I usually avoid online arguments like the plague. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of arguments on social media are worthy. Things like ‘Is COVID-19 Real?’ and ‘Who is Keeping Our Government Accountable?’ and ‘What is Your Favourite Musical and Why is it Hamilton?’ Then there are religious debates. The place of LGBQTI+ people in […]
Surviving Singledom
Issues relating to my book and to the broader challenges facing Christian singles
Stories of Singledom
It never ceases to amaze me how society pressures single people to ‘just’ get married. I hear it anecdotally in the stories told by single people who get called ‘fussy’ or ‘picky’. I hear it in singles asking aloud why they’re still single. I read it in social media complaints about the lack of eligible […]
My Favourite Things: When Church Does Childlessness Well
Churches often struggle to include childless people. They’re great at ministering to mothers and fathers and kids. But they often neglect those in the minority, those who didn’t follow the expected social and spiritual trajectory of getting married and making babies. I have a few choice stories about the bad and the ugly of church […]
What Would I Want the Next Generation of Christian Women to Know?
I was recently interviewed by Fixing Her Eyes* and they asked me a difficult question: What would I want to tell the next generation of Christian women? What would I want them to know? I believe this worthy question warrants more than the couple of paragraphs I originally wrote. So here goes. To Christian women […]
Singledom and Social Media
I recently left a singles-focused social media group. Or, to be more accurate, I was asked to leave and re-join, something I was not prepared to do (due to personal circumstances). So I left altogether. In a way, I am glad. I have noticed this group seems particularly fond of positive singledom narratives. You know, […]
Singledom: The Short Straw?
A recent Triple J radio interview struck a chord with me. Yesterday, on the 8th of July 2021, Triple J’s Hack podcast talked about how singles often get the short straw in social situations, with their dating life on public display and even used as a source of entertainment by their coupled friends. (Listen here: interview […]
Leaving Legacies—Writing
‘Write with great care,’ exhorted my university professor, ‘because everything you write lasts for eternity. Once your words are written down somewhere, they are immortal.’ I was twenty-one years old when I heard those words, spoken by my psychology tutor. He was, of course, referring to the clinical notes and reports written by professional psychologists. […]
Sex and Singledom
It’s hard not having sex when you’re single. Even when you’re a Christian. And even when you’re female. I’ve heard Christians still have sex before marriage, they just wait longer than the non-Christian mainstream. And Christians utilise porn, both men and women. So Christians are thinking about sex, and having sex, despite the church’s teachings […]
Childless People Have ‘Real Families’ Too
I constantly read online rhetoric about ‘working families’. All too often, this means two adults with children. It is the mainstream, the norm, the personification of the popular-yet-mythical ‘nuclear family’. Of course, not all forms of family fall under this definition. Traditional assumptions view families as adults-plus-children, which excludes childless people and treats them as […]
Identity Crisis
Have you seen that movie where the guy says to the girl, ‘You complete me?’ Ugh. Notice I did not mention which movie. I don’t have to. I have heard this sentiment expressed many times, in conversations, in songs, in the interrogations of single people as though their lives depended on getting married. This concept […]