter/cancer scare/adoption/car crash/bus crash/PTSD night-chokings/spousal abuse/IZZIE IS ACTUALLY STILL ALIVE!/mental illness/addiction/race/immigration/COVID. The mind spins. I hope they don’t screw up the end of This Is Us.

Good morning, also, to Nicole Kidman’s truly unhinged accent work in Nine Perfect Strangers. It’s a journey and a delight.

Good morning to those of us who are feeling very weird about church right now. I believe in God. I want things to get better. If I could, I’d set my relationship status with organized religion to “It’s Complicated.” But to leave feels like an abandonment, so here I limbo.

Good morning to cool weather and a hearty THANK YOU to to the ways Covid restructured our sense of not postponing joy (a la “There are no rules anymore,”), allowing us to lean into our fall decor and drinks and treats on September 1st because who says we can’t? The police? Celebrate Christmas before Thanksgiving for all I care. Joy is the bottom line. It’s fall at my house, dammit.

Good morning to the ways the world makes us all ache, to the songs of birds outside who aren’t afraid to sing it right out loud because they never had anyone tell them they were “too much.” To the hard pieces that we feel compelled to turn away from so that we can just freakin’ survive, and to the knowledge that being bewildered about sad things doesn’t mean something’s wrong with us – it just means we’re still alive, feeling, responding, not-numb-yet try-ers. Good morning to our very stubborn hope cracking through the places we thought we boarded up to protect ourselves, to warm sleeping dogs (and cats, too, I guess, whatever), to needing a sweater, to You’ve Got Mail season, to the hundreds of layers of life we have to sift through in the span of one little tiny day. To another day of navigating the brutalities both gently and fiercely. To Bill Pullman in While You Were Sleeping. To golden light streaming onto the floor as I finish this sentence. To where the light makes me look.

Anxiety is for Babies, and Other Lies from the Devil

The first time I ever heard someone talk about being medicated for anxiety, I remember my thoughts clearly: “What a baby. They can’t cope with everyday life?? Good grief.” This sentiment was undoubtedly accompanied by an eye roll. Dripping with empathy, I know. 

The person who I’d heard talk about taking anxiety medications had what appeared to be a pretty great life. She was white, in her mid-20’s, had plenty of money, a steady job, a happy marriage, and no health concerns to speak of. What does she have to be anxious about? I wondered.

That day years ago, I found myself thinking about how mentally weak we all are; that we require medication to cope with everyday life. My peers and I had somehow steered our lives into waters so murky and bleak that we couldn’t navigate them without some help from a psychiatrist and a bottle of pills. Of course, I had sympathy for people suffering from what I considered to be “real” mental health problems, like serious depression caused by trauma, or schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. But anxiety? That’s just a feeling. That’s not a PROBLEM. “Buck up,” was my general sentiment. 

Oh, past Mary Catherine, you incomparable dumb dumb. 

-

Having recently watched The Sopranos all the way through for the first time (and oh my good God how had I not seen it before, IT’S SO BRILLIANT), I now realize that I had a very “Tony Soprano” attitude toward mental health issues. It might as well have been me sitting in Dr. Melfi’s office preaching: 

Nowadays, everybody’s gotta go to shrinks and counselors, and go on Sally Jesse Raphael and talk about their problems. What ever happened to Gary Cooper — the strong, silent type? That was a real American. 

As with dozens of other things I’ve come to firm conclusions about despite being completely uninformed, I didn’t understand anxiety until it knocked me between the eyes.

-

I’m still not sure what exactly triggered my bout with anxiety in 2019. There was a concoction of events that all probably worked together, chief among them being that I was a stay-at-home parent during this time with way too much time on my hands to get lost in my own thoughts. While I was unsure of the exact cause, the symptoms were unmissable. They came out of nowhere like a Navy Seal walking silently through a building - knees slightly bent, heel, toe, heel, toe, carefully absorbing all the shock from his steps with his own knees, until WHAM. I was whacked. 

(So apparently this post is going to be full of violent and/or murder metaphors.)

For me, anxiety manifested itself as a conviction that my friends had stopped liking me as much as they used to, and that they never would again. Typing it here feels laughable and embarrassing, but that’s what was true for me for about a quarter of a year. I pored over text exchanges, reached out by phone more than usual, and dissected interactions I had with them to see if there were any signs of disruption in the relationship. When she said, “Oh, gosh,” was she being sympathetic to the story I told, or was she rolling her eyes at me? I would think after hanging up.

Jordan started a running bit by coming home and asking, “Are you having an anxious day?” And if I said yes, he would (blessedly) lighten the mood by asking, “Is it because all your friends hate you?” Something about the joke combined with how ridiculous it sounded out loud always helped my heart feel less like it was stuffed too full of chocolate pudding, hanging in my chest by a thread. But, before long, the anxiety always came back.

On “good days,” days when my anxiety was at bay, I was afraid to talk about it because I thought talking about it would invite back in. It was as though the anxiety was a predator lurking outside the house, waiting for an open window or an unlocked door. I thought that if I could make my mind a fortress, I could keep it at bay. But that, I learned, was not how anxiety worked. Instead of a predator, it was more like a mist. It got in through the vents. 

Besides Jordan, if you were to ask my friends and family whether they knew I was experiencing this, they’d say they didn’t. I am so desperately private about feelings of real vulnerability that it’s close to impossible for me to open up without feeling like I’ve failed. This will seem paradoxical to people who know me via my blog or through social media, because I’m a fairly open book on those platforms. But I’m open only about the things I can control - I know how people will perceive a certain brand of openness, so it feels safe for me. Saying something like, “I have a constant, underlying anxiety that I can’t seem to control,” feels like Michael Scott standing in the middle of the woods as Survivor Man and yelling, “I HAVE HEMORRHOIDS!” It’s humiliating, but only if other people know. 

You can imagine the never ending cycle: harboring the anxiety about people abandoning me, then having anxiety about the paralyzing certainty that if I told anyone about that anxiety, they’d think I was weak and leave me.

I pride myself on my mental and emotional fortitude. I am not a person who is scream-y about bugs or creepy crawly things. I don’t buckle at people sharing their upsetting life events. I keep my shit together in a crisis and rarely, if ever, break down, even to my very closest friends. I am relatively introspective and am constantly looking inward, getting to the root of my feelings, and entering into dialogue with myself about any given reaction. For whatever reason, I find it important to be a “good soldier.” To lose the ability to deal with my own thoughts and feelings on my own was foundation-shaking and humbling in a way that was deeply uncomfortable. 

-

This is when it finally occurred to me: anxiety is not dismissable. It’s not something you can just get over by willing it away. If I was going to tackle it, I couldn’t do it by myself. 

So on a girls’ weekend, I broke down in tears and told them I was afraid they were all upset with me. Predictably, they were not. But the simple act of speaking the words, and the implicit cry for help buried in the breaths between them, unloaded something powerful. Palpable. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Anxiety Monster tipping his hat to me as he stepped out of my life. For now, at least. 

What I learned from this experience was profound. Anxiety is not a symptom of being a sissy. It can take any one of us down with its wily, unexpected wallop. We are better off bearing our hearts to each other and trusting that, even if we don’t believe it in the moment, there is grace in another person’s listening ear and open arms. 

