Selfish Parenting

14. Unpacking Church Trauma & Refusing to Raise my Daughters in Shame

• Chance' Hindir-Lane • Episode 14

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I grew up in the church. I prayed, I read my Bible, I believed God was the reason my family survived some of the hardest things we ever went through. Faith grounded me, especially as a refugee kid trying to make sense of losing everything and starting over. But I also grew up hearing that my body was a problem, that my value lived in my virginity, that motherhood was my highest calling, and that men’s comfort mattered more than women’s safety. In this episode, I’m talking about Christianity, modesty culture, Mormonism, Congolese churches, motherhood, and the part of faith that still feels confusing for me. I still pray. I still believe in God. I still find comfort in parts of the Bible. I also know I cannot raise my daughters inside the same shame, fear, and patriarchy that made me question my own body, my own freedom, and my own worth. This is where I am right now: grieving the church community I loved, questioning what I was taught, and choosing to teach my children about religion without handing them the trauma that came with mine.

Research mentioned:

In this episode, we cover:

  • Why I stopped searching for a home church after spending years trying to find one that felt safe
  • How modesty culture taught me to carry shame for a body I was still learning how to live in
  • What Mormonism showed me about women doing the work while men held the power
  • Why having daughters made me question which parts of church I was willing to pass down
  • The grief I still feel for the community, care, and village that church gave me
  • How I’m teaching my children about religion without making fear the foundation
  • Why so many of us are questioning Christianity and realizing patriarchy was sitting right there with it
  • What it feels like to still pray, still believe, and still not know where church fits in my life anymore

Hosted by Chancé Hindir-Lane, Selfish Parenting is the honest, empowering podcast that challenges the myth of self-sacrifice in motherhood. Each episode explores identity, partnership, and the balance between nurturing your family and yourself.

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Damn.

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I said I wasn't gonna cry.

