Domestic Diva wrote in the other day, mentioning that she had had a number of dating relationships that ended up costing more than she could give. And although it it is common to talk about relationships this way, I was momentarily taken aback by the language of "give" and "cost". People also talk about relationships being "work." Now, call me cold-blooded, but the only romantic relationship I can think of that demands "give" and "work" is marriage.
Maybe I should write a book called Zen and the Art of Dating. What prevents this is that I don't exactly know what Zen is, other than that it implies a certain detachment, tranquility and che sera, sera.
"Relationships aren't supposed to be work," said a good friend to me one day. "They're supposed to be easy."
She said this in an art gallery in Montreal. At the time we were talking about a chap I was dating, who enjoyed all the hanging out, but didn't seem to be in love with me. He never held my hand in public, for example. If He's Just Not That Into You had been published, I would have understood exactly what the trouble was. But, anyway, there I was with my happily married friend, and she gave me this great revelation: dating relationships are supposed to be fun. If they're not fun, why bother? I mean, really, why bother? If it's not fun before you're married, if marriage is even in the cards, what makes you think it will be fun afterwards?
Friendship is different, but friendship takes time. In general, when we make friends, it is an easy if lengthy process. In short, birds of a feather flock together. I don't know how men go about this, but a woman sizes up a new woman and often just knows that she is a potential friend. A certain sympathy just springs up between them, based on some shared trait or trait, belief or beliefs. And, in general, adult women take these new relationships calmly. We all know our friends can't meet up daily or sometimes even weekly. We have family and work commitments; they have family and work commitments. We manage a comfortable detachment about our friends. If a good friend doesn't call, we don't lurk by the phone. We call them up ourselves when we think about it and say, "You swine. You never call. What gives?" And then she says, "Swine yourself. You never call me." Et cetera.
This easy banter does not seem to extend to the greater part of dating relationships, and perhaps it shouldn't, really. When it comes to romance, we're hoping this acquaintance or friend will become "more than friends." We're disappointed by offers of continued friendship. We're devastated by the idea that the Beloved might want to be "just friends."
I don't like devastation, which is why I counsel detachment again and again. Detachment keeps us sane. Detachment keeps us from demanding more than someone wants to give. Detachment keeps us from giving more than we ought to give. Which brings me again to this whole question of giving. Women are addicted to giving. It turns into a freaking disease.
A young woman asked my advice about a plain young man who's shown interest in her for years. She finally consented to going out for dinner with him, but wondered if she should cancel. Because she couldn't think of anything wrong with his character, I said "No." It's rude to cancel dates; you should only do so if you realize that the man is evil. But other than that, my attitude is that you should do what you want, as long as it is moral, and don't do what you don't want to do, as long as that is moral, too.
If someone asks you out for dinner, and you want to go, go. Don't assume this is a tacit understanding you're getting married one day. Detach. If he doesn't call you afterwards, don't call him.
If someone asks you to a film, and you want to see it, go. Don't assume this is a tacit understanding you're getting married one day. Detach. If he doesn't call you afterwards, don't call him.
But this is about meeting up. Obviously if someone makes some sort of move that, if you go along with it, frankly discourages other suitors, then you have to start asking questions. The most obvious one is when a suitor takes your hand in public, and you wonder what that means, or if he kisses you on the lips, and you wonder what that means. It shouldn't mean squat. Make sure it doesn't.
Meanwhile, your lives are too precious to waste on dating relationships that go on for years and then peter out from boredom. The longest an exclusive, post-school, situation should last before a marriage proposal is one year. I know various people think it should be much longer, for how can you know a person's whole character in just one year, etc. but I've known my husband for two years, and whole parts of his character are still a mystery. And I don't mind the mystery, for without it, I would probably be bored. A year is plenty of time to know if you're the One or not.
IMHO the answer to how much should you give a man you're not related, engaged or married to is practically nothing. Give him only as much of your precious time as you wish AND can afford to give. Send him a birthday card. If you give him a present, make sure it is just a book or an inexpensive trinket. Give him advice if he asks for it. Above all, do not make a martyr of yourself. There is no call to make sacrifices for attractive adult men to whom you are neither related nor married. Doing so is the primordial female sin. When we give until it hurts to some man who never gave a damn in first place, we have only ourselves to blame.
Update: I anticipate a dozen comments demanding "But what if he's sick? Can't I bring him chicken soup?" Well, obviously, we are called to perform works of mercy. So perform works of mercy, but don't expect anything back. Detach.
Monday, 11 October 2010
Saturday, 9 October 2010
What is Falling in Love Like?
When 15 years ago or so I asked my father how he knew he wanted to marry my mother, he was somewhat taken aback. But he admitted that this was the sort of question a father ought to answer, and so he hemmed and hawed and in the end said it was metaphysical.
The classical answer to "How do I know this is the right person?" is even more unsatisfactory, as it is "You just know."
"You just know" never worked for me, for I have fallen "in love" about a dozen times, although usually with people I barely knew and who barely knew me. Feeling dizzy when seeing a certain attractive young man, feeling overcome with grief and going home to listen to Beethoven is not, I have at long last decided, actual proof of true love. In fact, any kind of drama can in general be thrown out by the court as inadmissible evidence of true love.