For me specifically, it taught me that I didn’t need to try to carry it all alone, or to pretend it wasn’t happening to me. I booked a few appointments with a counselor to help for as long as I need the extra brain to lean on (and am discovering that an idle mind is anxiety’s playground - stay-at-home-parenting is a tough gig to figure out). Help is a good thing. Even when I got married, I never anticipated that I would lean on my husband in the ways I have this year. And boy, I have I. Guess what? He’s still around. And so are my friends. I’m getting the idea that I didn’t trust these relationships as fully as I should’ve. Here in these moments, I am a beneficiary of the continued blessing of being proven wrong. 

Tony Soprano and I have it wrong when it comes to keeping a stiff upper lip (I suspect he, too, is an Enneagram 8). For him, it led to murdering a whole lot of people. For me, it meant pretending I didn’t need anyone at all; stuffing the vulnerability way down deep until it couldn’t see the light of day. 

Wouldn’t you know it? There in the dark, stumbling around, I ran smack into the people who love me most. They offered me a hand, and together we walked back toward the sunshine. 

La Vie en Rosie

One year with our sweet girl, as of this coming Monday. Cannot BELIEVE. How is that possibly true?!

In honor of our impending celebration, I bring you 15 things I’ve learned this year as a mom. Some are about parenting Rosie, some are about sibling dynamics, but all of them are lessons learned between 4/19/20-4/19/21.

1. Babies are different. Watching the difference between Mac as a baby (cautious, focused, not cuddly, steady, achieving) versus Rosie as a baby (wild as hell, no regard for her own safety, happiest baby in the world, a snuggle bug, does things in her own time) is just the tip of the iceberg, I know.

2. And their personalities seem cooked in. I’ve realized this year that parenting is like how Michelangelo described sculpting. He said it was “releasing the hidden figure from the stone in which it slumbered,” AKA, working to uncover something that is already there and has always been there. In some ways as parents, we have a lot of influence (encouraging kindness, nice manners, what we expose our kids to and when, etc.), but those core traits? Boy, they are baked in from the START. We’re just “releasing the hidden figure.”

3. Mac is the sweetest big brother. I knew that his heart was very tender and loving, but seeing him in action as a big brother has been nothing short of cry-your-eyes-out precious. He introduces her to everyone we encounter and makes it his mission to keep her safe. The best example of this is that Rosie loves to stand up and shake this particular side table we have so that the lamp sitting on it starts to rock back and forth. Mac has recently started going to the opposite side of the table and holding it in place so the lamp doesn’t rock, allowing Rosie to experiment, but finding a way he can help protect her in the process. I mean, come on. (A caveat here that he also pushes her down for no reason - he’s a sweet boy, but he’s still a 3-year-old).

4. Dads and daughters. I hate to be gender-specific because that’s not really The Thing right now, but there is a very special connection between parents and children who identify as opposite genders. Rosie has loved Jordan in such a special way since the day she was born and he sang her Jimmy Buffet songs. Her first real word was “Dada,” (RUDE) and she lights up like a Christmas tree when she sees him.

5. Nothing reminds you you’re a feminist like having a daughter. I was before, but I am newly inspired to hustle in my own life and work because of Rosie. Yes, I want Mac to see his mom succeed, but I want to be an actual blueprint for Rosie to follow whatever dream she wants. Our house has filled up with books like ABC What Can She Be? and Rosie Revere, Engineer! Obviously Mac is reading these, too, but we are all about some girl power in this house.

6. Having two children adds weight to your social responsibility. I have never been more committed to equity and justice than I am as the mother of two small children. I see it as my highest calling to raise these babies to be radically kind, loving, and to subvert any agenda that would oppress or discriminate against groups of people in this country. I try to limit the amount of “self-help parenting” stuff I listen to (mostly because I think there are a lot of knuckleheads out there who’ll say whatever they’re paid to say, but also because too much information is almost the same as no information - you can’t retain it), but I’ve recently found a great podcast I trust called Raising Good Humans. This episode about raising anti-racist kids really spoke to me (it features anti-racist educators Tiffany Jewell and Britt Hawthorne) and I left it feeling empowered and excited about my takeaways.

7. Speaking of education…one of the things on my mind lately is making sure that our children receive a high-quality education, but also (and maybe more importantly) an education that exposes them to people who look and live differently than they do. I grew up in a very racially diverse public school system in Decatur, Alabama, and I can’t say enough about the positive impact it had on me. Asheville can be very white, and I don’t want my children surrounded by only white people. I’m learning and working through the best ways to make sure I haven’t surrounded them with only white folks. It would be an easy thing to let happen by accident where we live.

8. Food is a journey. Mac and Rosie both eat like ice road truckers at the end of a shift. I have never seen babies who eat two fried eggs, a banana, and a tub of baby food for breakfast each day. It seems…impossible? And yet, it’s not. Right as Rosie has started her “any and everything” eating, Mac has transitioned to being a little more selective. I refuse to be a short-order cook, but sometimes that means we default to a “bath time Larabar” (shamefully a real thing) because we’re still feeling hungry after dinner. Things are a mess. Food is hard. We’re doing our best over here. Rosie is eating absolutely everything she can find. Including non-food items. Like chalk. Is chalk toxic? I honestly don’t know.

9. Children, um…repeat the things you say. The number of times Mac has said, “Damn!” is…well, a lot. It’s a whole lot. At first I tried to ignore it so he wouldn’t realize it was a Thing and then do it more…that failed. Now he says it regularly (and by the way he’s using it exactly right, which makes it that much worse/that much funnier. “Mom can I play with dinosaurs in Rosie’s room?” “Not right now, buddy, let’s let her have some quiet time.” “DAMN!”) and I’m gonna have to figure out what to do with him. Probably should start by not saying, “Damn,” huh?

10. Redheads are a special breed. Y’all…it is HYSTERICAL to me that I ended up with a red-headed daughter. About once a week, Jord and I look at each other and just say, “Can you believe this?” So many people have shared stories about their babies who had red hair to start and ultimately grew out of it. She certainly might! But y’all, her eyebrows and eyelashes are red. That’s gotta mean something. Truly wild and so fun. Her energy and her spicy little personality have been present from before she was born - she was very opinionated and gave me an extremely uncomfortable pregnancy (I dislodged a rib with Rosie, had bronchitis, terrible migraines, and a lot of less-savory symptoms I’ll keep to myself), which was a precursor for her very stubborn, wild, and joyful presence in the world.

11. Second children are nearly invincible. Sure, she cries when she gets pushed down or hurts herself, but because they’re born into chaos, second children are borderline mythical in their ability to manage nonsense. I remember once, when Rosie was about 6 months old - we were at my parents’ house, and somebody pulled up in their car which caused both dogs to bark in this REALLY loud, startling way - Mac screamed as loud as he could, it was a mess. My dad said that through it all, Rosie sat completely unbothered on the floor. Didn’t even blink an eye, he said, when the madness ensued. And this is evidence that…

12. Birth order politics are absolutely a Thing. First children are fussed over, catered to, spoiled with attention and peacefulness. Second and later? Whatever. They’re rippin’ cigs by the time they’re 6 months old. This is why younger children are so much more well-adjusted than their older siblings. (As an oldest child, married to an oldest child, who’s also the daughter of two oldest children, I consider myself an authority on this matter.) We’re not freaking out over every cry or potential hazard, which makes them calmer. They’re born into loudness, which makes them better able to cope with life. Our focus is already split when they arrive, meaning they’re carrying the burden of performing or garnering approval. Rosie’s job is just to continue l-i-v-i-n, McConaughey style.