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They want you to be a freak in the sheet with no experience at all. What kind of values are we teaching men? While in that particular church, another scandal happened. And now I'm 12 years old, I'm in Utah, and I am being told that my shoulders are going to cause these young men to sin. I just looked at him and I said, Do you want me to do that here? And he goes, Yes, take off your sweater and touch yourself where that boy touched you. I remember looking around and everybody said, Yes, amen, amen. I said, Nah, this is not it. I was nine years old when someone first told me my body was a problem. Not so much in those exact words, but we've all heard that Modus is the hardest. Save it for your husband, cover up, or my most heard one, especially growing up in a Christian household, your body is a temple and you have to treat it as such. 22 years later, I am now a mom to twin girls, and I am now teaching and raising my daughters outside of the church that I grew up in. Welcome to Selfish Parenting. Today's conversation is a tough one. It might make some of us a little uncomfortable, but if you stick with me, I hope that it opens up some dialogue that is much needed in our community when it comes to Christianity, modesty, and growing up in the church. Hi, my name is Shanxi and welcome to Selfish Parenting. The podcaster gives you permission to be well, a little selfish. While raising incredible children. This is where we are going to flip everything you've been told about parenting upside down. Have a seat, relax, and enjoy the show, y'all. You guys have heard me say I grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Obviously, I'm Congolese, but one thing that goes with growing up Congolese is our faith. A lot of Congolese people are either Catholic or they're just Christians. I grew up in a Christian church. I grew up going to church every single Sunday. I grew up reading the Bible every night. We grew up in a household where our problems were given to God first and foremost. I don't remember a day where my mom was not sitting with us to pray with us, read the Bible with us. And my faith truly is what grounded me in some of the hardest times in my life growing up. I've mentioned that I'm a refugee, which means that at some point in time, our family lost everything we've ever had. And when I say lost everything we've ever had, we were also misplaced from our home. I think that's when my faith really became my grounding sounding board, where it was like everything happens for a reason. I have to believe that because as a nine-year-old girl, I could not wrap my head around having everything and it being ripped away from me overnight to becoming a refugee, sleeping in a tent, not even having a bathroom to use in my own home, having no education, having no school. It truly happened so fast that my faith grew in those moments. I remember being in a refugee camp and praying more than I've ever prayed before. And then something miraculous happened, right? We left a refugee camp. We got taken away from there, right? And in my head, it was like God has saved me. God has, you know, chosen my family and saved us from the horrors of being refugees. Our family was split into two. Some of them were in the US and some of them were in Canada. And this is where I think my faith kind of began to turn a little. I had something I would consider to be survivor's guilt while we were in the refugee camp. We obviously had a ton of other families there. Hundreds and thousands of families were in a refugee camp with us. And they prayed just as hard as we did. In fact, some of them had it worse than we did. Some of them had kids that were sick, some of them lived in the church. And I began to ask, well, why did God choose us? Like, why us? What makes us so special that God only saved us? As I moved to the US and I began to grow, become a young woman, those questions kind of began to deepen a little bit more. He went from why us to what makes me think that I'm so special, that I'm deserving of saving, while the rest of the women and the children that I knew back in Congo in the refugee camp are still suffering. And then it came to moving to the US and looking for a church. This is gonna sound like the funniest story ever, but when we moved to Utah, we did not speak any English. We just came back from living in a refugee camp, where obviously it's French speaking, Swahili speaking. We were greeted by guys wearing a white shirt with a little name tag on it. And we thought that they were the social workers. Because at the time, if you don't know, when you're placed into a new country as a refugee, you really don't have much support, if any. We were given our documents and we're just kind of let go. We didn't know what we're doing or what to do. The missionaries, which we didn't know they were missionaries at the time, who were missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Mormon Church, LDS Church, whatever you want to call it, they would come to our house and knock on our door and begin to kind of indoctrinate us into the church without us knowing. There was a guy who claimed he spoke French that was translating, but guys, he lied on his resume because he did not speak French. He like had a concept of French, like maybe he had like high school French and he was supposed to be our translator. Now, over the years, as we were in the Mormon church, after about maybe a month or two of the guy coming over every single day and taking us to church, one Saturday he took us to a church. They put us into white jumpsuits and we were baptized. Keep in mind, we still did not understand the Mormon church or not what it was. So we were baptized into the Mormon church. This is where I think my relationship with Christianity becomes a little funny. When it comes to all the Abrahamic religions, like you know, the Baptist church or Pentecostal church, they all have similar beliefs when it comes to modesty and women's bodies and how they control or want to police them. But the Mormon church was a little bit different. It took it up a notch. So at this point, I am maybe 12 years old. I am really becoming a woman. I'm beginning to grow into my body. I got my first period, all of that stuff. And I am part of the Mormon church. I remember my first experience in the Mormon church where I went to the young women's program and they used to have like a basketball game or like activities for the young women. I was wearing