I really don't have the heart this morning to go through a very long list of things I once wrongly thought were the tokens of true love (e.g. a man's suicide threats) but are actually symptoms of infatuation or hallmarks of immature or control-freakish personalities. Instead I'll try to wring some generalities out of particulars. To do this I will look over the blue notebook I brought to Scotland to record my impressions of the majestic highlands, etc., and ended up full of the perfections of B.A., a blog reader (and friend of friends) who had offered to put me up in Scotland for a week.
1. Happiness without Hysteria. From the first moment I met B.A. in person, I felt happy around him. In fact, when I first heard his voice, I felt very relieved because it was such a nice voice, pleasant, friendly and attractive. Also, I had been travelling for 20 hours straight, and there he was with a cup of tea. When I woke up the next morning, I felt perfectly happy.
2. A Grip on Reality. This happiness was not 24/7, however, as I soon caught a cold, and B.A. seemed to talk incessantly. I spent a third of the time wanting to gag him, a third of the time chatting along, and a third of the time either sleeping or writing about how happy I was and how interesting B.A. and Scotland were. When I wasn't thinking "He's so attractive," I was thinking, "He looks just like one of my father's bearded British colleagues, only younger."
3. Clear Knowledge of the Person. B.A. was about to make his first confession, so in the manner of unwary people on a first date, he practised on me. It was a very exciting conversation, I must say, covering about 30 years and including B.A's process of conversion. And this is when I got a very strong crush on B.A. Nevertheless, I do not recommend that anyone sit down with their foreign houseguest and just blurt. I had a back-up running-away plan, incidentally, should my host have turned out to be a weirdo.
4. Justified Respect for the Person. B.A. was so kindly and cheerful, that eventually my one fear was that he wasn't a little in love with me, he was just that nice to everyone. I have never had such a thoughtful host. "The great thing about B.A., besides being charming and witty, is that he is extraordinarily kind," I wrote. Since I was laid low for what has become my annual Michaelmas cold, he brought me endless comfy blankets and pots of tea. Meanwhile, when we first went to Mass, I discovered that he had many friends in the small congregation, who invited him (and me) to their parties and whatnot. I met his boss; she liked him too. B.A. never had an unkind word for or about anybody, and he was very well-read, intelligent and had an educated taste in literature and music.
5. Attraction. I wrote, "Dear me, I wish my host were not so attractive... He will no doubt marry the first British traddie who comes along." Meanwhile, I knew he had had for years a crush on the singer Emma Kirkby--who has fuzzy red hair--so I could hope he had a thing for fuzzy redheads in general. When for mysterious reasons he told me what his annual income was, I took it as a good sign.
6. Realization that you and the Person could have a really splendid life together. I loved his town, his flat (so comfy!), his job, his traditional Latin Mass, his cooking, his friends, his friends' conversation, his friends' dinner parties, his interests and his jokes. (Still do!)
7. Friends watch avidly and cheer from the sidelines. One of his friends buttonholed him after Mass to tell him how splendid marriage is. Other friends simply smirked at us. I remember quite a lot of smirking. And hints. Lots of hints.
8. Being Seized and Not Minding. So eventually B.A., who had had his own process of faling in love, seized me in his B.A.ish arms and demanded to know if I would be his "darling girl." I said yes. Then five days later he asked me to think about marrying him. I said yes.
It was very romantic and so, despite being a cynical 21st century person, I do believe in love. Love is a fact. It can be experienced, understood, judged and decided upon. In fact, I have worked out a whole Lonerganian reflection on it.
Meanwhile, B.A.'s baby-having potential did not really occur to me until he told a relation that he had found "the One" and she asked, in the manner of cynical non-religious relations everywhere, "Is she pregnant?"
The classical answer to "How do I know this is the right person?" is even more unsatisfactory, as it is "You just know."
"You just know" never worked for me, for I have fallen "in love" about a dozen times, although usually with people I barely knew and who barely knew me. Feeling dizzy when seeing a certain attractive young man, feeling overcome with grief and going home to listen to Beethoven is not, I have at long last decided, actual proof of true love. In fact, any kind of drama can in general be thrown out by the court as inadmissible evidence of true love.
I really don't have the heart this morning to go through a very long list of things I once wrongly thought were the tokens of true love (e.g. a man's suicide threats) but are actually symptoms of infatuation or hallmarks of immature or control-freakish personalities. Instead I'll try to wring some generalities out of particulars. To do this I will look over the blue notebook I brought to Scotland to record my impressions of the majestic highlands, etc., and ended up full of the perfections of B.A., a blog reader (and friend of friends) who had offered to put me up in Scotland for a week.
1. Happiness without Hysteria. From the first moment I met B.A. in person, I felt happy around him. In fact, when I first heard his voice, I felt very relieved because it was such a nice voice, pleasant, friendly and attractive. Also, I had been travelling for 20 hours straight, and there he was with a cup of tea. When I woke up the next morning, I felt perfectly happy.
