Episode #70: How to Navigate Co-Parenting Post Deconstruction, with Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai from the Holy Ghosting Pod
Mother's Day was this weekend, and is a complicated holiday for many folks. On the one hand, the celebration of women's expected unpaid labor for one singular day seems trite, at best. On another hand, women navigate a myriad of challenges on the pathway to motherhood, from obnoxious questions about timing, to pregnancy loss.
Ideally, parenting is a collaborative relationship between two (or more) parents, with each parent contributing an equal amount to the development of their children. We talk with Lindsay, Meg, and Sarai from the Holy Ghosting Podcast about their experiences co-parenting, both while in religious communities, and during the deconstruction process. We discuss:
Co-Parenting Wins (10:20): Meg kicks us off, “I think one of my favorite co parenting wins has actually been the way that we have been able to shift our focus from teaching our kid to be a certain way into who are you and who do you want to be? And encouraging and accepting just like who the kid is for who they are.”
Born Sinner (14:00): Sarai shares, “I think that having him (her son) was actually one of the last sort of straws in holding up any part of that mythology for myself, which really started with my idea of I am connected to this human being. He is born of my body. And I just could not reconcile any part of the idea that we're born evil into this world, and when we come out and breathe our first breath, we're already a sinner. That's so gross to me.”
Trusting Yourself Outside of Religion (18:00): Meg says: “I think that's the shift for me that just went, I don't need an organized religion or other people telling me what to do or how to parent. I can trust myself. And I can trust that I know my kid and that I'm a person who's responsible not just for their safety but for them to have their own personal safety as they age.”
Choice in Motherhood (23:00): Lindsey notes, “I freaking love being a mom. I love it with my entire heart, and I do not feel like I have lost any of myself. I feel like I'm a better version of myself, and I'm really grateful that I had the freedom to make that choice when I was ready to make that choice. And I was even older. I had my daughter at 34, for a Christian is quite old, so I'm really glad that I was able to take my time, and I think having a kid has opened my eyes to reproductive rights and how important that is and I'm really grateful that I had a supportive partner and was given the space to make that choice when I was ready.”
Missing Pieces (24:00): Julia says: “Christian communities have a hell of a lot to say about abortion. And one of the million missing pieces in that dialogue is the importance of abortion care for folks who are trying to become pregnant or have a wanted pregnancy.”
Stillbirth (28:00): Meg shares her experience giving birth to her stillborn while still in an Evangelical community, “It was like my life didn't matter. My life was not the thing that we needed to worry about; this fetus, this baby's life, that we just had to make sure survived. My first protest was at an abortion clinic in middle school. So I saw The Silent Scream as a movie and that was all I knew. And I just was like, there's no way I'm going to let you murder my baby, with this medical procedure. And my God is greater than that.”
Lack of Structure and Support (31:00): Jeremiah notes, “Evangelical circles prevent dialogue from happening between partners. There's this expectation that you go along and move into roles of parenting. And we see this with the couples that we work with the negative consequences of that … On top of that, when things go off the rails, when things go wrong, there's also no structure for either the individual or the couple to figure out how to come together and talk in a comprehensive way about what the hell just happened to us.”
Creating Space for Grief (35:00): Julia discusses, “Just because the numbers around pregnancy loss are high doesn't make it any less traumatic. And I can speak from personal experience and friends and clients. However, as both of you are saying, the message from women and men and religious structures and medical structures is that this is what you do, this is what you endure as a woman, and you just keep going, rather than giving space for individual and relational grief.”
Spiritual Warfare (38:00): Meg shares, “That concept of me just being un-wanting to this child felt like a big reason that, if we believe in spiritual warfare, then we certainly believe that our thoughts have power over whatever. I really did think for a very long time that it was my fault and that my husband would blame me. Luckily for me, he's a wonderful human being who has loved me for a very long time and did not respond in that way. We both were grieving a lot together. It was the loss of the idea of a family that we were starting.”
Not Believing is Not an Option (45:00): Sarai shares the roots of her deconstruction journey, “That was sort of the initial part of my deconstruction, which just started when I was at Christian college. And one of my professors made a comment about who he would vote for. It was the first time I realized that some Christians aren't Republicans and it blew my mind. So that was like my initiation into it. And so by the time I got together with my ex husband, I was through that and not really in it anymore, but I wasn't not, I didn't know what to call myself because I didn't want to not believe in something. And that was like the only option I knew.”
Pre-Existing Conditions and Shame (49:00): Lindsey shares, “I went to go procure my own health insurance and I couldn't get it because of my preexisting condition. Let me tell you if you already had shame about having sex and then getting an STD from having sex and then not being able to have birth control, like the guilt was, it was really intense.”
Mirroring Healthy Disagreements in Coparenting (52:00): Meg says, “We kind of found ourselves getting upset at each other for not backing me up in front of the kid or not agreeing or not showing a united front. And I realized that all of those things were just shutting down one person's opinions or one person's perspective, and is saying, "We have to always agree in front of our kid and never disagree." And I realized that that was just going to teach him some negative things. It's healthy and important to have dialogue when there's disagreements.”
Parenting Post-Deconstruction (56:00): Sarai shares: “My moment of change came when I finally was like, I don't need to suffer through my whole life because it makes it easier for this other person … it was really about shrinking and shielding and it just made me unwell. And so I left because I wanted to be a better parent and I didn't want my kids to grow up and think this is how you treat your intimate partners. Like I did not want them to see me being diminished by their dad. And then go and mimic that behavior.”