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The One Who Stays ***UPDATED!***

The One Who Stays UPDATED!

Last updated on: March 3, 2011 at 1:11 pm by Sarah Babbs

The One Who Stays ***UPDATED!*** 2011-03-03T13:11:49-04:00 Sarah Babbs

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In light of the comment left by “AnnieMouse” on this post, I’ve decided to share it, and my response to it, in the post.

Hi AnnieMouse (I’d love to call you by your name, but since I don’t know who you are, I guess this will have to do),

Thanks for your comment. In order to best respond to it, I have copied it in its entirety into this email, in italics: my responses, in bold.

I want to preface this by saying that I don’t mean any of this as a slam. I am just trying to give honest feedback. Thanks!

I think that you sometimes take for granted how privileged you are to have been able to make the choices that you’ve made. That’s probably true. And if you’re sitting at a computer, using the internet, with running water and a toilet in your house, then you probably take things for granted sometimes too. Like the fact that you don’t live in a grass hut.

You chose to be a mother, to not work outside of the home, and to devote your days 100% to being a wife and mother. In part, yes. The other part is that with my training in non-profit, I’d never be able to get a job that would pay enough money to make childcare worth the expense. And, I also plan on going back to work at some point in the future, though only part-time. That’s great. Thanks! You are among a small minority of women in the world who have the financial resources (a husband whose job pays well enough to support the household as the sole source of income) to be able to be a stay at home mom. I know, and I am very grateful for that fact. In fact, that’s why I believe in the family wage, whereby workers are paid enough so that only one parent need work outside the home. Wouldn’t it be great if, instead of building a culture around consumerism and greed we actually built one around what’s best for families, which is stable two parents families. You chose this life and were very lucky to have had the ability to choose the choice you did.

This woman was married for 20 years. The interview didn’t cover much of the history of her and her ex-husband’s relationship but I would bet that there were some problems in those 20 years (no marriage is perfect). I would be surprised if there weren’t problems. Heck, I’ve only been married a little over two years and I’ve had some problems. Of course, you generally work through the problems but little things can build up over a period of 20 years. I can only imagine. She says that she never lived alone before her trip to Japan. I never lived alone before I got married. She and her husband probably married in their early 20s. I got married at 24. I’m guessing that might count as early 20’s? I”m not trying to be a jerk here. I’m just pointing out that her situation isn’t exactly unique. He may have been the only man she’d ever seriously dated to that point. That’s not uncommon for our mothers’ generation. I’m pretty sure that’s not uncommon practice for every generation leading up to ours. My point is, a lot can happen in 20 years, especially if she married very young. A person in her early 20s still has a lot of growing up to do. These are both very true statements. Think about the past 5-10 years and how much you’ve changed. Oh yeah, I sure have. I don’t know how old you think I am, but I just turned 27 two weeks ago. Ten years ago, I was still in high school. Good thing I didn’t get married then! You whole philosophy can change in that period of time. Mine has, which is probably part of the reason you’ve sent me this message?

It sounds like one of the problems was that she and her husband did not see eye to eye on having children. That is a huge issue in many marriages, and of course, for many people, is a deal breaker. Of course, this is a common point of contention in marriages and relationships and idealy would be something that would be hashed out before one commits to a marriage. One would hope most people can get around to having a conversation about it during their engagement, as the average one in the US lasts for one year. She says in the interview that her husband had prveviously agreed to be the primary caretaker of the children. That sounds an awful lot like what someone would say if he was trying to convince a wife who didn’t want children to go forward with having children anyway because of his desire for them. Or perhaps the words of someone who loves children and genuinely wants to take care of them? There are people who feel that way in the world. Some of them are even men. Maybe he did try to pressure her into having kids. Maybe he didn’t. It seems like neither of us knows for sure. If he did, and she really didn’t want them (which, let’s face it, you’d have to pretty strongly not want kids to go on national TV and tell the world you didn’t want the two living, breathing human beings who came out of your body.) then he is definitely at fault for pressuring her. But it still doesn’t make her leaving ok.

I am not saying that she was right to leave her family. Agreed. In fact, if it was me, I think I would feel obligated to stay for the children even if it made me extremely unhappy to do so, even if it meant not following my dreams and aspirations Then you’d be a hero. (although I am not sure if she would have been doing her children any favors by staying and feeling resentful of them– I am sure that they would be able to tell and at least they seem to having at least an okay relationship now). Not to be flip, but I wonder how many years of therapy those two boys need/needed in order to come to terms with the fact that their mom left and that she has proclaimed to the world that she did not want them. I’m genuinely curious. I know that I needed therapy after my father’s abandonment, and he wanted me, just couldn’t take care of me. How long do you think it took to have an “ok” relationship with their mom? Shouldn’t children have more than an “ok” relationship with their mom? However, she made the decision that she did and I would imagine that she did not make it lightly. You are probably right. Doesn’t make it ok, but I’m sure she thought about it. I just want to urge you not to be so quick to judge people. Thank you for doing so. It is a flaw of mine. I’m working on it. As much as you thought I was judging her in this post, you should have seen the first draft. That said, this woman deserves some judgment. Is she evil. No, I’m sure she’s not. Is she a horrible person? No, she’s probably lovely. BUT, what she DID was wrong. I’m not saying she’s evil, I’m saying she is wrong. And to treat her like some kind of hero or brave woman for taking the coward’s way out is a sign to me that our culture is messed up. A lot of your blog posts and Facebook posts over the past few months and year have come across as bordering on self-congratulatory ouch! actually, it’s funny, I thought my last few were pretty self-depreciating, seeing as some days I’m barely hanging on by a thread. and really pretty judgemental there’s that word again! I don’t judge people, I judge actions. They are not the same. Only God can judge a person’s soul, but anyone can judge the actions of others. That’s why we have courts and laws. of anyone/anything that does not fall neatly into your current beliefs/way of life, There’s not much that neatly falls into my beliefs. Being a faithful Christian is the hardest thing in the world. Every day there are a million choices, a million opportunities to choose. After all, everything is a choice. We cannot always choose the situations which we are put in (and if you really are one of my “oldest” friends, you’ll know a lot of the shitty ones that I have been in), but we always choose how to respond. almost like you are looking for a fight I’m really not, but then again, I do get angry sometimes, in order to prove to your readers that you love your daughter and are committed to the life that you have chosen. This is just flat out rude. I don’t have a thing to prove to you or anyone else. I’m beginning to wonder if we actually are friends?