2. A Grip on Reality. This happiness was not 24/7, however, as I soon caught a cold, and B.A. seemed to talk incessantly. I spent a third of the time wanting to gag him, a third of the time chatting along, and a third of the time either sleeping or writing about how happy I was and how interesting B.A. and Scotland were. When I wasn't thinking "He's so attractive," I was thinking, "He looks just like one of my father's bearded British colleagues, only younger."
3. Clear Knowledge of the Person. B.A. was about to make his first confession, so in the manner of unwary people on a first date, he practised on me. It was a very exciting conversation, I must say, covering about 30 years and including B.A's process of conversion. And this is when I got a very strong crush on B.A. Nevertheless, I do not recommend that anyone sit down with their foreign houseguest and just blurt. I had a back-up running-away plan, incidentally, should my host have turned out to be a weirdo.
4. Justified Respect for the Person. B.A. was so kindly and cheerful, that eventually my one fear was that he wasn't a little in love with me, he was just that nice to everyone. I have never had such a thoughtful host. "The great thing about B.A., besides being charming and witty, is that he is extraordinarily kind," I wrote. Since I was laid low for what has become my annual Michaelmas cold, he brought me endless comfy blankets and pots of tea. Meanwhile, when we first went to Mass, I discovered that he had many friends in the small congregation, who invited him (and me) to their parties and whatnot. I met his boss; she liked him too. B.A. never had an unkind word for or about anybody, and he was very well-read, intelligent and had an educated taste in literature and music.
5. Attraction. I wrote, "Dear me, I wish my host were not so attractive... He will no doubt marry the first British traddie who comes along." Meanwhile, I knew he had had for years a crush on the singer Emma Kirkby--who has fuzzy red hair--so I could hope he had a thing for fuzzy redheads in general. When for mysterious reasons he told me what his annual income was, I took it as a good sign.
6. Realization that you and the Person could have a really splendid life together. I loved his town, his flat (so comfy!), his job, his traditional Latin Mass, his cooking, his friends, his friends' conversation, his friends' dinner parties, his interests and his jokes. (Still do!)
7. Friends watch avidly and cheer from the sidelines. One of his friends buttonholed him after Mass to tell him how splendid marriage is. Other friends simply smirked at us. I remember quite a lot of smirking. And hints. Lots of hints.
8. Being Seized and Not Minding. So eventually B.A., who had had his own process of faling in love, seized me in his B.A.ish arms and demanded to know if I would be his "darling girl." I said yes. Then five days later he asked me to think about marrying him. I said yes.
It was very romantic and so, despite being a cynical 21st century person, I do believe in love. Love is a fact. It can be experienced, understood, judged and decided upon. In fact, I have worked out a whole Lonerganian reflection on it.
Meanwhile, B.A.'s baby-having potential did not really occur to me until he told a relation that he had found "the One" and she asked, in the manner of cynical non-religious relations everywhere, "Is she pregnant?"
Thursday, 7 October 2010
Auntie Seraphic & "Should I Apologize?"
Dear Auntie Seraphic:
Four years ago I dated a guy we'll call Quiet Clive. He was nice, and a good Catholic, but very reserved, and I never felt like we clicked. We'd meet up every couple of weeks, or he'd come over to my house when I came home from college, but he never even held my hand, or said anything "romantic," or asked me to be his girlfriend.
It was my first dating relationship, and the only rules I knew were to Let The Man Lead. But I was never sure whether we were "just dating" or "boyfriend and girlfriend," or if he was just lonely, or trying to take things slow, or what. I knew he liked me, and I wanted to give him a chance. He was a quiet guy, so I figured this might take a little longer than normal to heat up. After about 5 months of seeing him on a weekend here and there (in between college stuff, it went by really fast) I was starting to fall for someone else. So I told him I enjoyed hanging out with him, but wanted to be clear that I wanted to see him just as a friend. Within a very short time of having this conversation, I heard that he was moving far away. It happened that we said goodbye with my family around, and I felt like maybe he was tearing up, but I couldn't be sure.
When I saw Clive about a year and a half later at a concert, he hid from me. Literally. (He was not there with another girl.) Again, I kind of tried to follow his lead, so I didn't push it. I had been the one to break it off, so I figured I would respect his boundaries.
Over the years, I haven't thought of Clive much, but for some reason he came up in my prayer the other day. I'm kind of discerning my career path right now, and I've been thinking a lot about my own character and relationships, particularly the relationships that have gone sour. It's always sucky to have the "I just want to be friends" talk, but I wonder if I hurt him really badly, more than I realized at the time, and if he felt like I was leading him on. I was self-centered and inexperienced, and I didn't understand or appreciate his personality very much. I still think I did the right thing by breaking it off, but I wonder if maybe I should write him an email or letter and apologize, just in case I hurt him unduly in the process.
There are a couple people in my life who have hurt me, but I know I will never get an apology from them. I don't want to be that person for him. Sometimes I think, "hey, if I'm right I've helped to heal the wound, but if I'm wrong I just look like an idiot, and he can shrug it off." But then again, I don't want to be some neurotic girl showing up in his inbox. Maybe this is just coming out of my own existential crisis and I should ignore it.