13. Rosie is a master flirt. Mac didn’t really care about other people when he was less than one. He was sweet and interested, I guess, but Rosie? WOWZA. My little homie has her game on lock. She is replete with head-tilts, huuuuuge smiles, coquettish waves…I have seen grown men who do construction for a living fall prey to her tiny power. It’s amazing, and we have to stan a queen.

14. Everything happens in its own time. With Mac, I was so hyper-focused on milestones. I didn’t mean to be, but it happens naturally when you have one child and he or she is the center of your world. Was he crawling on time? Walking? Talking? How was his growth charting? What percentile was he in? With Rosie, I have relished every month and not given one single damn about any of that stuff. I’ve appreciated her baby-hood intensely. I’m so sorry to see it go, but I know I didn’t rush it or wish it away, and that’s a good feeling. We really soaked it up.

15. She is one of a kind. This little red-headed wonder is a smiley, snuggly, easygoing, but also completely diabolical child. We joke that she’s lived many lifetimes before she came to be with us because her gaze is so intense and her manner is just…old. Wise. Shrewd. She knows what’s up. It really is like she’s been here before. When she was born, my very first thought upon seeing her was how bright and clear her eyes were, wide open - I thought to myself, “She’s really in there.” Where I felt like Mac and I got to know each other slowly in those first few days, Rosie busted into this world up with personality all the way to the ends of her hair. She is completely full of life and bursting with individuality. I cherish the chance I’ve gotten to watch someone like her, so different from my equally wonderful first child, navigate the world and learn the ropes. Or maybe teach the ropes, honestly - it feels like I’m the one who’s going to be doing the learning in this relationship.

Happy first birthday to my angel Rosie, named for her stubborn spitfire great-great-grandmother and her kind, hilarious, artistic uncle - embodying all of those qualities and then adding an ocean of her own. She is the cherry on top of our sundae, spicy and sweet, born at the heigh of a global pandemic, and a genuine thrill ride. I’m on the edge of my seat to see what happens next.

Purity Culture, Part IV: So What?

In each section below, you’ll hear from people who responded to my survey. I have ascribed everyone in this essay a fake name (I didn’t ask for names in my survey) to help delineate each individual response from the one before or after it. 

What do we teach this new generation? (Also titled: “Social distancing!”)

When I was 15 (and every summer before or since), I attended church camp each year at a United Methodist camp called Sumatanga. (Which, by the way, was the very, very best). 

The schedule wasn’t quite what you’d see at a more secular camp - no horseback riding, no zip lines. We had morning devotion, small groups, activities, vespers - all kinds of good, Jesus-y stuff. Being that it was a fairly progressive camp, one of the small group offerings that summer was a co-ed sexuality course. Our group leader, a woman in her mid-late thirties, made the wise choice to have each of us submit anonymous questions prior to the start of her class. At the beginning of each meeting, she pulled out the questions and read them aloud, writing them down verbatim on a sheet of chart paper, then going through the answers in a very judgment-free tone - no matter how silly the question, she treated it with the utmost seriousness, clinically explaining anything that came up. Everything was on the table.  

This freedom and anonymity allowed for all kinds of questions that we would’ve been too afraid to ask out loud. I don’t remember what the question was, but I submitted something that contained the word “semen” and mistakenly spelled it “seamen.” I will never forget the white-hot embarrassment of trying not to reveal the question was mine as she wrote “s-e-a-m-e-n” on the chart paper! 

But I’ll also never forget how rudimentary many of the questions were. Someone asked if you could get pregnant from swallowing during oral sex. Someone else asked if you could shower off an STD. There was never a day where we didn’t have a dozen new questions, and they got bolder each time we gathered. People had things they needed to know, and things they couldn’t ask anyone else. 

While it may seem shocking to some that a church camp was encouraging this kind of open and frank conversation about sex, looking back, it’s an incredibly powerful testament to how we as the church can engage our young people around issues of sexuality, curb any problematic theories or thinking, and still manage to push the concept that sex is a sacred, beautiful act meant for commitment - even exclusively within marriage. 

By the way, “s-e-m-e-n.” Just needed to redeem myself. 

——

The numbers don’t lie: abstinence-only education simply is not an effective way to keep people from having sex. 

“In 2008, federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programming was curbed under the Obama administration after a congressionally mandated, comprehensive nine-year study showed that students who experienced abstinence-only education in public schools were ‘no more likely than control group youth to have abstained from sex and, among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age.’” - Pure, Linda Kay Klein, 25

In her book, Klein talks specifically about how education that centers around purity or abstinence is not only ineffective, but the correlation that its (particularly female) students draw between sex and shame only strengthens over time. She cites research being done among three conservative Christian groups: Baptists, Catholics, and Latter-day Saints. 

(If you want to really nerd out, the paper is called “The Intersection of Religion and Sex: Sex Guilt Resiliency among Baptists, Catholics, and Latter-day Saints” by K.S. Beale, E. Maynard, and M. O. Bigger, and was published in 2016). 

In their paper, these researches write: 

“There is little support indicating that the mechanisms currently used in our society (abstinence education, chastity pledges, and religious grounding) to curb teenage sexual activity actually work. The question remains, ‘Is our focus on sexual abstinence actually doing anything?’ 

It turns out that those who are sexually active and have experienced abstinence education and/or have stronger beliefs that the Bible should be literally translated [a core tenant of evangelicalism] have more sexual guilt. ...females report significantly higher sex guilt than males (and) sex guilt from the first sexual experience is predictive of higher sex anxiety, lower sexual efficacy, and lower sexual satisfaction. 

The relationship between sex guilt and...sexual satisfaction doesn’t diminish over time; it gets stronger….This is not a recipe for young women to embark on a fulfilling relationship with their partner and we predict it could be an indicator of further sexual problems and relationships issues.”

———

A huge struggle for the women who took my survey revolves around a really specific theological idea that I wasn’t familiar with: the concept of “cheap grace.” 

As I understood if from their definitions, “cheap grace” is when a person understands their sinfulness and repents, then acknowledges that God’s grace (and particularly the crucifixion of Christ) covers their sinfulness in perpetuity, and continues sinning with the benefit of that eternal forgiveness in mind. In other words, a person just assumes that they’ll always be forgiven, so the sinning itself isn’t so important. 

If you believe pre-marital sex is sinful, then it’s a really easy sin to identify - you’ve either done it or you haven’t. That’s part of why so many churches hang their hats on it (along with attitudes about drugs and alcohol) as a major piece of identity within a community. A binary action is easy to avoid. 

“I struggle with the fact that God is loving and forgives sins when we repent. But the Bible is so clear about sex before marriage. So if someone sins somewhat intentionally (ex- sex before marriage).... and keeps doing it.... will God keep forgiving their sin when they repent and truly feel bad or does this mean the person really isn’t saved or something else? I was raised to wait until marriage. But I haven’t waited and I go through periods where I will stop but then eventually have sex again and feel bad.” - Janet

“My college boyfriend and I had healthy, consensual sex. He was Catholic, and all of a sudden, one day, he decided sex was off the table. He was so guilt-stricken that he made himself sick about it. Eventually, we started having sex again, but he refused to buy condoms in advance because doing so would be premeditating the sin - otherwise, he could simply excuse it to himself as an ‘in-the-moment’ mistake that warranted God’s forgiveness.” - Rachel

I don’t have the benefit of years of scientific data or research, but I can imagine what this understanding of grace coupled with or own failure ultimately leads to. We turn off our ability to be honest with ourselves and vulnerable to a living God because what we get from church is that sexual purity (and heterosexual purity at that) is the biggest identifier we should be grappling with, and when that fails to be something we can achieve, we have two options: relent to the endless cycle of self-hatred that comes with repeatedly breaking a promise to God, or wall off that part of ourselves and decide that it doesn’t matter that much anyway. 

