Well this is just sad

[formergothardite]

Lauren from One Bright Corner just posted about how hard it is to be an adult and not be married. Some of her thoughts:

I’m 22, which means I’m old enough to be an adult, but young enough to still have stubborn weeds of foolishness, insert-foot-directly-in-mouth moments (“When I was young…â€), and general lack of perspective

The reason that she has a lack of perspecive is because she lives in an ATI bubble and never really does anything with her life. She will still have that same lack of perspective in 10 years if she doesn't step out of her little "protective" bubble.

If you’ve seen War Horse, you know what kind of a no man’s land I’m talking about: a gray place of vulnerability, purposelessness, and despair. You’re a walking target and landmines and traps and barbed wire abound.

I have not seen that movie, but I have no idea what she is talking about. I wasn't married at 22 but I sure didn't feel this way.

What if the culture has it wrong about me only becoming truly responsible once I’m married? What if I’m not in a no-man’s land between childhood and adulthood?

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have some winning thoughts here! Your culture (the rest of American culture really doesn't feel this way) is wrong. You don't have to wait till your married to be an adult.

But instead of jumping to the conclusion that she is really an adult and can do anything with her life she goes here:

And since my season is that of a single daughter at home

No! No! NO!!!! This doesn't have to be a season of being a single daughter at home, maybe God wants you get out of the house and actually do something with her life.

And Matthew Henry comments, “By daughters families are united and connected, to their mutual strength, as the parts of a building are by the corner-stones.**â€

Well what happens if there are no daughters in the family? Is it not united and connected? This makes no sense.

You can tell she is miserable in her life, but she is trying to keep sweet and convince herself she really is happy.

onebrightcorner.blogspot.com/

[luckystone]

That War Horse comparison is fairly offensive. Is she saying being unmarried at 22 is similarly scary and torturous to being in a war zone?

The first aprt is okay though. I am an adult but I think I still have a general lack of perspective lol.

I'm not sure what she's trying to say here. I suppose it's just a young adult feeling like she's not adult enough to be a real adult (hey I get that all the time) but she's moved on from being a child, but she seems to link it back to marriage somehow which makes her confused. Fundies and the marriage/adulthood thing....sigh

[NoQuiverNoCry]

Cue Brittney Spears...I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman...

Turmoil over growing up is common, but most women work through it because they've earned life skills and experiences along the way that allow them to eventually become capable adults. This poor girl, though, isn't allowed to have those experiences or learn all the stuff she needs to navigate this life stage. She's being actively crippled by the very people who should be building her up and armoring her for the world. And it looks like she realizes that (or is at least starting to see it).

[smores]

She's surely not as blind as the other SAHDs.

I imagine she's smart enough to know that every year that passes makes her a little less "marketable." If only she were smart enough to walk away.

[browngrl]

I am saddened and irritated by this blog post.

I am sad because she seems lost and dissatisfied and her reassurances about being a "corner piller" or accepting God's will ring hollow at best.

I am irritated because it is just all so unnecessary. At 22 she could be (1) travelling (2) working (3) going to school (4) having fun going out and partying ..... the list is endless. At 22 I was a newly minted MD and had just started my internship. I had just come back from a trip to India . On nights I wasn't on call I was out and about with my friends. It was an exciting/exhausting/exhilarating time. It was a time that helped define who I was. It was a time that matured me a great deal. This young woman could have all of this. If only she wasn't shackled by the patriarchal system she lives in.

[Minerva]

Argh. At 22 she is an adult. Yeah, she doesn't know as much about the world as someone in their 30s or 40s, but that won't magically come with marriage. It's really sick that they consider themselves children until they marry.

[angelis]

That War Horse comparison is fairly offensive. Is she saying being unmarried at 22 is similarly scary and torturous to being in a war zone?

Sadly, I think the life she leads is very similar to being in a war zone, emotionally if not also physically.

[JesusFightClub]

Has she ever seen a no-man's land? I have, so I had a very strange mental image of what her life must be like. Guarded by men with guns at either border and containing a lot of stray cats?

[FlorenceHamilton]

This is absurd melodrama. Those years from 18-25 were a few of the best of my life precisely because you have all of the rights of an adult and few of the encumbrances. I went to school. I fell in love. (Several times) I fell out of love and learned how to nourish my own heart. I traveled. (Should hve done more of that) I learned about different ways of thinking, believing and living. I did marry toward the end of that period and start my family. I was fully prepared to be a mother at that point and was able to give and receive more from parenting as a result.

These people are beyond ridiculous.