In matters of the heart, when does one apologize, even conditionally? Is there a statute of limitations? On the flip side, when should one ask for an apology? What do your readers think?
"Should I Apologize?"
Dear SIA,
Hold the phone. This was four years ago? I'm assuming wildly that you and Clive were not 12 or 14 at the time although that is how Clive is coming across. I am also assuming that since you say the relationship never heated up Clive never suddenly seized you in his Clively arms, which is the one-and-only non-verbal way these decadent days to know that a man is really attracted to you. (On second thought, he could take your hand.)
You do not owe Clive any kind of apology whatsoever. You gave Clive some quality time (off-and-on) for a whole five months, five months in which Clive could have seized you in his Clively arms (thus showing his intentions), and then you very wisely got interested in someone else, and told Clive. It doesn't sound like Clive put up much of a fight, and hiding from you at the concert was utterly lame.
I vote 100% against sending Clive an "I'm sorry if I hurt you email" especially considering that Clive might not have thought of you in 2 years and would be offended to think that you thought he was that hurt. I had a guy apologize to me in front of his then-wife, and what I said was, "Well, So-and-so, it was NINE YEARS AGO, you know." Frankly, I thought he was horribly conceited, and his poor (now ex) wife's face.... Eeee!
What you might like to do is look up old Clive on Facebook and try to Facebook befriend him. That way your curiosity about Clive will be slaked, without you making either of you feel bad.
Meawhile, it is perfectly normal to have an existential crisis and wonder about all your old flames. You should have seen me at 29 or so. I was calling them up on the phone. The horror. Try not to succumb to this common temptation, and don't read anything into it when your old flames do. Meanwhile, only offer and expect apologies to and from your family and current friends, that's what I say.
Grace and peace,
Seraphic
P.S. to Men of the World: Please. We beg you. If you're that into us, ask us out for dinner. Take our little hand in yours. Ask, after a month or two of dating, "Can I call you my girlfriend?" That way we'll know what is going on. (Unless we're married or nuns. In that case leave our little hands alone!)
Four years ago I dated a guy we'll call Quiet Clive. He was nice, and a good Catholic, but very reserved, and I never felt like we clicked. We'd meet up every couple of weeks, or he'd come over to my house when I came home from college, but he never even held my hand, or said anything "romantic," or asked me to be his girlfriend.
It was my first dating relationship, and the only rules I knew were to Let The Man Lead. But I was never sure whether we were "just dating" or "boyfriend and girlfriend," or if he was just lonely, or trying to take things slow, or what. I knew he liked me, and I wanted to give him a chance. He was a quiet guy, so I figured this might take a little longer than normal to heat up. After about 5 months of seeing him on a weekend here and there (in between college stuff, it went by really fast) I was starting to fall for someone else. So I told him I enjoyed hanging out with him, but wanted to be clear that I wanted to see him just as a friend. Within a very short time of having this conversation, I heard that he was moving far away. It happened that we said goodbye with my family around, and I felt like maybe he was tearing up, but I couldn't be sure.
When I saw Clive about a year and a half later at a concert, he hid from me. Literally. (He was not there with another girl.) Again, I kind of tried to follow his lead, so I didn't push it. I had been the one to break it off, so I figured I would respect his boundaries.
Over the years, I haven't thought of Clive much, but for some reason he came up in my prayer the other day. I'm kind of discerning my career path right now, and I've been thinking a lot about my own character and relationships, particularly the relationships that have gone sour. It's always sucky to have the "I just want to be friends" talk, but I wonder if I hurt him really badly, more than I realized at the time, and if he felt like I was leading him on. I was self-centered and inexperienced, and I didn't understand or appreciate his personality very much. I still think I did the right thing by breaking it off, but I wonder if maybe I should write him an email or letter and apologize, just in case I hurt him unduly in the process.
There are a couple people in my life who have hurt me, but I know I will never get an apology from them. I don't want to be that person for him. Sometimes I think, "hey, if I'm right I've helped to heal the wound, but if I'm wrong I just look like an idiot, and he can shrug it off." But then again, I don't want to be some neurotic girl showing up in his inbox. Maybe this is just coming out of my own existential crisis and I should ignore it.
In matters of the heart, when does one apologize, even conditionally? Is there a statute of limitations? On the flip side, when should one ask for an apology? What do your readers think?
"Should I Apologize?"
Dear SIA,
Hold the phone. This was four years ago? I'm assuming wildly that you and Clive were not 12 or 14 at the time although that is how Clive is coming across. I am also assuming that since you say the relationship never heated up Clive never suddenly seized you in his Clively arms, which is the one-and-only non-verbal way these decadent days to know that a man is really attracted to you. (On second thought, he could take your hand.)
You do not owe Clive any kind of apology whatsoever. You gave Clive some quality time (off-and-on) for a whole five months, five months in which Clive could have seized you in his Clively arms (thus showing his intentions), and then you very wisely got interested in someone else, and told Clive. It doesn't sound like Clive put up much of a fight, and hiding from you at the concert was utterly lame.
