{"id":28438,"date":"2018-12-07T13:08:45","date_gmt":"2018-12-07T13:08:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=28438"},"modified":"2018-12-07T13:08:45","modified_gmt":"2018-12-07T13:08:45","slug":"childfree-and-proud-pt-2-by-the-grace-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/childfree-and-proud-pt-2-by-the-grace-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Childfree and Proud pt.2 &#8211; By the grace of God"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u201cGod blessed them; and God said to them, &#8220;Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.&#8221; Genesis 1:28<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the <a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/childfree-and-proud-pt-1-mombies-daddicts-and-me\/\">first<\/a> part of Childfree and Proud, \u00a0Kirsty, Rebi and Jena described their experiences when dealing with parents who do understand their desire to never have children and the complicated relationship the community has with traditional media. But this is only scraping the surface.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-28438 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/bvy9zaw0-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/12\/BVy9ZAW0-1-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-28553\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-28553'>\n\t\t\t\tKirsty\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/ewfg19gr-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/12\/EWfG19gr-1-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-28554\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-28554'>\n\t\t\t\tJena\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/kuxqf-mq_400x400-2\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/12\/KuxQF-MQ_400x400-1-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-28555\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/12\/KuxQF-MQ_400x400-1-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/12\/KuxQF-MQ_400x400-1-1-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/12\/KuxQF-MQ_400x400-1-1.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-28555'>\n\t\t\t\tRebi\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kirsty, Jena and Rebi strongly believe that a big part of the social conditioning that pushes women towards motherhood has a lot to do with religion. \u201cAll of them\u201d, Kirsty adds. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Jena\u2019s words: \u201creligion is just a book full of rules on how to live your life\u201d and since it still has a strong push in society (even if not quite as before) you can either conform or \u201cbe ostracised by your community.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">See also: <a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/oh-my-god-is-religion-relevant-to-young-people\/\">Oh my God: Is religion relevant to young people?<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rebi defines it as \u201cfollowing the Life Script\u201d which, she believes, can have terrible consequences on both sexes as \u201cwhen they see a woman who voluntarily does not have kids and is happy, their world turns upside down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">She admits that her husband sometimes falls into the trap of believing that \u201che knows me more than I know myself.\u201d \u00a0She is also very clear in stating that it is misogynistic to believe that just because women are biologically made to have kids it must be \u201call they want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The naturality of procreation is often used as an argument by the most conservative religious people to oppose delicate social issues such as abortion and homosexual rights. <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_28591\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-28591\" class=\"wp-image-28591 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/12\/shame-2087878_1920-1-300x232.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-28591\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Picture curtesy of Pixabay<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kirsty is convinced that control over a woman\u2019s body is one of the primary reasons why faith is taken as an excuse to be used against contraception. Especially when abusive behaviour is enacted \u201c many women feel unable to flee their abuser, because they are trapped by children and fear the consequences.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But not everyone agrees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Lady T. handles a Twitter account in which she express her feelings towards motherhood and many other topics anonymously. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">She defines herself as childfree but does not believe in the coercive control that religion and the Bible, in particular, operates. \u201cI am a devoted Christian myself. People who don\u2019t read or bother to study, just repeat one verse without understanding the meaning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether religions are to blame or not, one of the consequences of the traditional idea of women equals mothers that they carry does have an active influence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Users on social media are always on the front line when these topics arise:<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/EniolaHu\/status\/1012784134102618112<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">It\u2019s not selfish for you and your partner to decide against procreation, but it is selfish to procreate just because family, society or religion tells you to when you know you don\u2019t want a child or can\u2019t handle the entire process of creating &amp; raising a human being.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jory Micah\ud83c\udf3a\ud83c\uddf5\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\udf3a (@jorymicah) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jorymicah\/status\/1060658608751419397?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 8, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>See also: <a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/people-are-not-having-children-because-of-climate-change\/\">People are not having children because of climate change\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Facebook group<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IRegretHavingChildren\/\"> \u201cI regret having children\u201d<\/a> compiles a series of testimonies from parents or parents to be, who share their true feelings towards motherhood and fatherhood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They look for comfort in these hidden platforms because if saying you do not want children is taboo, admitting that you regret them is heretic. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is safe to say that for most parents children come before anything, they are literally the alpha and the omega of their existence. The phrase \u201conce you are a parent, you are until the day you die\u201d is common but also true. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0Which is exactly why it is even more unthinkable that for some individuals the sense of powerlessness and remorse can be stronger than love for their own blood. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rebi calls it a \u201cbrutal realisation\u201d that is extremely tough to rationalise and a potential motor of terrible effects on parents mental health.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ophelia (devised name to protect anonymity), created the Facebook page in 2012 because a couple of her friends confessed their parental regrets to her and she wanted to show them support and that they were not alone. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI figured that even if the page only got a handful of likes, at least that would be something\u201d but against her expectations thousands of men and women started following it, which to her shows \u201chow prevalent parental regret really is.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ophelia believes that the silence that surrounds this community can have serious negative effects on the children. \u201cIf you have parents who are experiencing regret and they have no outlet to regret it on &#8211; if they have no one to talk to &#8211; then there is a serious possibility that they\u2019ll end up taking it out on the kids.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To her, the page is doing a lot of good and proof of it are the several people who message her to express their gratitude for giving them a place to express their feelings. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt\u2019s good to hear those things because there can be a lot of backlash from people who think parental regret is some kind of moral failure.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And to the trolls who sometimes get on the page to attack and shame the parents she says \u201cif you can\u2019t be kind, be quiet or be gone.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can read more stories <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IRegretHavingChildren\/\">here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>And if you still crave more, you can listen to this podcast recorded exclusively for The Voice of London.<\/p>\n<p>Our guest today is MJ, a PR and Advertisement student at University of Westminster who lived in first person the social pressure of potential &#8216;forced motherhood&#8217;. \u00a0Since then, she has developed very personal ideas on the topic.<\/p>\n<p>[soundcloud url=&#8221;https:\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/541208040&#8243; params=&#8221;color=#ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true&amp;visual=true&#8221; width=&#8221;100%&#8221; height=&#8221;300&#8243; iframe=&#8221;true&#8221; \/]<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part 1: <a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/childfree-and-proud-pt-1-mombies-daddicts-and-me\/\">Childfree and Proud &#8211; Mombies daddicts and me<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Words: Benedetta Laterza | Subbing: Laureta Doci<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGod blessed them; and God said to them, &#8220;Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":28439,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,53,75,106,115],"tags":[1298,5218,5728],"class_list":["post-28438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-feminism-2","category-investigations","category-religion","category-specials","tag-childfree","tag-religion","tag-society"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}