Neither option is really a good one. 

Again, this is not to say that pre/extra-marital sex as sinful is a problematic teaching in and of itself. It is to say that when we set something up as the ultimate indicator of whether or not someone is a faithful Christian, then refuse to engage young people about it beyond, “Don’t do that,” we force them into the choices I mentioned above. 

There are women who waited until marriage to have sex, who have healthy relationships with their spouses, but I am willing to bet that they were taught more than “Don’t do that.” 

“I am happy that I waited until my husband to have sex. It was actually pretty easy for me to say no - until I met him. Once I met him all bets were off! I never felt shame but I was concerned about getting pregnant before marriage. I think that is the ultimate “shame” in purity culture. People have sex quietly but those that get pregnant and “shamed” for basically getting “caught.” So I think purity culture really just encourages people to keep their sex life to themselves ... and you better not get pregnant!” - Maria

If your understanding of being a Christian is that being one means buying into a more legalistic lifestyle and set of behaviors (which for many is the case - and that’s great!), then it logically follows that all of those behaviors need to be viewed on equal footing and without technicality: sexual conservatism should be aligned with a charitable heart; abstinence from alcohol should go hand-in-hand with careful speech and abstention from gossip. Adherence to this quantitative and qualitative kind of life comprises a whole person, not a set of rules. 

But the rules are so much easier to teach, so much easier to break, so much easier to cheat, and so much easier to judge our successes by. It seems we as people crave a yardstick for both measuring our own failure by and for beating ourselves over the heads with when that failure is discovered. Rather than teaching our children the nuances of faith, we simply hand them the yardstick.

“Don’t do that,” we say, with a stern look. And then we leave the room. 

———

I talked to a wonderful human being by phone about all this. She’s a longtime friend of mine who grew up evangelical, who has actually been studying this exact field for her postgraduate research. At the end of our call, I asked her what advice she’d give the church moving forward. She said: 

“Changing the conversation is so rooted in ideas about gender. The church would have to get rid of, or let go of, complementarianism. The church has to let go of gender essentialism, gendered roles in the worship service and church labor overall. As long as you have this idea that women are x and men are y and that’s inherent - eg, all women are inherently nurturing and all men are inherently warriors - all of that undergirds this conversation about purity. For me, the church could ask itself, “Why are we so hung up about these ideas about what it means to be a Christian woman versus what it means to be a Christian man?” 

I loved this idea and thought it held a lot of weight, particularly in the realm of eliminating the conversation about Christianity as being tied to a particular piece of identity. There are certainly specifications laid out for how to excel at being something - a wife, a minister, a husband, a single person, a mother - but we’re all drawing our basics from the same holy book. The major thesis of Christianity as described by Christ, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself,” doesn’t come with a caveat. 

Why do we seem so hell-bent on creating one? 

When you think about it objectively, in a faith system that’s based on service, love, radical inclusion, and humility, why is sex/sexuality/gender even a part of the conversation? And what is keeping the focus on those things keeping us from getting to? 

———

"Purity culture, in my opinion, was/is rooted in biblical truth about God's design for sex and intimacy, but it was taught in a way that a) put too much focus on this one area of obedience, leaving young women with the impression that it is the sum total of their identity before Christ and b) preloaded sex acts with so much shame that it's difficult to transition from ""Good Girls Don't"" to ""Hell Yeah Let's Get Naked,"" even in a covenant marriage. There has to be a better/more nuanced way to teach biblical orthodoxy regarding sexuality." - Michelle

Abstinence, from sex or from anything else, tends to be an easy identifier for a group of people. It’s an easy thing to teach children and young adults who may not be able to grasp the more amorphous ideals. “We don’t ______” is a lot easier to promote than “We’re people who love and give, people who value justice and mercy, and tout the benefits of radical inclusion.” 

Then again, who better to get those ideals than children and young adults, who haven’t been jaded by the world? What better group of people to hammer idealism into than that demographic? 

Overall, I get the sense that what we’re doing to our young people is unnecessarily hammering them with them they’re flawed, then offering them a solution. But here’s the thing about people between the ages of 11 and 20: they already know they’re not perfect. Everything in their lives is about measuring up - to the expectations of their parents, to the standards of their friends. Their lives are lived down a long, narrow hallway full of mirrors, comparison, and self-criticism. Christ can still be the solution to their problems without us planting the seeds of guilt within them - those seeds are already sprouting. No one is harder on them than they are on themselves. 

But no one smells bullshit faster than kids: 

“I’m still in high school and I had a mandatory “purity class” my freshman year. I would like to note that the boys didn’t have a purity class and got to do PE while the girls participated. Every time I would question why the boys don’t have one I was told they couldn’t find a male teacher to lead it. That’s bull. If they wanted to they could find a male teacher to lead this once a month class teaching from a book, they easily could. We read from a book called “and the bride wore white”. I couldn’t tell you if it was good or not because I quit reading after I saw the purity vs. cup scale [an object lesson comparing sexual experiences to chips in a teacup] while thumbing through it. I figured I didn’t really care what it said if it could pose such a biblically flawed scale of self-worth to the women and girls who would inevitably read this book. I’m not sure if you could even call what we did sex Ed because we mainly discussed the spiritual and emotional side of sex. All that aside, I have several friends who have told me that they are scared that when they do get married they won’t be able to separate sex from shame in their heads despite whether or not they will have waited by then.” - Carrie

It is no accident that young people are moving away from churches all over the country. Attendance among millennials, my peers, is at an all-time low. According to the Washington Post last year, “At the Pew Research Center, studies tracking America’s religious landscape found that although religious beliefs and practice have been declining at a rapid pace for people of all ages, the drop-off has been most pronounced among people ages 23 to 38. In 2019, roughly two-thirds attend worship services “a few times a year” or less, and 4 in 10 say they seldom or never go. A decade ago, it was more than half and only 3 in 10, respectively.”

We were brought up on doctrine and dogma, many of us raised deep within purity culture. The church, rather than being centered around the teachings of Jesus, was often centered around rules and a collective identity of following them. 

What if, instead of scaring our kids into abstinence, shaming them into judging their own biological urges, or hyper-gendering their church involvement, we instead gave them a place to be TRULY vulnerable? To share their deepest fears and concerns? More tangibly, to mis-spell the word “semen” and ask whether oral sex can get you pregnant? To admit something they’re ashamed of or embarrassed about having done? 

What if we allowed the inside of a church to reflect what’s happening on the outside? What if there was no performance needed? What if stepping through the doors became a relief instead of a restriction? 

———

Okay, so: practically speaking - what do we do to get there? 

I spoke by phone with my friend Emily who grew up evangelical and is now still very much a Christian, though no longer an evangelical one, about what she would’ve liked to have seen growing up. I asked her how she’d like to see sex discussed as sacred without the shame factor. Here’s what she said: 

“I have not personally found voices in a public space that are telling a good story about sex in a way that models sex in a way that I want to teach my children. I want to try really hard not to judge people who have one-night stands, or who have lots of sex with whoever they want - I am trying to get to the point where I accept that as a valid choice. To be totally honest, I’m not there yet. I don’t know how much of that is purity culture rearing its head and me being judgmental and and puritanical about sex, but I’m hoping that it’s more indicative of the reality that we are still so far off the mark when it comes to honorably discussing women’s sexuality. There doesn’t even seem to be science about it, or attention paid to it medically - how do we teach our sons and daughters about pleasure and consent, but also about how it’s sacred and important? You’re not a sinner if you have sex before marriage, but you’re not ready at 14.” 