I vote 100% against sending Clive an "I'm sorry if I hurt you email" especially considering that Clive might not have thought of you in 2 years and would be offended to think that you thought he was that hurt. I had a guy apologize to me in front of his then-wife, and what I said was, "Well, So-and-so, it was NINE YEARS AGO, you know." Frankly, I thought he was horribly conceited, and his poor (now ex) wife's face.... Eeee!
What you might like to do is look up old Clive on Facebook and try to Facebook befriend him. That way your curiosity about Clive will be slaked, without you making either of you feel bad.
Meawhile, it is perfectly normal to have an existential crisis and wonder about all your old flames. You should have seen me at 29 or so. I was calling them up on the phone. The horror. Try not to succumb to this common temptation, and don't read anything into it when your old flames do. Meanwhile, only offer and expect apologies to and from your family and current friends, that's what I say.
Grace and peace,
Seraphic
P.S. to Men of the World: Please. We beg you. If you're that into us, ask us out for dinner. Take our little hand in yours. Ask, after a month or two of dating, "Can I call you my girlfriend?" That way we'll know what is going on. (Unless we're married or nuns. In that case leave our little hands alone!)
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Who Gets the Babies?
A controversy has blown up, as it does, so let us charge right into it. The controversy is not about "gay adoption" or even about the right of Catholic agencies to operate without being forced to give up children to "gay couples." It is about unmarried people adopting children.
The question of childlessness is an aspect of Single life that still touches me pesonally. Indeed, it is more present than ever, for chaste Single women do not expect to find themselves pregnant one morning, and chaste Married women do. Once a month our hopes are dashed yet again and, to quote my inner child, it sucks.
Interestingly, my experience as a childless married woman has softened my attitude towards the possibilities of single people adopting children. And yet, when I was Single, had my unmarried sister died in childbed, I would have offered to adopt her son in a heartbeat. (Of course, I would have stopped short of legally wresting him from his natural father, something I might very much have wanted to do. I had read Thomas Aquinas on the subject by the advent of my nephew, you see.)
But as you see I am talking about a concrete, real-life child, and what would have been a concrete, real-life situation, not about abstracts and generalities. In the abstract, I can argue like any good Catholic that the few white babies offered up for adoption ought to go to those white married couples who seem best suited to take care of them. (Race is, of course, a whole other issue in adoption politics.) In the particular, I could not argue that my nephew ought to have gone to a white married couple and not to Single me. In fact, I do know of a Single woman who adopted her sister's lovechild, and far from being a monster of selfishness, she is widely accounted a saint.
Many women long in the abstract to be mothers and, single or married, consumerist society tempts us with ideas some find reasonable but Catholics find disgusting. When I was still Single, an old friend timidly suggested that I go to a pub, seduce a patsy, and get myself knocked up. That's not how she put it, but that's what she meant.
Now that I am married, nobody has suggested I put myself and my husband through the sci-fi nightmare that is IVF, but I live a sheltered life these days. I did once know a woman who did that, and in the end the IVF people were trying to get her to sign over the "leftover" embryos for "research"--which makes the Monty Python joke about selling excess children for scientific experiments somehow less funny. My, things have changed since 1983.
What often stops us from doing something very wicked in the name of motherhood, I think, is the mantra that every child deserves a mother and a father. And indeed, I do believe that every child deserves a mother and a father. What I don't believe is that every child has a reasonable hope of having a mother and a father. There are, worldwide, an enormous number of children whose parents are dying or dead.
I could not, for the life of me, think of a Single woman of means willing to mother an orphaned child--not a baby, although I have something to say about that too--as selfish. There is a waiting list for tiny white babies; there is no (although I could be mistaken) a waiting list for children of any colour. Here in Scotland, foster parents are paid, actually paid, to take care of children of simply ghastly backgrounds, and sometimes those foster parents actually adopt them. I can think of few things more meritorious than that. I wonder if I would have courage. At any rate, I believe that there are Single women of means who do have the courage and would make splendid mothers for children who would otherwise have no loving parent capable of parenting at all.
Not everybody has that courage, and instead turn to China and other countries where many babies--especially girl babies--are treated abominably if they are allowed to be born at all. And in this case, once again I say that it is better for a child to be given a mother, no matter how foreign or Single, than to languish in state care or be drowned in a ditch.
In short, it is not a question of "no woman has the right to a child." It is a question of "Does a living, motherless child have the right to a mother?" I say, yes, even if that mother has no husband, if there are no potential mothers-with-husbands offering for that particular, concrete child. I cannot see forcing a concrete, living, motherless child to remain motherless just because there is no father on offer, too.
There is no one-size solution to the question of adoption. Yes, evil must not be done so that good may come of it, but I cannot believe it is necessarily an evil for a Single woman--a Single woman of good character and means--to adopt a child.
Update: Related and very, very sad.