basketball shorts, you know, regular men's basketball shorts and a tink top. And I was pulled aside by the white young woman's leader, where she told me that my outfit was inappropriate because I was showing my shoulders and that the reason it was inappropriate was that the boys who were in attendance would be essentially, it would lead them to sin, right? As a 12-year-old girl, I am hearing that my shoulders are going to lead a young boy into sin. Um, I will be honest, I didn't quite understand what that even means because unfortunately, growing up in a Congolese household, we weren't really given many of much of a background when it comes to sex, sexuality, or anything like that. I do remember being maybe seven years old back in Congo and having to listen to grown men sort of sexualize our bodies. A lot of the jokes that they will tell, and it will be the men of God. It will be a pastor who will, I remember this particular pastor who used to show up at our house because he was a family friend and would claim that I'm his wife. And you know, those jokes of like, oh, your daughter's my wife, your husband is here, and he was always so icky, but I couldn't understand why he felt icky. One thing I remember from the church that I went to growing up in Congo was a scandal that happened and I was really young. I was maybe nine years old, so I didn't understand it fully because I was a child, where the pastor had molested a child, and everyone in the church was essentially silencing the mom. Or when I would hear this conversation being spoken about, it was never about the pastor. It was about the mom for speaking out or allowing her daughter near the pastor. Mind you, the pastor was married with children. That was my first experience with sort of like, what in the world? And now I'm 12 years old, I'm in Utah, and I am being told that my shoulders are going to cause these young men to sin. Move forward. I am still, you know, going to the Mormon church. At this point, I did not get baptized because I wanted to. I also had no choice but to be there because if you don't know anything, when you're Mormon and you're an immigrant who has nothing and are in a new country, the Mormon church is really helpful. They have their own food, a source of store, like I think a grocery store. So when you're a part of a Mormon church, they have a grocery store for you, they'll pay your rent, they'll give your kids clothes, they will basically take care of you, and all they'll require of you is to go to church every Sunday and attend all of their programs. I do not blame my aunt who just moved to a new country and didn't have anything and is a refugee for falling forward and wanting to be there. But because of that, I was forced to also be in attendance because, you know, she's my guardian. And as I continued to attend the Mormon church, the first thing I learned was about the priesthood. Now, if you don't know what the priesthood is, it's essentially like think preacher. It's a higher power that only men can hold. My first question I asked about the priesthood was why can't women hold priesthood? And I was just told, because they're women. Like a woman can't hold a priesthood. So then at that moment, I internalized my discomfort as, okay, maybe it's just a Mormon church that I'm having an issue with. Another big teaching in the Bible that I specifically remember at church was how I was constantly being shamed for things I can't control. Right? If I'm a young woman and I have interest in anything other than being a mom and staying at home, then I was going against my natural senses or what I was put on earth to do. I remember how heavily the church promoted women to simply stay at home, have kids take care of their husband. But I don't recall the church promoting men to take care of their wives outside of being a quote-unquote provider. And when they say provider, they're talking about financially. I also remember how little men participated in the church. Women carried the backbone of the church, yet they were often behind the scene, unthinked labor. I specifically remember in the Mormon church where women can hold a priesthood, but women planned 89% of the event, all of the programs, they brought the food, they did everything besides what the church saw as mattered most. All of that stuff I'm internalizing as a young girl in a church. I remember specifically being picked up by a woman who was in the Mormon church at this point, and she is helping our guardian, my aunt, to pick us up from school. At this point, I've been in the church for a while. I think I might be 14, so I think I'm in high school. I'm a cheerleader now. I'm also a basketball player. I'm doing a lot of extra cook activity. Anyways, she used to pick us from school since we were younger, since we maybe were like 11. So we've been around her, her two kids, and her husband for a lot of years. It was me, my younger cousin, and my other younger cousin. One day she picks us up and we're at her house. Mind you, her husband was always there. We're at her house. She comes to me and she goes, she goes, I have to drop you guys off. I said, Oh, okay. Usually she used to keep us there until my aunt got off from work. She takes us while we're in the car. She goes, This will be the last time that I pick you guys up. I was like, oh no, like why? Um, she then proceeds to say that because of the way I was dressing around her husband, that I had caused her husband to have unpure thoughts about me. I was 14 years old, by the way. Um she was a mom of three and had been married to that man for like 10 years. But then in Mormon City, that could just mean they were like 30. But I was a 14-year-old girl. And God, I remember feeling disgusting. I remember just like feeling so gross. And then the thing that she ended up throwing in my face on top of that was like, it's not pure, you know, that they teach us in the church to wear garments, and you are at the age where you should be wearing garments. And the reason my husband is being led to sin and have impure thoughts about you is because you're not wearing garments and dressing like you know, a young woman should. I remember going home, and the funny part is I genuinely believed her. So at 14, uh, when I would leave cheer practice, I would put on my sweatpants and I would put on a hoodie, summer, winter, it didn't matter, so that I could go home. I began to be terrified of my body, because also I live in Utah and bodies look a certain way, not like mine. I can't even say