[Burris]

That War Horse comparison is fairly offensive. Is she saying being unmarried at 22 is similarly scary and torturous to being in a war zone?

She seems to be comparing what it's like to be unmarried and 22 with the ever-shifting and constantly dangerous situation that exists in a disputed zone.

Well, thank your parents, kid. They were the ones who left you with this idea unmarried women have no real place in the world - hence this oddity where you compare yourself to someone crawling through an active no-man's-land.

You could go a long way towards shaking that feeling if only by daring to live your own life rather than waiting for some guy to sweep you off your feet.

[Jezebel]

I’m 22, which means I’m old enough to be an adult, but young enough to still have stubborn weeds of foolishness, insert-foot-directly-in-mouth moments (“When I was young…â€), and general lack of perspective.

Yes, and this post provides ample evidence of that.

I’m also single, which status means that I’m stuck in our culture’s stereotype of an awkward no-man’s land: not a carefree kid, but (especially according to insurance companies) not a responsible adult.

By "our culture" I assume you mean your particular brand of Christianity, and the bubble you and your co-religionists have created to isolate and protect yourselves.

That's because out here in what you call "the world" or "the culture," you wouldn't be stuck, drifting, in the doldrums between childhood and adulthood, waiting for the winds of courtship and marriage to rise and push you forward. At 22? You'd be an adult. No need to marry in order to pick up your grown-up card; just turn 18. You don't even have to have sex, or drink, or learn to drive, or own a car, or even move out of your parents' home--you're still an adult. How about that!

Oh, sure, you'll also be expected to get a job, manage your own finances responsibly, and probably pursue some sort of post-secondary education. You'll be expected to take full responsibility for yourself, your decisions, and your personal relationship with God, rather than putting those burdens on other people, or allowing yourself to be relieved of them under the guise of "protecting" you. You'll have to think about your own life, what you really want from it, and what you will have to do to get it--and then you'll have to take self-directed action toward that end, with no guarantees of success.

If you’ve seen War Horse, you know what kind of a no man’s land I’m talking about: a gray place of vulnerability, purposelessness, and despair. You’re a walking target and landmines and traps and barbed wire abound.

I haven't seen it, but since Lauren has already confessed to having "insert-foot-directly-in-mouth moments (“When I was young…â€), and general lack of perspective," I'll chalk this up as an episode of such. She's old enough to know better than to use this sort of dramatic, hyperinflated, and ultimately tasteless metaphor--it's the sort of thing she should have left behind at about age 16--but since she's been stunted by her upbringing, it comes as no surprise.

I do find it very interesting that she describes her unmarried not-yet-an-adult SAHD status as "a gray place of vulnerability, purposelessness, and despair. You’re a walking target and landmines and traps and barbed wire abound." Bad as her metaphor is, I can't ignore the fact that she's describing a very bleak state of mind--one that is created by the same powerlessness and dependency she's been led to believe are virtues.

She's reasonably intelligent, but it does her no good in that culture. If anything, it's a liability. She has nothing worthwhile with which to occupy her mind, nothing substantial she's allowed to create--she has no purpose, nothing that's hers alone, that gets her out of bed in the morning because she can't wait to get back to it. And of course she's vulnerable, especially to despair, because she's not allowed to act on her own behalf, or make decisions about her own future. She has to wait for some jug-eared fundie prince or other to show up and decide she's pretty and docile enough before her "adult" life has any hope of beginning.

And a "walking target"? She can't step out of line lest she be branded as loose, worldly, or immoral. She's part of a culture that despises women and does everything it can to subjugate them and keep them trapped in dependency to men. So yeah, she's constantly walking a tightrope, afraid she might stumble and fall, because even if she climbs right back on, she fell. Jesus would have forgiven her, but her fellow Christians? Not so much. And simply stepping off the rope and refusing to walk it anymore? That first step is a long one, and it takes one hell of a strong safety net to land unhurt. The one Razing Ruth's sister had wasn't nearly enough, as we saw. What's someone like Lauren going to do?

She'll suck it up and dig deeper into religion, that's what. She's so thoroughly indoctrinated, she doesn't need anyone else to tell her to quit moping and smile for Jesus; she's taken on the job of proving to herself why she should be happy with her life all by herself.

Yeah, it's sad. And horrifying that she's been so carefully raised to see herself and her life like this.

[Shoobydoo]

Hmm, I turn 22 in a couple months. I had better tell my boyfriend that if he doesn't put a ring on it soon I'm going to be flung into a wasteland of self doubt and stop functioning as an adult member of society.

[Peas n carrots]

Yes, and this post provides ample evidence of that.