The question of childlessness is an aspect of Single life that still touches me pesonally. Indeed, it is more present than ever, for chaste Single women do not expect to find themselves pregnant one morning, and chaste Married women do. Once a month our hopes are dashed yet again and, to quote my inner child, it sucks.
Interestingly, my experience as a childless married woman has softened my attitude towards the possibilities of single people adopting children. And yet, when I was Single, had my unmarried sister died in childbed, I would have offered to adopt her son in a heartbeat. (Of course, I would have stopped short of legally wresting him from his natural father, something I might very much have wanted to do. I had read Thomas Aquinas on the subject by the advent of my nephew, you see.)
But as you see I am talking about a concrete, real-life child, and what would have been a concrete, real-life situation, not about abstracts and generalities. In the abstract, I can argue like any good Catholic that the few white babies offered up for adoption ought to go to those white married couples who seem best suited to take care of them. (Race is, of course, a whole other issue in adoption politics.) In the particular, I could not argue that my nephew ought to have gone to a white married couple and not to Single me. In fact, I do know of a Single woman who adopted her sister's lovechild, and far from being a monster of selfishness, she is widely accounted a saint.
Many women long in the abstract to be mothers and, single or married, consumerist society tempts us with ideas some find reasonable but Catholics find disgusting. When I was still Single, an old friend timidly suggested that I go to a pub, seduce a patsy, and get myself knocked up. That's not how she put it, but that's what she meant.
Now that I am married, nobody has suggested I put myself and my husband through the sci-fi nightmare that is IVF, but I live a sheltered life these days. I did once know a woman who did that, and in the end the IVF people were trying to get her to sign over the "leftover" embryos for "research"--which makes the Monty Python joke about selling excess children for scientific experiments somehow less funny. My, things have changed since 1983.
What often stops us from doing something very wicked in the name of motherhood, I think, is the mantra that every child deserves a mother and a father. And indeed, I do believe that every child deserves a mother and a father. What I don't believe is that every child has a reasonable hope of having a mother and a father. There are, worldwide, an enormous number of children whose parents are dying or dead.
I could not, for the life of me, think of a Single woman of means willing to mother an orphaned child--not a baby, although I have something to say about that too--as selfish. There is a waiting list for tiny white babies; there is no (although I could be mistaken) a waiting list for children of any colour. Here in Scotland, foster parents are paid, actually paid, to take care of children of simply ghastly backgrounds, and sometimes those foster parents actually adopt them. I can think of few things more meritorious than that. I wonder if I would have courage. At any rate, I believe that there are Single women of means who do have the courage and would make splendid mothers for children who would otherwise have no loving parent capable of parenting at all.
Not everybody has that courage, and instead turn to China and other countries where many babies--especially girl babies--are treated abominably if they are allowed to be born at all. And in this case, once again I say that it is better for a child to be given a mother, no matter how foreign or Single, than to languish in state care or be drowned in a ditch.
In short, it is not a question of "no woman has the right to a child." It is a question of "Does a living, motherless child have the right to a mother?" I say, yes, even if that mother has no husband, if there are no potential mothers-with-husbands offering for that particular, concrete child. I cannot see forcing a concrete, living, motherless child to remain motherless just because there is no father on offer, too.
There is no one-size solution to the question of adoption. Yes, evil must not be done so that good may come of it, but I cannot believe it is necessarily an evil for a Single woman--a Single woman of good character and means--to adopt a child.
Update: Related and very, very sad.
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Auntie Seraphic & "Settle for Less?"
Dear Auntie Seraphic,
I was just reading one of your recent columns and something prompted me to remember a conversation I had with a friend awhile back. She and I are both single and (reasonably) convinced that our vocation is marriage.
Anyway, I was telling her that the last several men who have crossed my path, although practicing Catholics, have not been suitable. Somewhere in there, mention was made of my long-time-ago engagement to a man who ended up becoming a priest. I said that we had shared such a deep connection that it is hard to settle for less than that level of intellectual/spiritual/interpersonal intimacy. I felt like he really "got" me. My friend observed that obviously it was not God's will for me to marry him because he is a priest now. Was it possible that I was maintaining an attachment to what he and I had shared that is blocking me from being open to the men God is now bringing into my life? Even if I don't have the same sense of connection, she thought, if God's vocation is for me to be married, then I shouldn't let the lack of "that kind" of connection be an obstacle.
Needless to say, that doesn't sit well with me. If there isn't that kind of connection, i. e. if I don't really get him, and he doesn't really get me, I can't imagine what the point of being married is? I don't think I could be bothered.
Thoughts?
Settle-for-Less?
Dear S4L,
Once upon a time, we had a rock-solid sense that marriage was for life and that no matter hard it got, once we were married, we were stuck. However, we also believed that being Single was worse than being married, unless we were called to the priesthood or religious life, and those ways of life could also be very hard, and if we went into them, we were just as stuck.
Today only a minority of people in the West have the same confidence in marriage, priesthood or the religious life. And at the same time, we are incredibly naive. When we make our fatal choice, we tend to think marriage, priesthood or religious life is going to fabulous 99.9% of the time, and if they aren't, then we have made a terrible mistake and must move on, pronto.