I was a curviest teenager on the planet, but definitely curvier than the rest of the people around me. I remember when we would go to church on Sunday, I would wear the same skirt as any of the other girls, and I would be told that it's too tight because it hugs my figure in a way. I don't remember how many times I was sent to the principal's office, or should I call it, the bishop's office for being improper. And then there was an incident where I was 16 years old, we had a prom, and all of us went to prom. However, my African aunt didn't understand prom, so she saw a picture of me with my prom date and assumed the worst had happened. She had gone to the bishop and was like, my daughter's having sex because she went to prom. Um, she took me to the bishop's office, and I was in this man's office, and he goes, You know, do you know why you're here? I was like, No. And he's like, It's because you sinned. I was like, Oh, okay. Like, what did I do? And he's like, Your mom says that you have had, you know, sex with a boy, and that's a sin. I was like, I didn't do that. And he goes, Did that boy touch you? I was like, Yes. He goes, Show me where. Touch yourself where he touched you. I was like, No. And he goes, No. This is the bishop, by the way, of the Mormon church. And he's like, Touch yourself where he touched you. And I said, I'm not gonna do that. I just looked at him and I said, Do you want me to do that here? And he goes, Yes, take off your sweater and touch yourself where that boy touched you. I refused to. And he basically was like, Well, then I'm gonna have to confirm with your mom that you had sex with a boy and that it was a sin. My mom being my aunt. He went on to tell my aunt that I remember it being this huge deal where my aunt called my mom in Canada and was like, Shansei is having sex. Woo! And it was so funny, but I'm thankful that my mom has always been very aware of who I am, to where she didn't even entertain any of that. She was like, That's my daughter, I'll talk to her about anything. Mom came to me and I was like, I went to prom. She was like, Oh, okay. Um, but I remember leaving that office, not even understanding what's happening to my body. I felt so gross and icky. I didn't know. After I was 17, I decided to leave the Mormon church. I was like, I don't have to do this anymore. My aunt can force me to be here. I left the Mormon church. Now, to me, I was thinking, this is just the Mormon church. This is why this is happening. It's just a Mormon church. Because at this point, my faith is still very strong. When I go to Canada in the summers, I go to my mom's Congolese church, our Christian Baptist African church. Now, let me give you a counter to the experience I'm having there. When I go home, we have a different church, right? Congolese churches. It's fun, we dance, we celebrate, I love it. I feel at home, I feel close to God. And then something will happen in those churches where I hear women who are talking about marriage, and they're talking about the experiences with their husbands and how they talk about it. And a lot of it just sounds like these women are being raped and molested in their own marriages. A particular example in the church when I was 18 years old during the summer that comes to mind was I am dating at this point. I'm having fun dating too. My mom was really cool about it. Like I was out with a guy, uh, we went to like a beach party. Um, I put on my little swimming suit. Mom gave me a side eye, but she was like, whatever, you know, you go to a beach party. And um, I guess one of the church ladies' daughters was there too and had taken a picture and had sent it to like the church, her mom, who sent it to my mom. And the next Sunday, my mom didn't really say anything about it, but I guess it was circulating around. And I had on a little um swimsuit, shorts, and I was posing with this guy I was dating, having fun being an 18-year-old. I was in that shirt the next Sunday, and that woman said to me that, and mind you, I don't know her. I mean, she's an African auntie, like not family, but like, you know, the church. This woman said to me, she said, you need to be careful because you're about to lose the only thing that matters about you, and that is your virginity. Your value lies in your virginity. My mom unfortunately also believed that same thing. She grew up in the Christian church too. Growing up, we were always told that our value lies in three things: our virginity, our marriage, and most importantly, not losing the virginity to anyone but your husband. You hear me? And I also have brothers. None of them had ever been told that their value lies between their legs. In fact, boys have failed so much in the Christian church, they're told the opposite. They're told to literally go around, basically do whatever they want, because some pure virgin girl is going to just be waiting for them. But those men who have been sleeping around are not looking for an inexperienced virgin girl. They want you to be a freak in the sheets. It's like they want you to be a freak in the sheets with no experience at all. What kind of values are we teaching men if we want them to only want women who do not have experience? And who to look at women with experience as damaged? Because that's what the church says. One of the turning points for me in church, because even after all of this, you're thinking, okay, surely you're not going to church anymore. You'd be wrong. In fact, when I went into adulthood by myself, I now live in DC, I searched high and low to find a home-based church. I searched really hard. At this point, I'm an adult. I'm alone. I found a Congolese church in DC that was 40 minutes away from where I lived, and I went every time. Like I went every Sunday because that's how important church was. I want to be very, very clear when I say this. Church provided me with something that I needed when I was alone in a new state without my family. I knew church because there are values and things you learn in church that are irreplaceable. Community, the sense of family, the guidance, right? The morals, the values, good or bad, you want to be able to learn something that makes you feel grounded. And throughout my entire life, church has been such a big part of it that I needed that. So when I moved to DC by myself, I went to look for a church. I found a church and I was part of that church. For better or for worse, honestly, I wasn't really like a big community member of the church, but I went every Sunday, I