As I listened, I tried to conjure anyone in popular culture who promotes a sacred view of sex without touting that sexual mis-steps are a dogmatic deal-breakers, and came up empty. A seemingly unbreachable dichotomy exists. On one hand, there are people who identify as sex-positive and unapologetic about their choices - some of whom even declaring sex positivity and adherence to faith in the same breath (harkening back to the origin of this series, Hannah Brown’s declaration that “I had sex and Jesus still loves me.”). On the other, there are strict rule-followers holding the line of pre/extra-marital sex as sinful. 

I submit that the church has an incredibly unique opportunity to bridge that gap. 

Here’s Emily again, with a truly brilliant observation: 

“I think one of the reasons that it was so easy for us (as evangelicals) to demonize sex outside of marriage is because we’re such a disembodied faith tradition. There’s a lot of “spirit is good, flesh is bad.” Starting there, and talking about the fact that God became flesh, God had a body, bodies are good and sacred - from there, we can get more into the ways that, just like everything else, sex and our bodies can be used to foster connection, but can also be used to harm.” 

Just like everything else, can be used to foster connection, but can also be used to harm. 

———

I’ve asked a lot of questions throughout this series, and the most important one may be this: are we, the grown ups, willing to do the risky work of stepping away from the rulebook in favor of actually engaging the players in the game? 

Getting at the heart of purity culture requires that we step away from the things that are simply not working. Young people don’t need coffee in worship - they just need somebody to shoot them straight. And the only people who can do that are the adults who’ve decided that it’s okay that they will, inevitably, run up against a question they don’t know the answer to. It will be the adults who decide if nuance is comfortable and if stepping away from the old guard is worth the risk to keep younger people interested and invested in their religious communities (which have so, so much to offer and can be so very formative to their development). 

What has been made incredibly clear to me is that this is that purity culture is layered - often lined with good intentions and executed with unintended (or unconsidered) consequences. To dissect it means to delve into the world of gender normativity, sexual politics, rape culture, and discrimination - again, not always intended, but often produced. 

What has also been made clear is that this is an amazing, pivotal moment for the church. It shouldn’t be viewed with dread, but with excitement, and with tons of hope for change. There is a way forward. There is room to grow. And in some cases, there is space for a much needed apology where harm has been done. 

It seems the best we can do may be to take everything back to basics. We must stop pre-supposing we know what’s best for people and allowing them to have some agency in making that choice; to stop prescribing labels and allowing the fullness of God to spring to life in one another. Living a Christian lifestyle and living with empathy, understanding, and willingness to grow shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. 

Maybe, as a last thought - whenever we’re sure we’ve got it all figured out, we might check ourselves by looking to the unending and radical heart of God, who has a sneaky way of reorienting even our most certain ideas. 

(And, at the risk of sounding trite, hallelujah for that.)

———

Acknowledgements: 

I was bowled over by just how many women (and men!) wanted to talk to me about this topic. In the last 6 months, I’ve had 7 hour-long phone calls, 240 survey responses, and countless coffee conversations where friends (but mostly perfect strangers) were willing to tell me what they thought: their stories, their pain, and their hope for a better future. So many took time to write paragraphs of academic paper-level discourse on this subject, to the point that they really should’ve written this series themselves. Thank you so much to all who were up for telling me some pretty intimate things, and especially to the people who told their stories of sexual violence for the first time to me. I am humbled by your openness, and I hope this series has honored your experiences. 

Purity Culture, Part II: Take a Complement

In the survey I posted on my Instagram, hundreds responded to this question: “Did you ever feel like you were out of place within your prescribed gender role at church? If so, please elaborate on how that looked.”

In each section below, you’ll hear from people who responded to my survey. I have ascribed everyone in this essay a fake name (I didn’t ask for names in my survey) to help delineate each individual response from the one before or after it. 

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“I was always viewed as being ‘too much,’ and told that no man would ever want me because I had dreams and aspirations beyond being a homemaker. I didn’t sit idly by and I always spoke my mind. I was constantly told that my behavior was ‘unbecoming.’” - Jenna

“I don’t know, she just seems kind of bitchy.” - me, on Hillary Clinton, talking to my youth group on a Wednesday night at church in 2006. 

Oh, high school Mary Catherine. 

Calling Hillary Clinton “bitchy” was my own tiny way of saying, “I’m going to curse and say something subversive here, because I don’t like the assumption that, just because I’m a girl, I have to be a ‘lady.’” I don’t know if I even really felt that way about Hillary (I certainly don’t now). But rocking the boat in whatever small, safe way I could felt good and powerful, even if it was ultimately pretty silly. 

For me, this was an act of protest. Which, for the record, is ridiculous - my church was very pro-women-in-leadership, as were my parents, so I had no system to buck against. And still - I couldn’t embrace feminism as an idea until my junior year of college, and even then, did it a little begrudgingly. Feminism was a word that didn’t belong in a sentence with “church going girl” or “Southern girl,” for that matter - both huge parts of my identity. It represented aggressive, loud, brash women.

Today, of course, I feel differently about it. Feminism stands alongside Southern and Christian as a profound part of who I am. But the gender roles taught within purity culture (and within society, really) constantly cause us to evaluate: even if women can, there’s always a question about whether women should. 

———

“I do have a strong personality and a gift for leadership but that was always encouraged. I was on our leadership team in youth group and led other groups. Submission was/is discussed as how a wife should submit to her husband's leadership in marriage, assuming he is leading in accordance with scripture. It has been made clear many times that this is NEVER in reference to women in a hurtful/abusive relationship and is never in a demeaning or overpowering way.” - Cindy

Complementarianism is “the idea that there are two distinct genders that have equal worth in God’s eyes, but very different rules, responsibilities, and expectations here on earth: The man is to be undeniably masculine, even as he practices patience and understanding as a leader, whereas the woman is to be irrefutably feminine and to lovingly consent to and support the leadership of the man” (Linda Kay Klein, 62). 

Though this term was new for me in doing this research, I was deeply familiar with its execution. Growing up, my first two long-term boyfriends (3 and 4.5 years, respectively) both attended the same Church of Christ in Decatur. I spent a lot of time in that church and around the idea of complementarianism, which showed up in pretty obvious ways, but is kind of all over the place if you’re looking for it. 

Cindy’s quote above reflects the goal of a healthy complementarian lifestyle: a man, led by God, leads his wife and household; a woman, following a godly male lead, leads a life alongside him - not unequal to him, but decidedly different in purpose. Within each role is a deeply understood set of gender prescriptions about the traditionally Christian male (strong, honorable, magnanimous, wise) and the traditionally Christian female (beautiful, humble, kind, nurturing).  

Complementarianism is evident in both protestant and Catholic churches, no matter how progressive. In the United Methodist Church, where I grew up, women are allowed in every position (all the way to the top - the Bishop of the UMC in the United States is a woman), but still experience massive gender discrimination. No matter how liberal the church, women in leadership positions almost inevitably ruffles someone’s feathers because the idea that men should lead is tacitly ingrained in many of us.