Now this is not to say that people do not make terrible mistakes. Marriage, priesthood and religious life are not supposed to be ghastly 99.9% of the time, either. We are supposed to have a period of preparation for each, to make sure we aren't making a mistake: engagment, seminary formation, or novitiate. And bad stuff still happens. How happy am I, for example, that my divorce was relatively easy. My annullment was not, but, hey, neither is chemotherapy, I've heard.
But divorce seems easier than staying married when the chips are down, and marriage is increasingly seen not as the bedrock of society but as a lifestyle choice.I have personally heard one nervous bride being told that if her marriage doesn't work out she could always get a divorce, as if her groom were a cardigan she wasn't sure about but could be returned to the store if she kept the receipt. But this flies against what we know about marriage as Catholics, and in general and barring early death, we have only one shot at it.
Therefore, if you are going to get married, you are going to have to be absolutely darned sure that (A) you yourself are capable of maintaining a marriage for the rest of your life and (B) your fiance is the kind of man you could rub along with happily for the rest of your life.
Now, when my mum was 23, she was capable of maintaining a marriage for the rest of her life, although I don't know why, other than that she was born in an entirely different world from the one I was born in. I certainly was not capable of maintaining a marriage when I was 23, or 25, or probably even 30. How much of this I can blame on society is an open question. But, happily, by the ripe old age of 38, I was capable of it, and I did get married, so that is my own answer to A.
Now, my own answer to B is a bit hilarious, but bear with me. Essentially I fell in love with B.A. within 48 hours of meeting him and miraculously kept my mouth shut about it up until a few days after he had realized he was in love with me. The question of whether he "got" me never crossed my mind. Mostly I was in a turmoil of "OMG he's so smart, funny, sexy, devout, loyal and perfect, I hope he likes me. I really, really, hope he likes me, and now I must think of something else or I will brazenly seize him in my seraphic arms." And then when we were engaged but cruelly divided by the Atlantic Ocean, he stopped eating and I was in a welter of fear lest one of us die before we could be married. On our wedding day, I was half-insane, and he was a skeleton.
Now such transports could have led to disaster, and probably would have had we been but 20 years of age. But being practically middle-aged and both (thank the Lord) gifted with senses of humour, the inevitable moment when the lovestruck haze rolls away to reveal the landscape for what it really is, was not so bad. B.A. was still smart, funny, sexy, devout, loyal and, if not perfect, at any rate perfect for imperfect me. The long-term weather forecast is looking good.
So what I am telling you is that the only reason for getting married that I can think of in this day and age, this enlightened era in which single women can make their own money and even adopt children, is that you have fallen madly in love with a man of good character, who has fallen just as madly in love with you, and that you both think you will die if you don't get married to each other. The shared memory of this madness will get you through the hard parts, if only to make you both giggle nostalgically. It's impossible to throw pots and pans when you're giggling nostalgically.
But as for a man "getting you", this is where I will make you sit up in shock. My husband, whom I love sincerely, and who loves me sincerely, does not, in fact, "get me." The man is brilliant and few women could ask for a better intellectual companion, but he does not "get me." There are dark moments when I am overcome by some grief, and he is giving me a philosophical lecture, and I am tempted to wallop him with a pillow. But then my Guardian Angel never fails to murmur in my ear, "Men are who they are, and not who you want them to be." At which point I become calm, wait for him to fall asleep, and then, going to the sitting room, call up a woman on the phone.
If you are expecting other sexy men to be as woman-like as your now-priest ex-fiance, you are in for a shock. I like to say that it takes a man three years of ministry school to learn what women know from the schoolyard; I suppose some unusually empathetic men go into the seminary already knowing a thing or two.
In short, I would stop worrying about whether a man "gets you" and think more about whether you would like to go to bed with him every night of your life, wash his socks and listen graciously to his philosophy of housework because that, my dear S4L, not pastoral counselling, is what marriage is. Well, okay, there is also a lot of giggling. There is approximately 99.9% more giggling than satisfactory "I-feel" heart-to-hearts. And, if you're me, endless hours of watching "Country House Rescue" and "Antiques Roadshow" on TV.
Update (21:35): Incon-CEIV-able! "Country House Rescue" is on again!
I was just reading one of your recent columns and something prompted me to remember a conversation I had with a friend awhile back. She and I are both single and (reasonably) convinced that our vocation is marriage.
Anyway, I was telling her that the last several men who have crossed my path, although practicing Catholics, have not been suitable. Somewhere in there, mention was made of my long-time-ago engagement to a man who ended up becoming a priest. I said that we had shared such a deep connection that it is hard to settle for less than that level of intellectual/spiritual/interpersonal intimacy. I felt like he really "got" me. My friend observed that obviously it was not God's will for me to marry him because he is a priest now. Was it possible that I was maintaining an attachment to what he and I had shared that is blocking me from being open to the men God is now bringing into my life? Even if I don't have the same sense of connection, she thought, if God's vocation is for me to be married, then I shouldn't let the lack of "that kind" of connection be an obstacle.
