When you blog about life and work at a marriage institute and you’re childless and unmarried, uncharitable, callous and plain ole’ mean folks come out of the woodwork. I’ll reference here this blog post, pertaining to moi.
And then I’ll link to this story in Alberta, whereby a Redford staffer tweeted this about Danielle Smith:
If @ElectDanielle likes young and growing families so much, why doesn’t she have children of her own? #wrp family pack = insincere
Look, I am practicing what I preach. I preach young women following their dreams/the calling on their lives, such that they might contribute to the world even as they are fulfilled. I simultaneously preach that not everyone needs to have a “cookie cutter” life, ie. married at the national average, two kids, a dog. Finally, I preach that some things are not a choice, aka, the great women’s “choice” to abort is one of the strangest, most extreme ideas ever foisted on women and society, compelling them to live cookie cutter lives that may actually run contrary to their callings.
Back to Danielle Smith: I think she need not have gone as far as she did in her response to this uncharitable tweet. She is doing a great and arduous task, contributing much. I happen to have met her when I lived in Alberta and she’s lovely. We don’t need to know why she does or does not have children. Full stop.
by 
Sadness, pain and anger scream out from that blog; unfortunately, and I see it (mostly) in American media, debate and constructive dialogue has been replaced by mindless bombast and exaggerated hyperbole. In speaking out about abortion’s harm to women, you are doing a tremendous service to society and I admire you. Keep up the excellent work.
Ugh. That faction of the pro-choice movement is particularly hateful. It’s also particularly loud.
You’ve made it when you have awakened their ire.
If you weren’t bothering them, they’d be ignoring you.
You’ve got to love the way some people are just plain old obtuse.
Believing in the institution of marriage doesn’t mean that you jump into marriage just to be part of the crowd. We’ve already seen what happens to marriages that are not thought out carefully. So I would argue quite emphatically that you, Andrea, DO practice what you preach. You preach that marriage is worthwhile and wonderful – when joined into by a man and woman who have made the careful and considered decision to get married. And you preach that even carefully considered marriages can travel a very difficult road, but a challenge that is well worth fighting for if you are willing to weather the storm.
Notice that in her posting the blogger refers to her “first ex”. Implying that there is more than one. I would argue that she either should have considered more carefully before the nuptials, or fought harder after the vows. But she in no way has any business even mentioning marriage to you. It is kind of like a bankrupt accountant giving you financial advice! Hardly!
You also preach that the ideal is to wait to meet the right person, enter into a stable marriage, and raise children in a nuclear family environment. You preach that this is better than the alternatives of sleeping around indiscriminately, contracepting, and worst of all, conceiving-then-aborting. Since I have seen no evidence that you engage in any of the latter, I would surmise that you do practice what you preach.
She sounds angry. Hurt. And bitter.
I hope she finds healing.
And I hope you continue to fight the good fight without feeling wounded by ad hominem attacks that have no basis. You so eloquently put into words much of what we are all feeling. Please keep it up.
I was really neat to see people acting civilly across the political divide in the Danielle Smith situation. I wonder if actually firing that woman was necessary though. Maybe a sincere apology would have been enough?
As for the Sister Sage link, it was basically a string of unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks on you. In fact, it wasn’t aimed at you at all. Sage sounds like she’s from my generation – those are all the same kinds of arguments we used to use before we actually found out what the results of our ideas were.
You say women should get married before they have children, and she hears you say that women should be Stepford wives who give up all their dreams and individuality. You say people should stay married, and she hears you say women should stick with abusive husbands. You say a man who takes as much responsibility for his children as their mother does is less likely to be rioter, and she hears you say that wimmin have a duty to tame men. And of course, when you say that women shouldn’t be faced with the legal and socially accepted “choice” of abortion, she hears you say women should be barefoot and pregnant with “scads of kids.”
These days young women seem to be more worried that they’ll have to do everything by themselves and be poor, or give up on kids altogether, than that they’ll have to give up their glorious independence if they get married. Independence isn’t so glorious when it means working a dead end job to support the kid you have to raise by yourself because it was your choice not to abort the kid the father didn’t choose to raise.
Makes you think of the ancient Romans and Greeks, doesn’t it? The father had the right to abandon any child he didn’t feel like supporting. Which is basically what abortion rights do now. Only instead of the father abandoning the child on the hillside after it’s born, he just pressures the mother to get an abortion or he leaves her to raise the child on her own.
Mary, I had the same thought. I didn’t think a firing was necessary. A sincere apology would do the trick. And thanks for your insight into Sister Sage. Unsubstantiated ad hominem attacks indeed, which is why when it came out I didn’t give it a second thought. I’m not sure I read too much beyond the opening lines, either.