ways in which growing up in a church was good for me

[minoanmiss]

a few, anyway.

Fundamentalist Christianity being what it is, the good side of the injunction against divorce was the absence of a cycle of discarding wives and marrying younger ones on the part of the powerful men in the church. We won't talk about the affairs, of course. Or the women trapped in abusive relationships.

I watched the whole cycle of life from birth to death; I saw people age, I saw some die, I saw people react to my growing up, and other kids grow up. I have been realizing as I get older that I didn't really internalize the US attitude that a woman over 40/35/30/25 is a worthless old hag, because of this.

I saw women consistently do the work of building and maintaining the church. Men got the credit, of course (See: Christianity, specifically sexism in) but I saw it was possible for women to do so. And thus how hypocritical the endemic sexism was.

I got to hold a lot of babies.

Everyone sang no matter our talent level. I did used to love filk for that as well.

... I think that's it, really. And any close-knit community could have given me most oof these experiences, hopefully with less of the massive religious trauma. But reflecting on the terror of aging I see so often on Tumblr and other social media (and how it gets expressed in hostility of the "get out of fandom and go do your taxes" sort sentiment from young fans towards middle-aged fans) I found myself thinking about this, at first specifically and then more broadly

Comments

[ilyena_sylph]

That... makes a lot of sense, actually, yeah.

Like, older women Get Shit Done, this is how the world inside fundamentalist Xtianity works....

[tibicina]

This is also how non-fundamentalist Xtianity works, too.

Honestly, it's how most volunteer-heavy organizations I've been part of work. (Well, this plus endless arguments and men/teenagers being directed around by the women when stuff needs moved.)

Though this does also make me want to go find the old livejournal post I made about things people had argued about at church that month (which was a counter to people saying that only fandom had arguments that petty. As I recall it involved a fight about where to get poinsettias and possibly where they should be placed in the sanctuary. Also how to properly fan cocktail napkins.)

[readera]

Singing was always my favorite part of church.

[cmcmck]

Having reached hagdom, I realise that it's anything but worthless.

What strength and power there is here!

[kayre]

I really appreciate the comments about aging, and older women. And of course the singing.

[sabotabby]

There's a real lack of intergenerational community outside of faith circles. Like even in activism, the young ones tend to be hostile to the old ones and vice versa, and people often leave when they have kids, and this is a massive problem for movements. The big exceptions in my life—the Wobblies, Jewish Women's Committee to End the Occupation, and our local ARA—are the groups that had the most staying power for me, even when I was much younger.

[ororo]

That's interesting, and I'm really glad you posted.

Thinking about the religious instruction I got for the first fifteen years of I my life, I'm not sure how much I took with me that I could not have gotten elsewhere. I remember one story in a book--a very simplified story about a boy learning Prejudice is Bad. My third grade teacher did that better.

Being nice to people, don't murder, don't bear false witness, don't commit adultery, aren't these things that most belief systems have in common? I don't know that I needed religion to learn them.

I do know that I never particularly felt loved by any member of the Trinity.

[acelightning]

I'm a worthless old hag, or at least I'm a crone. And I'm no prude - one of the major reasons I left Mainstream Monotheism was because it was so anti-sex (and anti-women) And it's true that it's the Old Women who get things done. The Iroquois had it right - the let the old women choose the chiefs. (What do you think an Iroquois grandmother would do about our most recent President?)

[cmcmck]

Works this way with the Romani too! :o)

[acelightning]

I think it's a fairly common practice among "tribal peoples". They recognize that the old ladies have seen and done just about everything, and aren't afraid of very much; so they are wise enough to choose chiefs who will listen to their wisdom.

[cmcmck]

'Children will tell you what they do, men what they think and older people what they have seen and heard'

Romani proverb.

[annonynous.livejournal.com]

I don't remember what tribe / nation I was reading about, but it was standard practice to leave grandma by the side of the trail they were on. She would presumably just die without being a drain on the tribe's resources. Perhaps the same could equivalently be done for the most recent U. S. president.

Ann O.

[acelightning]

Among the Inuit, an old person can decide that it's time for them to leave - the tribe has better uses for the resources. The elder just walks out into the weather, and is never found. (Or they paddle out to sea atop an ice floe.) Nobody told Grandma they were going to abandon her; she made the choice herself. That should be a choice everybody has the right to make for themselves.

[anna_wing]

I worked in New York for a few years in my thirties, and yes, I found the attitudes towards women in the US, including the ones around older women, deeply bizarre.

Most Southeast Asian societies are very hierarchical, so that tends to override everything else, but every one that I have ever had expereince of treated older people i.e. anyone old enough to be addressed as "uncle" or "aunty", with far more respect in daily life. There was deep horror at how the elderly were being treated in many Western countries during the height of COVID19....

For the educated class, the 40s are the beginning of the power years for women, same as for men. Plus, the role of sexual activity in public life is very different. Older women are expected to have other concerns besides chasing male interest, and in most modern Asian societies, 'career woman' is an entirely respectable category, especially if one is single.

I've always been rather bewilderd at all these minuscule distinctions of sexual habit that one sees in fandom, and I really don't think that they are relevant outside the US. A grown adult of either sex (not a teenager or young post-adolescent) who doesn't spend their spare time obsessing about sex is normal in most societies, not 'asexual' or 'aromantic'.

[minoanmiss]

I've always been rather bewilderd at all these minuscule distinctions of sexual habit that one sees in fandom, and I really don't think that they are relevant outside the US. A grown adult of either sex (not a teenager or young post-adolescent) who doesn't spend their spare time obsessing about sex is normal in most societies, not 'asexual' or 'aromantic'.

I was thinking about this, because I think it's more complex than that -- I think people are figuring things out about themselves that societies didn't used to talk about, and that these things can be important. I have talked to people who, for instance, had been told that not being interested in sex meant they were damaged or broken or mentally ill -- I think being asexual goes beyond "not spending their spare time obsessing about sex."

Anyway, I found a cute little comic about this subject as well.

[amaebi]

I think that age-diverse (and other-diverse) longitudinal community has become pretty rare in a lot of the US, and traditional churches do offer that, or have.

Shopping For Humans paradigms have a lot to answer for.

[vettecat]

All good observations.