More obviously, many evangelical denominations don’t allow women in higher-level leadership - certainly at the preaching level, but as far-reaching as Sunday School or bible study classes. Doing so would buck against the norms set up by complementarianism: women shouldn’t be in leadership positions that give them authority over men in any setting.

In portions of the evangelical community, like the Church of Christ, the concept of gender separate-ness is taken to extremes: because of the implicit doctrine that women must never preside over men, if a boy as young as 8 chooses to get baptized, he could no longer participate in mixed-gender Sunday School or bible lessons taught by a woman. Getting baptized, which would effectively make him “beyond the age of innocence,” and, in essence, go from a spiritual boy to a spiritual man, would cause the formerly acceptable female Sunday School teacher to be rendered problematic. In those cases, the female teacher would either have to be replaced by a male, or the student would have to be moved out of the class. 

———

“I am female, but I was always very outspoken and questioned authority a lot (still do, hard enneagram 8 here). I was told I wouldn't make a good "Christian Wife" and that my career dreams (knew I wanted to be a lawyer since I was little) would fail because it was a man's world.” - Rhea

A particularly intense example of how complementarianism plays itself out in culture is evident at Lads to Leaders/Leaderettes, a convention held in many cities across the country, often on Easter weekend, that brings together thousands of young people from different Churches of Christ and offers competition-based activities to promote biblical familiarity, leadership skills, etc. 

One survey respondent wrote in specifically about this event, and I’ll let her take it from here: 

“We (the youth group) were involved in competitions within the Church of Christ—bible reading, song leading, etc. Men were not allowed to attend anything where women were leading worship. I remember being second place nationally in my age group in song leading (stay jealous) and being devastated that the men in my family, specifically my father, brother, and boy cousins, who I was always closest to, couldn’t see me win.  When I converted to the Episcopal church, I was allowed to be an acolyte and actively participate in the service. I was ecstatic and was “serving” at almost every service from the time I was 14 until I was 18.” - Lee

Another response about Lads to Leaders came shortly after: 

“Our congregation was/is involved in a regional conference-type event that happened yearly. The conference is/was geared to children ages 5-18, and tried/tries to create an environment in which youth from different congregations can compete in certain events- speech, song leading, you get it. At this conference, if a girl child participates in speech, even your very own five-year-old girl child, Dad cannot watch her give it/compete. Or brothers. Grandfather. Zero penis. [No] men at all. Because....that's women teaching men in the church and we just can NOT have that.” - Hannah

I can speak directly to this because I actually competed in the debate competition at Nashville’s Lads to Leaders in high school - no men were allowed to watch us compete (including my debate partner’s dad and my boyfriend), though we advanced and ultimately took first place. (That there was a humble brag.) 

Hannah continued:

“Ladies (at church) were expected to be in charge of young children, committees, bridal teas, baby showers, cleaning baptismal garments, and taking food to the sick folk. And honestly, no man was ever mean or rude or went out of their way to throw their proverbial weight around. Not to say there have never been those, or weren't those then, that have, but in my own personal experience it was just sort of the natural state of being.” 

The last part of Hannah’s answer, where she talks about how no one ever “threw (his) proverbial weight around” is noteworthy to me because it paints a clear picture of how this sort of dynamic is perpetuated. If everyone feels valued within their prescribed place in the structure of a church, then what’s the problem? 

Is it possible to see value in a system that also, in the end, caps what we teach our daughters about their own leadership potential? How do you answer the questions of a 5-year-old girl who asks why her father isn’t allowed to watch her shine? 

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“I  am definitely assertive with strong leadership skills and during my years in the church, I was never not in a leadership position. I taught Sunday school, sang in both the choir and as a worship leader, and was even given the opportunity to speak in front of the congregation a couple of times. If there were people telling me I needed to “submit” to anyone, I wasn’t listening!” - Rachel

It would be a mistake to assume that women who believe in and abide by complementarianism are weak, subservient, or simple-minded. Some of the strongest, most assertive women I know have learned to flex their leadership muscles in churches that promote ideals of gender separate-ness, and that may be part of the reason they have such powerful leadership skills to begin with: instead of competing with boys and men for the spotlight, they were given their own stage. 

I got to chat by phone with an inter-generational buddy/hero of mine who we’ll call Melissa - an undeniable leader with a sharp sense of humor and knock-your-boots off writing skills, who also subscribes to complementarianism. She and I differ politically and doctrinally on lots of things, but we share in common a streak of outspokenness. Here’s what she had to say about complementarianism: 

“Sometimes I wonder, am I a fraud? As a Southern Baptist, on its face, I believe in complementarianism - in the home, at least, I believe God has given...not unequal roles, but slightly different roles. On the one hand, our home functions that way because my husband is the breadwinner. But at the same time, in my own life, I have a husband who is pre-programmed...to esteem me, consider me...and I know in lots of complementarian homes and churches, that just ain’t the case.” 

When I asked her if she’d ever been negatively impacted by her big personality as it pertains to her gender role, especially as a young adult, she said: 

“I can’t ever say that anyone said to me, ‘You need to hush and sit down,’ but there was a lot of talk around me about the roles of women - enough that I knew that there was only so far I could go with certain things before I would run into that buzzsaw.” 

We talked a little longer about how the current climate of feminism and political promotion of women as leaders has impacted the Baptist church’s view on gender roles. Melissa acknowledged that there’s a lot of turmoil, and shared this story with me:

“There’s a massive internal debate raging about it right now. You have a lot of millennial pastors who’ve grown up in a world where professionally and civically, they’ve been raised to think of women as their peers. They find it utterly awkward to look at a woman and say, ‘You can’t teach this class because there are some men in it.’

I have a high view of scripture and believe that it’s specific about ordination and pastoral ministry, and that that is something that is reserved for men. But I do not at all buy into this idea that women are never to speak or teach or lead in front of men. When our long-time Sunday School teacher had to step back...he came to me and asked me if I would fill in. He had heard an audio tape of me teaching. He said, ‘You’re the person, will you do this?’ I said, ‘I’m happy to do this, but I know the Baptist faith and message well enough to know that this could not go well with some people. I’d like an assurance that no one is going to have a problem with this.’ I stood up and taught that class week after week that was populated with no fewer than 8 deacons in our church.” 

Eventually, a young male pastor came to her to express his discontent with her new role. She ultimately agreed with him that a man would’ve been the preferable choice and said to the pastor: 

“It’s a funny thing - none of the men in that class had studied the word as much as I had in the decade prior to that, and none of them were equipped. So who failed complementarianism there? I’m all for staying in my lane, but if you abdicate yours, I’m not going to let the sheep go unfed.’” 

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“While I had female role-models I looked up to, I more often found myself wanting to look like and be like boys, which really started ramping up in high school where I was a theatre kid and played mostly male roles, and dressed almost exclusively as male characters. Nowadays I've been transitioning in earnest for about five years, and have been one hormone replacement therapy for roughly 3 of those, and had a double mastectomy in March 2019.” - Taylor

Of course, the elephant in the room is comprised of all the people who don’t fit into a prescribed gender at all. What if your sexual orientation, from the beginning of your life, precludes you from ever feeling at home in the church because what you’re taught is that being a Christian means being a straight, cis-gendered male or female? 