I don’t get it and to be honest, it’s starting to feel really alienating to me, and I’m sure to some of your older friends. I’m sorry you feel that way. I really am. I’m also very sorry that you don’t trust me enough, as your friend, to even tell me your name. That’s what bothers me about this most of all. I’d like to think if someone really was my friend, they would have the guts to tell me how they felt, as themselves, not some internet nickname.

I am choosing not to sign my name because I fear how you will react to this. Again, I’m very sorry you feel this way. Post this or don’t– it’s up to you. Thank you, I think I will. Just think about it. I have, and the conclusion I’ve come to is that even though I may not have shown enough charity to this woman in the post I wrote (you are right to call me out on that), that the point I make is right. I am judging her. I am judging her action of abandoning her family in order to put herself first. And I’m ok with that, because this life is not about us, and she is being lauded for acting like it is. The only love we keep is what we give away. Even the Beatles knew that.

I’d like to invite you to tell me who you are, if you should decide to email/comment again.

Here is the original post:

I was watching the Today show this morning, rocking Maggie back to sleep. A story came on about a woman who “left her children”, as the blurb before the segment started said. My ears perked up immediately.

Apparently this woman was married with two children (aged 5 and 3) when she was offered the opportunity to spend six months in Japan researching a book she was working on.

She took the opportunity (though that’s not the whole extent of the leaving), and spent six months in Japan doing research.

However, while she was away from her family, she realized just how horrible being a mother is, and how it is just too.hard. So what did she do upon returning to the US?

She divorced her husband and gave him full-custody of her children.

She did not indicate on the interview just how often she sees her children, but said she spends “quality time” with them.

After giving this background, she was interviewed on the show. What really stood out to me during the interview were a few things that she said. She said that she “never wanted children”. She said this on national television. Where surely her sons (you know, the ones she never wanted) would hear it.

Something else she said that caught me was that while she was in Japan she realized that she was “afraid of being swallowed whole” by motherhood. She realized she had to “do what was best for her”.

And the final thing that she said, which made me laugh out loud upon hearing it was this:

“I realized (in Japan) that I was doing the thing I never wanted to do; giving up my life for someone else.”

This is going to be the only snarky thing I say before launching into my analysis of how she represents so much more than just one story. It is a very good thing that Jesus didn’t decide to spend six months in Japan before his public ministry began, otherwise, who knows what would have happened? Maybe he would have decided to self-actualize and spend the rest of his life patting himself on the back for being so darn in touch with himself and having his needs met? “Amen I say to you, that whole dying to self thing, its totally overrated.” I think not.

I think this woman’s story, well it’s not that unique. Parents divorce and relinquish their parenting duties all the time. Children are abandoned every single day. I was abandoned. It’s not a unique story, in that she decided she no longer wanted to be a parent, and gave up custody, because she felt like it. No surprise there.

I get it. I mean, just last week I wrote about how very, very hard it is to be a mother. How some days I’d love to run screaming down the street. How I’d love to have hours and hours to myself every day. I don’t think there is a woman alive who has a child who doesn’t know that motherhood is so hard that it sometimes feels absurd.

Of course its hard. Being a parent is one of the chief ways that we bear the image of God (who is Father) to the world. But we’re not God. We’re sinful, sorrowful, broken people. It hurts us to love, to really love. Love means giving up our life for someone else. That’s what it is. Our messed-up, me-centered culture can only grasp at the edges of what love really is. This woman could be their mascot.

What makes this story unique, at least to me, is that she is paraded around on the Today show like she’s some kind of hero for “being true to herself.” That’s how you know a culture is on its way down the crapper: when someone’s flat-out refusal to love their children in any real way merits them a slot on national TV. Apparently being true to ourselves at the expense of others is the new national pastime.

The real hero in this story, the one who should be on TV being lauded for bravery, is the father of these children. The man whose wife left for what was supposed to be six months for work, and then, never came back, at least not in any real sense. He had a bomb dropped in his lap, with absolutely no warning. And he picked up the pieces, became the full-time caregiver of his children, and made it work. He is the hero. And every other parent like him, who puts the needs of his/her children ahead of themselves, because someone has to, and their selfish partner walked away.

To quote Veronica Mars, “The villain is the one who takes off. The hero is the one who stays.”

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