sang my low song, I prayed, I read my Bible, and I bounced. While in that particular church, another scandal happened where the pastor would preach about his past and how he was lost. And by lost, he means he was sleeping with anything and anyone he can find. He was addicted to pornography, and then his wife saved him and stayed with him through that hardship. And that's what a good woman is. I think I was 21 years old at that point. That was the last time I went to that church. I said, absolutely not. Absolutely not. And what got me was as he was talking, I remember looking around and everybody said, Yes, amen, amen. I said, nah, this is this is not it. I left that church. It vibrated, I said the issue is not that church, it's the pastors being men. I said, Sean to find a woman pastor. So in my search for the man's church, I wanted to find a woman pastor. I searched high, low level. Left, right. At this point, I got I'm in the I'm actually engaged to Julian. I found a church, another Congolese church with a woman pastor. I said, uh, this is it. And for a very long time, I'm having a good time. I love the church. I'm having, you know, fun. Got my community up, literally, church. At this point, I am pregnant with Isakel, my firstborn. I give birth to Isakel. The church is there for me. They prayed for me. I literally went to church that day on my way to the hospital with my mom. They prayed for me. They showed up. I'm still going to church every Sunday. Nothing's changed for me. I'm still going to church. I get pregnant the second time, and this time it's with my identical twin girls. I go to church. It was a high-risk pregnancy. I'm going to church every Sunday. I still remember this sermon like it was yesterday. And it was a woman pastor preaching with another male pastor. And the sermon was about marriage. And I think he said something along the line of, as a woman, you're wasting your life if you don't do what God designed you to do, which is become a mother. Because I was pregnant, I remember him singling me out and saying, like, you know, Sister Shansei is carrying on God's, you know, plan for the woman's body. I felt so icky. I was like, oh my God, like is this what I want for my daughters? And I'm carrying twin girls. That was the first time I started to question if this is what I want for my daughters, or better yet, if this is what I want for me. I remember I was seeing a Nigerian therapist at the time. And the first thing I told her in our session, I was like, I don't think I even wanted to be a mom. I think I'm only a mom because I was raised to think that's all I can be. And that took a lot of unpacking. I was like, is that why I'm a mom? Because I know my reasons. But how much of my reasons are also tied behind sermons like that? How much of my reasons are tied behind me tying my value to being a mom or being someone's wife or any of that? And it took a lot of those conversations with my therapist to be to unpack where my own reasons come from versus the, quite frankly, the reasons that were put in my head come from. As I continue my pregnancy with the girls, I remember asking myself the questions that I ask myself in my journal all the time. And it's what kind of children do you want to raise? My husband and I talk about this all the time. We call it the essentially the pillar of what guides our parenting, and it's figuring out what kind of parents we want to be based off of what kind of children we want to raise. And it's like reverse kind of reverse engineering our parenthood method. One of the things on that list was kind, generous, strong, independent, free, respectful, worldly. And I don't think I've ever looked at myself as free or adventurous when it comes to my sex life, when it comes to my body, and when it comes to choices that I thought I could make because of the church. I remember thinking about how I would feel if my five-year-old daughter, because I do remember being as young as five, being told that my body is a temple, modesty is the best, and I have to dress a certain way not to tempt the boys. I was like, I don't want my daughters to ever hear that. And then it became one of those where it's like, wait, how would it look like if I raised daughters who got to experience church the way I did? And I didn't want to. I was like, I don't want to. I didn't immediately stop going to church because I had my daughters. They were early. They were in the DQ for two months. During this time, prayer and the churches that I've attended, both in Gramby and in DC, our home base, those churches got us through those hard times. My mom was there. We prayed a lot. We had prayers at every church. And then when our daughters were close to coming home, we would go to church. I would literally leave the NICU, go to church to get prayed over. And then my daughters finally came home. No, my daughters weren't home yet. One of them came home, one of them was still in the hospital. That entire church, that pastor, the women pastor, two of other pastors, and some of them came over to our house. And, you know, they came to check on me, like, how are you doing? How's the baby? Whatever, whatever. I remember the women pastor pulling me to the side and going, you know, how are you doing? And I was like, you know, not well. Like, my body hurts. Also keep in mind, I had to be hospitalized at least twice after giving birth to the twins while they were in the NICU. And I was like, you know, recovering, but not great. I also had an emergency section. It's been about two months. And then she looked at me and she goes, Well, I said, No, I said, Ah, I'm not doing very well. She looked at me and said, Well, you're still well enough to handle your wifely duties, right? And at first, I thought she meant like cooking and cleaning. I said, Oh, no, honestly, like, I can't do much of that. My husband's been really great at that. She goes, No, taking care of your husband, you're making sure that he's taken care of. I was like, right? Like it took me a minute to realize that this pastor is asking a woman who is two months postpartum with a daughter in the knee queue and another one home who just had a C-section, whether she's prioritizing having sex with her husband. Because those are her wifely duties. I was so stunned that I just stared at her. And she goes, Oh yeah, honey, I know it's hard, but you know, you just have to take the first step and you just have to do it because you are in a holy matrimony. And you have to maintain your marriage. Damn.