I won’t presume to speak for the people who’ve had these experiences, beyond saying that this facet of complementarianism can’t be cleaned up or “done right.” There is simply no space for genderqueer, gender non-comforming, or gender non-binary people within its structure, and because of that, if you identify as anything other than traditionally male or female, you’re receiving the message in a complementarian church that the family of God does not have room for you. The pushback here would be that a conservative reading of scripture doesn’t allow for anything but traditionally heterosexual male/female relationships, and that the exclusionary nature of that reading is reflective of God’s design for men and women within marriage.

I wish to both represent that opinion as objectively as I can and also add as a personal and editorial comment that I find anything that is exclusionary about church to be against the very heart of God. 

If all you want to be seen as is “good,” in the eyes of your church family and your Creator, the idea that the very fabric of who you are is unacceptable right from the start is harrowing. And if you’re trying that to be true to who you are, yet still welcomed into your chosen house of God, it means you must be driven into secrecy. People who responded to my survey who had this experience spent years unwinding the lessons the church taught them about their own lack of worthiness or place.

By the time I came out, I was Episcopalian, and my church is affirming so it was a nonissue. I know I haven’t had it as bad as some have. It took me a long time to not hate myself for experimenting with my sexuality and gender identity, to allow myself to enjoy sex and to be interested in both learning about it and doing it. I was suicidal for a long time because I would feel like it was okay and then I’d lay in bed at night wondering if my natural state would send me to hell. I’ve never shaken the feeling of being rejected by my family. My wife’s family has always treated me as one of their own family and they love on me and cherish me, and it makes me sad to think about how my relationship with my family could have been if I had conformed to their expectations. But in the end, my life is full and joyous and I get to love the person God made for me and I get to enjoy being who I believe God wanted me to be. That is what I find so comforting when I am reminded of my family relationships. And not all of my family relationships are bad. They are all mostly civil to my wife and I. I guess I was just raised in such a tight-knit family that I expected more than civil. I expected deep and boundless love, and that’s just not a realistic reality for my family given the circumstances. And I hope to be okay with that someday. - Lee, who identifies as genderqueer and is now married to a trans woman

———

At my home church in Decatur, the youth take over the service for one Sunday a year. In 2005, I gave the sermon. I remember writing it, rehearsing it, going over it and over it to make it exactly right. I felt so proud, so energized - it was one of the purest moments of purpose I’ve ever had, not because it was about me, but because I felt like I was being used for something. My dad, brother, and grandfather were in the congregation that day. Just a year later, I would be standing in a room at the Opryland Hotel, working toward winning the debate prize at Lads to Leaders, while my boyfriend stood in the hall and prayed for us.

There will always be congregations - entire denominations, even - whose doctrine and politics promote complementarianism. Many of the people I love most subscribe to it and feel healthy within it, and that very fact keeps me from passing a judgment on the idea itself - it would be disrespectful and presumptuous of me to do so. Melissa’s existence and her role in the world prove that there are perfectly healthy ways to exercise this principle which promote women and their views, leadership, and skills.

What I can say from reading the 240 responses that were submitted to me about this very thing is that the practice is widely varied in its execution, sometimes lifting women up and celebrating their gifts at every turn, and other times communicating to them even as children that their gifts and talents (within the walls of the church and in the world at large) are only for the benefit of their female peers. Played to its fullest and most dangerous extreme, the latter notion gives women the impression that men will always have the final say and hold the cards for them - even when those men, contrary to Cindy’s quote above, aren’t living a godly life.

I am sorry to report that the power dynamic encouraged by complementarianism gone wrong leads to oppression and sometimes sexual violence, and that’s what we’ll talk about next week. It’s gnarly stuff, but it’s worth your time. And really, we have to look closely to ask: what are we teaching our daughters about what they deserve?

See you there.

Mary Catherine Q&A!

Well hello!

I’ve never done anything like a Q&A on my blog before, mostly because (if I’m being totally honest) these things seem like a bit of an exercise in vanity. But, I have been so excited and fortunate to see a big uptick in Instagram followers/blog readers (hey!) since the return of my ridiculous Insta-show, The Bachelor Corner, so I thought it might actually be informative to introduce myself more formally and answer some Q’s!

Forgive in advance the amount of mommy talk - that’s what you get when you’re almost 8 months pregnant and ask people if they have any questions.

Q. Are you doing things differently this time to prepare for labor/birth?
Yes! With Mac, my birth plan was basically “Show up to the hospital and let the medical professionals take it from there.” Because Jordan works in healthcare and I love my OB, I had/have a strong sense of confidence in the medical community. Mac’s birth went pretty sideways (you can read more about that here), and because of that, we’ve elected to be a little more proactive in the planning of the birth of our second baby. I don’t want to be too detailed until the delivery is over and done with out of an abundance of caution (and just weird juju that it seems better not to talk about too much?), but suffice it to say that plans are IN. PLACE.

Q. How did you and Jordan meet?
We actually went to college together at Birmingham-Southern in Birmingham, Alabama - it’s a pretty small, liberal arts school, so there was no way we wouldn’t have known each other. We were also both Greek, so we were thrown together in plenty of party scenarios. But I didn’t actually know him know him - he was just an acquaintance, and actually, the whole time we were in school, he was seriously dating a sorority sister of mine who was a couple of years older than me, so we had no reason to really know each other well.

The extremely classy (LOL) truth is that at a homecoming event after we’d both graduated (he’s a year older than I am), I drunkenly grabbed onto Jordan with a beer in one hand and a hot dog in the other because I thought he was my best friend, Wes. They weirdly look a lot a like and are similar heights, so from behind (and from behind my beer goggles) it was an easy mistake to make. Then I realized it was Jordan Scott, who I immediately complimented (“Jordan SCOTT! Lookin’ GOOD!”) and the rest was history. We spent the rest of the evening talking and hanging out, did a late-night run for a bunch of friends (we still joke that our first date was a Wendy’s drive-through), and he watched me eat two back-to-back Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers. Ah, young love. At the time, I was in my second year of Teach For America in Huntsville; Jordan had just started his third year of dental school at UAB, and we dated long-distance for a year and a half before getting engaged and married in 2014. Lightning fast, but when ya know, ya know.

Two young, skinny humans. Well, the skinny is just me. Jordan was regular. But we are young. Circa 2014!

Q. Did you have gestational diabetes with Mac?
No, but I know I’m getting this question because I talked about going in for my glucose test on Instagram, so here’s what I’ll say about this: there are so many things related to pregnancy that often feel really shaming in the moment, and if you have GD, IT’S ALL GONNA BE OKAY. Don’t let it ruin your experience because you think you’ve failed in some way! Everybody (literally every body) is different. No judgment, sister. You’re carrying a human and doing awesome.

Q. Are you finding out the gender of baby #2?
We know!! Eeeep! But we’re trying to keep relatively mum about it until the baby is here. Just makes it more fun. We also have already chosen a name, which is WAY WAY WAY harder to keep to myself for some reason. I’ve almost blabbed it countless times to my parents or on Stories.

Q. Any advice for recent Asheville transplants? Just moved there from the Big Apple!
WELCOME! Asheville is the best. I need to put a blog post together on this topic because I get this question constantly. There are so many fun things to do, so much beer to drink, so many outdoor opportunities to take advantage of. Some things are tagged as “Asheville” in my blog, so if you search, you’ll come up with a relatively good list!

