A Quiverfull of What, Exactly?

I’m all for live and let live. Each of us has the right to live as we choose, so long as we don’t hurt others. Enter the quiverfull movement. Evidently it’s a fundamentalist biblical group that seems to think women should subjugate themselves to their husbands. I read an article posted on Rawstory from Alternet today about their belief that women under most conditions should submit to sex with their husbands whenever they get the urge. If she complains that she’s not getting her emotional needs fulfilled as the reason for her less than eager response, she’s thought to be fussy and selfish. She’s apparently there to serve her husband, or disappoint Jesus. Or something like that. Somehow, I think Jesus would be disappointed in the leaders of this quiverfull movement for pursuing such an inane ideology in His name. Or maybe I just don’t understand. Or maybe it’s the witch in me or something..we’re cranky that way.

It’s a dangerous road women travel when they willingly give up their own power to someone else. Likewise for the man who expects it from her. For an institution of sorts to support it is astonishing. The chaos of the world reflects an imbalance of projective/receptive polarities. We’re not supposed to choose one and become that. The idea is to find a balance of the two fluid enough that we flow with whatever the situation requires of us, with alignment as our resonance. An ideology that has at its core an imbalance favoring the projective/masculine side of the equation is troubling. Although women who choose this life may indeed do so willingly (I really have no idea how that choice is made), and may believe that it gives them the ultimate freedom, I don’t happen to share that view. I’ve seen how this imbalance causes all sorts of problems.

I’ve seen and experienced a family structure where patriarchy fostered abuse. So I know it can happen because I lived it. So have countless others, both men and women. In nonphysical form, we would never even consider existing in such an imbalance, in fact it’s not even possible, so why would we consider it in physical form? It’s not representative of who we are as one in Source. This just feels to me like men getting to run the show for no purpose higher than serving the needs of their own egos. Why on earth would any woman give away her power to that?

I’m the first to admit that I know little about this movement, other than what I’ve heard of the celebrities on television that are part of it. Apparently they have a homeschool curriculum that includes some of this patriarchal ideology as well. My boys homeschooled. I guess we did it differently because as adults they gravitated toward intelligent, educated, successful women. One married, and the other is about to marry, women who would sooner walk out the door before living in a patriarchal structure. And they have a mother-in-law who supports them in that. I thank the Goddess for them every day. And I love my boys more than anything for “getting it.”

Again, I know little of that ideology, but when my boys homeschooled, one of their texts was A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn, so you get the idea of what homeschooling looked like in our house. It was more unschooling than anything, with the boys following their interests that led to college degrees and careers for both. I wouldn’t trade those years with them for anything. And then they fell in love with empowered women. I used to think that the best part of homeschooling was that they learned that they were responsible for their own education. It was on them. But now I know it was how it prepared them for who they would marry. My sons chose empowered women. I can’t say that enough!

Relationships suffer when imbalances exist, even when we convince ourselves that we’re happy living that way. It just doesn’t feel right for parents not to share in a balanced power structure in the home. It sends the wrong message to children, putting too much pressure on boys and limiting the full expression of self in girls. Is that really the message we want to send to our children? Or do we want to foster an awareness of polarities within with a focus on alignment and fluid balance of those polarities?

When I became pregnant for the first time, I found a book called, Whole Child, Whole Parent, by Polly Berrien Berends, that changed my focus as a parent forever. She spoke of children as “seeing beings” and I couldn’t agree more. That’s exactly what they are. I wanted the boys to experience life on their terms as much as safety would allow, and they did. I’m sure they’d both qualify that a little, but then they see things a little different than their mother does and that’s okay. All I saw in them was unbridled potential. They could do and become anything they chose. And they have. They’re not conditioned to play this or that role; they live their lives in sync with their partners, in service to the greater purpose of their lives together.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that we owe our kids a perspective that throws narrow definitions out the window, that considers all possibilities. Imagine a quiverfull of possibility..and grandchildren..I want at least four. I don’t care how that happens or who has the most. Imagine another chance to experience some little seeing beings!

Fabulous!

~Blessed Be!