A single woman's rant about other stuff

[graceandglory]

I have to say my brother, sister and I LOVED our spinster aunts. They were the most fun. They lived with each other and actually opened their home to practically everyone, especially family and friends were were newly immigrated from the Philippines in the 80s and 90s. Our one aunt was/is like a big kid. She had/has all the newest games and gadgets. All the kids loved going over to the house to play with her and her games and toys. She and my other aunt would invite us to come and visit for a week or more. My parents would drop us off and we’d have a grand old time with them and with all of our Filipino cousins, also giving us a chance to know that part of our culture and heritage since my sibs and I are mixed race of caucasion and Filipino. ** And the house was often times filled to the brim - like one big huge party - and often times it really was a party. Always celebrating someone’s birthday or something else. Dance contests for the kids, etc. People would be camped out in all the rooms at night. It was so awesome for us as kids. **

Our other aunt was always into fashion, collecting dolls and other girly things, so I loved hanging around her as well. **She’d doll me up with her makeup - and I loved that gaudy blue eye shadow. haha! **She also got me into collecting dolls. I don’t collect them now, but I have a small collection from my childhood. They also had a piano, which got me into wanting to learn how to play and am now I’m a professional musician. I do owe a lot to them.

Basically the two of them are just really giving people. .

Beautiful story of your two spinster aunts who knew how to be gifts of themselves to their family and to others.
:clapping:

 

[Salonika]

graceandglory:

It’s not necessarily a financial thing, but it could be. I suppose your family doesn’t see the fruits of a generous life, and that is what they are expecting of you.

Or it could be that they do not see the fruits of a generous life in the way they want - these are not automatically legitimate - they may be or may not be. Even if the wants are legimate there may be valid reasons for the single person not meeting them.

Often feel that the single person always has to justify their choices, what they have done, what they have not done but the married do not.

 

[Appleby]

I am a practicing Catholic and I do feel, from what i know of it, that I am consecrated to the single life. I have always thought a family should have a spinster daughter for that very reason, if she is called to such a vocation and does not feel bitter and left behind. I am sure i could have married any number of men, if they would have improved my life in any measurable way. I do not believe, with the exception of one who was discouraged by his father (who disliked me intensely), that any of them would have.

Nevertheless, I do feel that a spinster is a whole person who exists for her own self as well as that of others. And like you said, I believe that Married With Children is assumed to be the default situation and anyone who does not conform, especially any female, is forced all her life to make excuse for not conforming to that situation – and frequently (and you will find this in the OT especially) has children thrown in her face by triumphant married women who may, in truth, have nothing in their hearts but self-satisfaction. Not always, mind you. But frequently, they seem to believe like Hagar that because they have produced children, they are somehow more human.

 

[graceandglory]

Often feel that the single person always has to justify their choices, what they have done, what they have not done but the married do not.

It’s true. I have a spinster friend, a beautiful, loving, professional Christian woman. I know she has commented too about some people being insensitive. While she wanted to get married and be a mother, she has “mothered” nearly 30 classrooms full of children over the past 30 yrs. She has also been able to reap the benefits of being a single professional woman with world travel, driving a very nice car, and living in a very nice home. She is also faithful giving to her church and loves her family. Still, some people talk. While I’m not in her same position, I tell her, “you go, gurlfrend! You deserve it!” Our other friends can’t travel the world because they are putting their children through college. She doesn’t have any children. Travel is a consolation in this life for being barren and now being past child-bearing years.

 

[Appleby]

It’s true. I have a spinster friend, a beautiful, loving, professional Christian woman. I know she has commented too about some people being insensitive. While she wanted to get married and be a mother, she has “mothered” nearly 30 classrooms full of children over the past 30 yrs. She has also been able to reap the benefits of being a single professional woman with world travel, driving a very nice car, and living in a very nice home. She is also faithful giving to her church and loves her family. Still, some people talk. While I’m not in her same position, I tell her, “you go, gurlfrend! You deserve it!” Our other friends can’t travel the world because they are putting their children through college. She doesn’t have any children. ** Travel is a consolation in this life for being barren and now being past child-bearing years**.

That last sentence says absolutely everything I was trying to point out.

I have travelled all over the world and stood on all seven continents, AND I DID NOT TRAVEL AS A CONSOLATION FOR BEING BARREN AND NOW PAST CHILD-BEARING YEARS!!!

 

[Dale_M]

Incidentally, why is it that Bachelor is a positive word and Spinster is a negative word? A never married man is a gay blade, but a never married woman is a pitiful object.

I would attribute it to sexism from a older culture. It used to be that women were considered incomplete without having a man in their life, and yet men were somehow self-sufficient. I think second-wave feminism tried to change that. Remember the phrase “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle,” made famous by Gloria Steinem? But I am not sure they were completely successful - the double standard may still persist, especially among those with a conservative world view.

BTW, I don’t think most bachelors would want to be described as a gay blade, since the word “gay” has a meaning today that didn’t exist when the phrase “gay blade” was coined. I think many unmarried guys (the majority even?) are quite uncomfortable with possibly being associated with homosexuality.

 

[Appleby]

I would attribute it to sexism from a older culture. It used to be that women were considered incomplete without having a man in their life, and yet men were somehow self-sufficient. I think second-wave feminism tried to change that. Remember the phrase “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle,” made famous by Gloria Steinem? But I am not sure they were completely successful - the double standard may still persist, especially among those with a conservative world view.

BTW, I don’t think most bachelors would want to be described as a gay blade, since the word “gay” has a meaning today that didn’t exist when the phrase “gay blade” was coined. I think many unmarried guys (the majority even?) are quite uncomfortable with possibly being associated with homosexuality.

I have bachelor friends whose married friends (even those who are going to keep on getting married til they get it right) assume exactly that – or that the guy is a Mamas Boy.

 

[Salonika]

graceandglory:

Travel is a consolation in this life for being barren and now being past child-bearing years.

Not for us who have chosen the single state. It is something we enjoy doing for itself. The same is true about other aspects of our lives eg working, contact with friends, hobbies and interests.

 

[TMarieVeronica]

God sometimes works in very mysterious ways.

If I hadn’t remained single, I probably wouldn’t have been available to care for my mother… when she needed care the most. She is 86 and was dx’d with Alzheimer’s a couple years ago.

 

[Appleby]

God sometimes works in very mysterious ways.

If I hadn’t remained single, I probably wouldn’t have been available to care for my mother… when she needed care the most. She is 86 and was dx’d with Alzheimer’s a couple years ago.

Likewise. I was able to provide a holy refuge for my sister fleeing two disastrous marriages, help keep her from losing her house and feed her children and provide extra employment when she was not able to do any of these things for herself. For 16 years I was her mother as well as that of her children. I could not have done that if I had not been single and childless.

We spinsters are here for a purpose, too. We are not simply failed women.

I honour and respect married women with children, but I do not worship them and I do not think you ought to look down your noses at those of us who have chosen, or for whom God has chosen, another way.