Q. How did you know you were ready for baby #2?
Jordan and I are both firm believers in the “there’s never going to be a perfectly right time to do anything” school of thought. There is never going to be a perfect time to have a baby. Know why? A baby is a HUGE deal and rocks your entire life, no matter how “together” you feel like you’ve got it. If you’re waiting to make a major life decision based on some external factor falling into place, it seems to me you may be waiting for a while. For us, life isn’t about having all the pieces of the puzzle put together - we just go with our guts and take it from there. .

The biggest thing we wanted to try and manage was the age difference between the two kids - not too close, but not too far - so we thought hitting somewhere between 2 1/2 and 3 years of difference would work for us. That’s a personal choice for every couple, and Jord and I made that call based on our age differences with our siblings (we’re both oldest children with roughly 3 years of age difference between us and our next siblings). Mac and this baby will be almost exactly 2 1/2 years apart. YAY!

So the answer is - I’m not ready and I won’t be ready even on the day the baby gets here. But I have confidence that, just like with Mac, or marriage, or a new job, or a move, or whatever else, we’ll figure it out as we go along.

Q. How do you like being a stay-at-home-mom?
WHEW. Oh, so many ways to answer this!

First, let me just say that being a parent is hard work. Whatever your situation - working mom, stay-at-home-mom (SAHM), a little of both, nanny, no nanny, etc. - it is hard to be a parent. So I think we all get a little tip of the hat!

Being a SAHM has been super interesting for me. For most of my life, my own mom was a SAHM, so that’s the template I had to work from. I now realize and appreciate just how hard it is and how amazing she was at it, taking the time to make our lives so special and curated on a daily basis (thanks, April!!). It is a huge gift to be able to watch every moment of your child’s development as they learn all about the world around them and become more independent. Even on my most stressful days, I don’t take that for granted. Mac is a magical angel who I marvel at on a daily basis.

It can also be a huge challenge to maintain a sense of identity and autonomy outside of your children. When each and every day revolves around what your child needs, your own needs can get lost or at least sidelined. Until Mac was 1.5, he was at home with me full-time, all day, every day. I look back on that season of life and am so proud of myself retroactively for how well we both did with that arrangement. Now that he’s in school 3 days a week from 8-12, I truly can’t imagine how I did things any other way. Those three days a week are crucial for me to get things done, keep a clear mind, and devote my time to things that have nothing to do with being a parent. With those breaks (and frankly even smaller breaks, like when I run out to get my nails done and Jordan has Mac on a weekend), I find myself so refreshed and excited to re-engage.

It’s sometimes really hard when people assume that, because I stay at home, I have no other interests or ambitions outside of my child. Don’t get me wrong - I love to talk about Mac, but I also am a fully formed person completely separate from being a mom. Everyone feels differently about this, but I don’t find my entire identity or self-worth in being a mother. I have dreams and desires for my life that preceded Mac’s birth and that still fuel me. So if you’re a friend to a SAHM, make sure you’re asking about her dreams! It’s so important.

It’s a funny line to walk, as with many things about being a mom - the grass can seem greener on the other side. Sometimes, SAHM’s would kill for the level of independence of a working mom - other things to think about, social interaction with other adults; sometimes working moms would die for the luxury of being at home with their children full-time. For me, it’s a lesson in withholding judgment about anyone’s circumstance because we simply cannot know how hard someone else’s life is until we’ve lived it ourselves.

I think many people (and I’m sorry to say, a lot of them are men) assume that not working and being at home with kids is easy. It is NOT. That doesn’t mean it’s not wonderful - it just means it’s hard work. I have deep respect for all the mamas out there making it work for them however that looks, once choice and one day at a time.

A PSA: if you’re a SAHM, my biggest piece of advice is to BE PROACTIVE. If you’re losing your mind at home and are out of ideas, consult The Busy Toddler on Instagram. Find another parent who’s really good at outings and latch onto them. Be super brave and go to a playgroup. Try swim lessons. If you’re feeling anxious or depressed, ASK FOR HELP. There are childcare options that are so inexpensive it would melt your brain. Get what you need. It is not selfish to take time away from your children or to invest in yourself. You can’t pour out of an empty cup. Don’t let life crush you because you’re too proud to ask for help. You’ve had baby poop in your hair, girl. Tell the truth. Don’t be a hero. Go to the nail salon.

Wow, okay. Apparently had a lot to say about that.

What do you think you’d want to write a book about, if you know that yet?

One of my great dreams in life is to publish a book! I have always thought I’d want to do a book of essays (essentially just capsule stories about nothing - probably nonfiction - that would make people laugh or relate in some way). Lately, though, I’m realizing the thing that most interests me is human interest stories and how we all relate to each other. That’s why I’ve been publishing so many things like my vaccines post, this purity culture series I’m working on, essays about homosexuality and the church - it’s just endlessly fascinating to think and write about how we all relate to one another.

Where are you from?

Originally from Decatur, Alabama! Lived there until I was 18, then moved to Birmingham for college. Did 2 years of Teach For America in York, Alabama and Huntsville, respectively, then moved to Memphis to work for TFA, back to Birmingham to work for a small non-profit called A Plus Education Partnership, then got married and moved to Asheville!

Have you explained your tattoo? What is it?

No, I haven’t! To be honest, I was really self-conscious about it when I first got it and didn’t want to make a “thing” of it, so it I just never mentioned explicitly. As with most tattoos, I’ve learned, its origin is long story, but the most important nugget is that Jordan and I were/are huge fans of The Office. The tattoo itself is something Jordan unwittingly sketched, thinking it was going on a card to a friend, to symbolize the line when Michael talks about the fact that he and Holly are “soup snakes,” AKA soulmates. So the actual art is a drawing of a bowl of soup with two noodle “snakes” coming out in the shape of a heart. I actually often forget I have it because it’s on the outside of my wrist where I can’t see! I wanted it in the most subtle possible ink color and style, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. It was a surprise for Jord for Christmas 2 years ago.

What made you start doing The Bachelor Corner?

Oh, The Bachelor Corner. That old gal. When I started this blog in 2015, for some reason I got on a wild hare about recapping The Bachelor as part of what I wrote (at that point I was child-free and writing a post EVERY DAY). I would get up at 5 AM, watch the episode on Hulu, take notes, then go back and screen grab the moments I wanted to talk about. Then I would write the post itself in bullet-point recap form, insert the images, and publish. Including watching the show, the whole process took about 4-4.5 hours every Tuesday morning.

After Mac was born, I shut down the Bachelor Recaps (which are still available on my blog under the “Pop Culture” tab up top!), but really missed the silliness and engagement it brought. So I tried to come up with a way to do those sorts of posts again, but it continued to feel too time-consuming. Cut to: me sitting in the floor talking to my phone.

To be honest, it’s one of the things I’m most insecure about doing because of how goofy and inconsequential it is. I’m very aware that no one asked for it, so one of my constant thoughts is, “Why are you doing this? Nobody asked for your opinion, MC.” But the more I’ve done it, the more I get DM’s that say it makes people laugh or gives them a break in their Tuesday mornings, and that’s worth its weight in gold to me. To be able to offer someone a little levity and fun is hilarious.

The other piece is that I truly LOVE the human component of the show - these people making bizarre choices and saying insane things just gives me life. And above all, we contain multitudes - who says you can’t enjoy the horror that is reality TV while also having informed opinions about politics, feminism, and religion? That’s why the tagline of my blog says what it does - you deserve to have access to it all, all at once.

I also hope that people will actually continue to read my blog, though! That’s where my real passion lives.

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Okay - this was really fun! Hope it was fun and informative for y’all - maybe we’ll do it again next quarter.