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I was born and raised Catholic. I attended Catholic private school until mid-5th grade when they kicked me out for shooting soap at the ceiling in the boys bathroom.
I still stayed in a Boy Scout troop stationed at a KofC hall beside my Catholic School. …and mom married Scoutmaster Bob which didn’t really ease the discomfort and awkwardness I’m being honest. He was a military guy who served as engineer on a Navy Tug for a while.
All this is just backstory. The way that backstory affected me was twofold; expectations and punishment.
I was always a stupidly smart kid with a passion for art and observation. I watched people and even drew them… I was reprimanded at Catholic School (St Lawrence) for drawing a dude who was giving a speech about planning for the future because he had an interesting face… or nose. I gave him the portrait when the class was asked if they had questions.
So, I was expected to be “normal” and quiet when I wanted to be expressive and artistic. I was then punished and often confined until I observed the unwritten and unspoken rules. Why should they need to be spoken? I guess most kids don’t have abstract, creative minds or maybe they just prioritize when they use those minds.
The Catholic upbringing also taught my father how to handle certain things… how to raise a son, punish a son, command a son, etc. and he didn’t do too well with the abstract nature of art in me so he prioritized trying to get me into sports, engineering, cars and planes… whatever he cared about. I was 15 before he stopped buying me Red Wings shit. He still seems to have trouble accepting that I don’t care to work on cars or his boats.
So, the patriarchal dominance of Christianity played a very powerful role in shaming me. It also played a strong role in suppressing my passions.
I feel like a husk and barely have a grip on what feels fulfilling to me. I’m finally rebuilding myself and standing up for my values and needs… but I’m 37 and every god-forsaken jackass and their mother wants me to have fucking kids, even after I got a vasectomy in protest.
That child-raising bullshit is also a majorly Conservative Christian force-feeding… which plays a role in trauma conditioning and triggering.
I just want to live a peaceful, expressive, creative life and travel a bit. Christian fundamentalism has a stranglehold on my life and much of my nearby communities.
…there’s more but let’s be real. I don’t want to think about it. I still trust many Christian communities for their social support and volunteer efforts. I just fear they’ll whip me into submission with ulterior motives like fatherhood or stepfatherhood.
I decided somewhere around 16-17 years old definitively. I sometimes surround myself with the wrong community in which to mention being childfree… or thought I did for the longest time and finally started communicating it as a firm relational boundary.
I only recently realized how truly toxic some parents and breeder communities can be. At this point I have just as many hopeful, childfree connections as toxic community connections seeming to intentionally introduce single moms.
They’re both a minority as most parents are just self-concerned and caregiving.
I’ve known without reservation or hesitation that I want a childfree, art-centered and mutually creative, coregulating and chill relationship. I’d like to travel and create things… experience things with a childfree partner and have plentiful time for relaxation, intimacy and energy recovery.
It’s a life which couldn’t be possible with children.
I still stayed in a Boy Scout troop stationed at a KofC hall beside my Catholic School. …and mom married Scoutmaster Bob which didn’t really ease the discomfort and awkwardness I’m being honest. He was a military guy who served as engineer on a Navy Tug for a while.
All this is just backstory. The way that backstory affected me was twofold; expectations and punishment.
I was always a stupidly smart kid with a passion for art and observation. I watched people and even drew them… I was reprimanded at Catholic School (St Lawrence) for drawing a dude who was giving a speech about planning for the future because he had an interesting face… or nose. I gave him the portrait when the class was asked if they had questions.
So, I was expected to be “normal” and quiet when I wanted to be expressive and artistic. I was then punished and often confined until I observed the unwritten and unspoken rules. Why should they need to be spoken? I guess most kids don’t have abstract, creative minds or maybe they just prioritize when they use those minds.
The Catholic upbringing also taught my father how to handle certain things… how to raise a son, punish a son, command a son, etc. and he didn’t do too well with the abstract nature of art in me so he prioritized trying to get me into sports, engineering, cars and planes… whatever he cared about. I was 15 before he stopped buying me Red Wings shit. He still seems to have trouble accepting that I don’t care to work on cars or his boats.
So, the patriarchal dominance of Christianity played a very powerful role in shaming me. It also played a strong role in suppressing my passions.
I feel like a husk and barely have a grip on what feels fulfilling to me. I’m finally rebuilding myself and standing up for my values and needs… but I’m 37 and every god-forsaken jackass and their mother wants me to have fucking kids, even after I got a vasectomy in protest.
That child-raising bullshit is also a majorly Conservative Christian force-feeding… which plays a role in trauma conditioning and triggering.
I just want to live a peaceful, expressive, creative life and travel a bit. Christian fundamentalism has a stranglehold on my life and much of my nearby communities.
…there’s more but let’s be real. I don’t want to think about it. I still trust many Christian communities for their social support and volunteer efforts. I just fear they’ll whip me into submission with ulterior motives like fatherhood or stepfatherhood.
I decided somewhere around 16-17 years old definitively. I sometimes surround myself with the wrong community in which to mention being childfree… or thought I did for the longest time and finally started communicating it as a firm relational boundary.
I only recently realized how truly toxic some parents and breeder communities can be. At this point I have just as many hopeful, childfree connections as toxic community connections seeming to intentionally introduce single moms.
They’re both a minority as most parents are just self-concerned and caregiving.
I’ve known without reservation or hesitation that I want a childfree, art-centered and mutually creative, coregulating and chill relationship. I’d like to travel and create things… experience things with a childfree partner and have plentiful time for relaxation, intimacy and energy recovery.
It’s a life which couldn’t be possible with children.