By "our culture" I assume you mean your particular brand of Christianity, and the bubble you and your co-religionists have created to isolate and protect yourselves.

That's because out here in what you call "the world" or "the culture," you wouldn't be stuck, drifting, in the doldrums between childhood and adulthood, waiting for the winds of courtship and marriage to rise and push you forward. At 22? You'd be an adult. No need to marry in order to pick up your grown-up card; just turn 18. You don't even have to have sex, or drink, or learn to drive, or own a car, or even move out of your parents' home--you're still an adult. How about that!

Oh, sure, you'll also be expected to get a job, manage your own finances responsibly, and probably pursue some sort of post-secondary education. You'll be expected to take full responsibility for yourself, your decisions, and your personal relationship with God, rather than putting those burdens on other people, or allowing yourself to be relieved of them under the guise of "protecting" you. You'll have to think about your own life, what you really want from it, and what you will have to do to get it--and then you'll have to take self-directed action toward that end, with no guarantees of success.

I haven't seen it, but since Lauren has already confessed to having "insert-foot-directly-in-mouth moments (“When I was young…â€), and general lack of perspective," I'll chalk this up as an episode of such. She's old enough to know better than to use this sort of dramatic, hyperinflated, and ultimately tasteless metaphor--it's the sort of thing she should have left behind at about age 16--but since she's been stunted by her upbringing, it comes as no surprise.

I do find it very interesting that she describes her unmarried not-yet-an-adult SAHD status as "a gray place of vulnerability, purposelessness, and despair. You’re a walking target and landmines and traps and barbed wire abound." Bad as her metaphor is, I can't ignore the fact that she's describing a very bleak state of mind--one that is created by the same powerlessness and dependency she's been led to believe are virtues.

She's reasonably intelligent, but it does her no good in that culture. If anything, it's a liability. She has nothing worthwhile with which to occupy her mind, nothing substantial she's allowed to create--she has no purpose, nothing that's hers alone, that gets her out of bed in the morning because she can't wait to get back to it. And of course she's vulnerable, especially to despair, because she's not allowed to act on her own behalf, or make decisions about her own future. She has to wait for some jug-eared fundie prince or other to show up and decide she's pretty and docile enough before her "adult" life has any hope of beginning.

And a "walking target"? She can't step out of line lest she be branded as loose, worldly, or immoral. She's part of a culture that despises women and does everything it can to subjugate them and keep them trapped in dependency to men. So yeah, she's constantly walking a tightrope, afraid she might stumble and fall, because even if she climbs right back on, she fell. Jesus would have forgiven her, but her fellow Christians? Not so much. And simply stepping off the rope and refusing to walk it anymore? That first step is a long one, and it takes one hell of a strong safety net to land unhurt. The one Razing Ruth's sister had wasn't nearly enough, as we saw. What's someone like Lauren going to do?

She'll suck it up and dig deeper into religion, that's what. She's so thoroughly indoctrinated, she doesn't need anyone else to tell her to quit moping and smile for Jesus; she's taken on the job of proving to herself why she should be happy with her life all by herself.

Yeah, it's sad. And horrifying that she's been so carefully raised to see herself and her life like this.

You nailed it. Being a halfway intellegent woman in this culture is a curse. I think Lauren's blogpost is really telling...there is an undercurrent of doubt in the whole post. She seems to sense there is more to life, but her upbringing hasn't given her the tools to function outside of her culture, so she is stuck.

If you’ve seen War Horse, you know what kind of a no man’s land I’m talking about: a gray place of vulnerability, purposelessness, and despair. You’re a walking target and landmines and traps and barbed wire abound.

I'm not sure if she is talking about her culture or mainstream culture. If she's talking about fundie culture, I actually think it is a good metaphor...she's imprisoned in a lifestlye in which women are targeted for criticism. Landmines and traps...remember, women can never, EVER get it right in the fundie world. So while this may be an overdramatic statement, I think this is an apt metaphor for the life of a fundie woman.

[ILoveJellybeans]

I felt like that for a few years between leaving high school and sometime this year when I realised that things should be different. I was taught that when I was an adult, I should find a man and be a stay at home mom.

I did not know what to do when I realised that you cant just go from high school into being a stay at home mom as I did not have a boyfriend or any children, but I also didnt want a job as I did not have any career options, I had never thought of stuff like that, I had only thought of what my parents taught me being a woman is supposed to be about. I also didnt even want children, Im not really the maternal sort, kids are cute but I got bored around my small siblings, and thought they were a pain in the ass when they werent behaving or the baby was crying.

Then I realised what women over 18 do in the real world, I still dont quite have the skills for this, but I am trying.