A single thing

A facebook friend posted a link to this article on the Junia project about how ‘male privilege shows up at church’. I liked it, but also said I’d like to see one on how married/parent privilege shows up and another commenter said he’d like to see that. So I’ve thrown these thoughts together in an attempt to be helpful and also listening, and with a vast appreciation for the way my own friends attempt to negotiate my weird status as a 40-something (something small, I might add), who is also an immigrant (a white one) living alone in a different country from my family of origin.

The scope of this is broader than ‘at church’, it turns out since I was also motivated by a recent conversation with someone who lives a housing co-op (subsidized community housing). I expressed an interest and was told they don’t accept single people. Plain as that. Something about wanting to best use the resources, or fill the space or something. I don’t know. This illustrates that being single is a strange mix of perceived privilege or selfishness on the one hand and perceived lack or inadequacy on the other.

Being single, especially in one’s 40s, is without a doubt a marginal lifestyle. And since gay people starting joining the mainstream with the marrying and the having of the children, being single is even more out there, along perhaps with married people who choose not have children. That’s pretty out there too.

As a marginal way of life, being single is not marginalized like being permanently disabled is, or being of a minority race or sexual/gender orientation is marginalized, because there is often (though not always) an element of choice involved in being single. And this is perhaps why single people find themselves viewed with an alternating mixture of envy, suspicion, dismissal, bemusement and pity. And these each play a part in how single people see themselves too – at least they do for me.

Being a single woman at church can be quite the minefield. People don’t really know what to do with you, especially at more conservative churches where you’re not doing what women were put on this earth to do (and therefore might not even be saved; they're looking into it). In many churches and theologies across the board, family is simply an idol to be worshipped so being single is essentially heretical. I have been in churches where the male leaders refused to shake my hand for fear of I don’t know what, which is just plain rude, to my way of thinking. I am mightily fortunate to be part of a church that gives me space to explore my gifts and to have a voice as a valued individual among many. On the other hand, I myself do make it a point to befriend wives more than their husbands, and to avoid the bear hugs some seem to think it appropriate to give single women, while gratefully accepting the hugs of my 'substitute mothers' and friends. In liberal churches, and where feminist theologians might seek to reclaim imagery of motherhood and birth as the metaphor at the epicenter of creation this can still place single women – or I should say child-free women – somewhat out of the loop. Don’t equate being a mother with being female, please.

So, here are some more thoughts, a smorgasbord of tips and observations off the top of my head. I have no desire to paint a picture that is anti-family nor one that paints single people as victims, because neither of these describe my experience. But for what it's worth, to start a conversation:

1. Choose not to only call on your single friend (or any friends really, but especially single friends) when your spouse/partner is away or otherwise unavailable. We are not the ‘friend of the gaps’.

2. Call a big event a community event, not a ‘family event’ unless you literally only want families there (and don’t do that). It unnecessarily excludes single people. And by the way, having any event or holiday that celebrates family (I’m looking at you, BC) is a bit like having an event that celebrates white people.

3. Decide not to roll your eyes at single people (especially those over, say, 35) when they ask for their own room on a retreat or other gathering. Choose not to reply, if married, with ‘Well I have to share a room all the time!’ That’s just silly.

4. Don’t expect me to babysit your kids. I might say yes, I might not, but I’m not obligated to say yes simply because I have none. For one thing, the chances are I’ll be bad at it.

5. Allow a single person to express their stress (though they in turn should bear in mind (as should we all) the principle of the ring theory of complaining). If I say that I’m tired from getting up at 5.30, don’t ‘pfft’ and tell me I don’t have to get up to a crying baby at 4am. No I don’t, but it’s not a competition and our stresses are as valid as each other’s.

6. I would suggest this: as far as is possible, treat EVERY PERSON first of all as an individual human being and child of God in their own right, whether married or single, whether a parent or child-free. I’m sure a mother of three tiny ones would appreciate this as much as a single person.

7. Learn from single people as part of the big conversation. Single people of a certain age can most probably teach non-single people a thing or two about solitude – not only surviving it but flourishing in it. (They might even have written a thesis on that very topic.) We are all born alone and we stand before God alone, and yet we also live together and no-one can flourish alone. This is the dance.