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My God my god I feel so seen. Nobody has ever believed when I say "No babies. Never. I raised five before I was 15, my baby years are over". I've been so often accused of exaggeration because no mainstream individual can imagine a mom who just hands a 9 year old an infant and says "you wanted a doll for Christmas, this is better!". I was the one punished for their transgressions. I have a seizure disorder now caused by a lack of sleep until I went to college. I'm talking five hours many nights as a child because my bed was full of siblings to care for, who wet the bed, who were scared, and I was expected to be at bible study across town at 6AM. I felt so ashamed of how I would hurt my siblings when I was little, scratching or spanking them, because I had so little power to keep them in line, knowing I would get punished no matter what. I remember my first "alone" time babysitting I was 8. I remember the other kids in school thought I was so weird for always having to take care of babies.

I have asked my doctor for a decade about sterilization and she insists "Oh, you'll change your mind and want babies! What a beautiful experience!" But maybe now I can show her this article to help her understand that no, "it's different when it's yours" does not make an ounce of difference for the resentment I will always feel and immediate anger when I hear a baby cry. And this is after a decade of therapy.

Thank you for protecting your daughter, thank you for helping me realize that it wasn't my fault babies made me angry. Thank you for helping me feel seen when for decades I only had a fuzzy, icky feeling that I was mad, and I didn't know why and needed to hide that unrighteous feeling from Satan.

And to whoever is reading this, I wasn't even IBLP, I was Mormon/LDS and this was the same story for every girl in my Achievement Days/Young Women's class. Even a young guy I grew up with raised his siblings and then took his life after his dad belted him one too many times for not "being a better example". It isn't just fringe groups, it's in more mainstream churches.

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