Needless to say, that doesn't sit well with me. If there isn't that kind of connection, i. e. if I don't really get him, and he doesn't really get me, I can't imagine what the point of being married is? I don't think I could be bothered.
Thoughts?
Settle-for-Less?
Dear S4L,
Once upon a time, we had a rock-solid sense that marriage was for life and that no matter hard it got, once we were married, we were stuck. However, we also believed that being Single was worse than being married, unless we were called to the priesthood or religious life, and those ways of life could also be very hard, and if we went into them, we were just as stuck.
Today only a minority of people in the West have the same confidence in marriage, priesthood or the religious life. And at the same time, we are incredibly naive. When we make our fatal choice, we tend to think marriage, priesthood or religious life is going to fabulous 99.9% of the time, and if they aren't, then we have made a terrible mistake and must move on, pronto.
Now this is not to say that people do not make terrible mistakes. Marriage, priesthood and religious life are not supposed to be ghastly 99.9% of the time, either. We are supposed to have a period of preparation for each, to make sure we aren't making a mistake: engagment, seminary formation, or novitiate. And bad stuff still happens. How happy am I, for example, that my divorce was relatively easy. My annullment was not, but, hey, neither is chemotherapy, I've heard.
But divorce seems easier than staying married when the chips are down, and marriage is increasingly seen not as the bedrock of society but as a lifestyle choice.I have personally heard one nervous bride being told that if her marriage doesn't work out she could always get a divorce, as if her groom were a cardigan she wasn't sure about but could be returned to the store if she kept the receipt. But this flies against what we know about marriage as Catholics, and in general and barring early death, we have only one shot at it.
Therefore, if you are going to get married, you are going to have to be absolutely darned sure that (A) you yourself are capable of maintaining a marriage for the rest of your life and (B) your fiance is the kind of man you could rub along with happily for the rest of your life.
Now, when my mum was 23, she was capable of maintaining a marriage for the rest of her life, although I don't know why, other than that she was born in an entirely different world from the one I was born in. I certainly was not capable of maintaining a marriage when I was 23, or 25, or probably even 30. How much of this I can blame on society is an open question. But, happily, by the ripe old age of 38, I was capable of it, and I did get married, so that is my own answer to A.
Now, my own answer to B is a bit hilarious, but bear with me. Essentially I fell in love with B.A. within 48 hours of meeting him and miraculously kept my mouth shut about it up until a few days after he had realized he was in love with me. The question of whether he "got" me never crossed my mind. Mostly I was in a turmoil of "OMG he's so smart, funny, sexy, devout, loyal and perfect, I hope he likes me. I really, really, hope he likes me, and now I must think of something else or I will brazenly seize him in my seraphic arms." And then when we were engaged but cruelly divided by the Atlantic Ocean, he stopped eating and I was in a welter of fear lest one of us die before we could be married. On our wedding day, I was half-insane, and he was a skeleton.
Now such transports could have led to disaster, and probably would have had we been but 20 years of age. But being practically middle-aged and both (thank the Lord) gifted with senses of humour, the inevitable moment when the lovestruck haze rolls away to reveal the landscape for what it really is, was not so bad. B.A. was still smart, funny, sexy, devout, loyal and, if not perfect, at any rate perfect for imperfect me. The long-term weather forecast is looking good.
So what I am telling you is that the only reason for getting married that I can think of in this day and age, this enlightened era in which single women can make their own money and even adopt children, is that you have fallen madly in love with a man of good character, who has fallen just as madly in love with you, and that you both think you will die if you don't get married to each other. The shared memory of this madness will get you through the hard parts, if only to make you both giggle nostalgically. It's impossible to throw pots and pans when you're giggling nostalgically.
But as for a man "getting you", this is where I will make you sit up in shock. My husband, whom I love sincerely, and who loves me sincerely, does not, in fact, "get me." The man is brilliant and few women could ask for a better intellectual companion, but he does not "get me." There are dark moments when I am overcome by some grief, and he is giving me a philosophical lecture, and I am tempted to wallop him with a pillow. But then my Guardian Angel never fails to murmur in my ear, "Men are who they are, and not who you want them to be." At which point I become calm, wait for him to fall asleep, and then, going to the sitting room, call up a woman on the phone.
If you are expecting other sexy men to be as woman-like as your now-priest ex-fiance, you are in for a shock. I like to say that it takes a man three years of ministry school to learn what women know from the schoolyard; I suppose some unusually empathetic men go into the seminary already knowing a thing or two.
In short, I would stop worrying about whether a man "gets you" and think more about whether you would like to go to bed with him every night of your life, wash his socks and listen graciously to his philosophy of housework because that, my dear S4L, not pastoral counselling, is what marriage is. Well, okay, there is also a lot of giggling. There is approximately 99.9% more giggling than satisfactory "I-feel" heart-to-hearts. And, if you're me, endless hours of watching "Country House Rescue" and "Antiques Roadshow" on TV.
Update (21:35): Incon-CEIV-able! "Country House Rescue" is on again!
Friday, 1 October 2010
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