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I said I wasn't gonna cry.

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I was so, so hurt and so broken in that moment because the church was holding me together. When I talk about the NICU, it really was the worst experience of my life, and my faith and the church were what were getting me through it. So to hear these words from my pastor, it cracked me. And honestly, that was the last time I willingly stepped foot into a church or a home-based church for me. My mom will still, of course, have me go to church when I'm with her in Canada on a Sunday. I'll go when I can, you know. But for me to seek out a home-based church, that was it. That was the last time I ever did that. I left the church. And I began to read the Bible on my own, not in a you were forced to read chapters of the Bible and then a pastor is interpreting them. When I look at the Bible and think about the church itself, it is more opinions than the Bible. When you when I go to church, I'm constantly just hearing people's opinions, a pastor's opinion. And it's usually a man who has been dripped in patriarchy, telling me how I am supposed to translate the Bible, written by a man too. But I took the time to say, you know what? My faith is my faith. Let me read the Bible for myself, like a book. I'm not gonna hold you. I can't say that was much better or gave me much comfort. I don't know some of the stories. I realized I never even really understood the full context of the story. I was like, oh shit, he did what? He was murdering folks. God damn, right? It's like I know Jesus didn't write the book, so like whoever wrote it might have been a little biased, but I'm like, did they write it with us liking Jesus in mind? Because Loki, I don't know, y'all. Some of the things that God did in the Bible, I'd be like, sir, am I right? Like, did they write you in a positive light? No. However, I also am a deeply spiritual and religious person. So I struggled with that a lot. And I struggled with reading the Bible and then also applying it to my real life. And then it kind of began to give me the same vibe of like, is this patriarchy translated into a book that we should believe in? This is where I think a lot of us who are struggling are stuck. I don't want to deconstruct from Christianity 100%. I don't even know what that means. I don't necessarily, I'm not searching out to be like, deconstruct from Christianity or because generally I believe in a higher power. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. I just don't know how that looks like for me right now. Because I'm praying every night. I'm still wanting to read the Bible. I just don't know what it means. I don't know what it means that I have all of these contradicting feelings when it comes to Christianity in the Bible. I know the church is out. You couldn't convince me to go to the church. I don't want to hear the men's opinion. That's out. And I also know that leaving the church means losing community because the church has community. We learned a lot of things in the church. But I'm not the only one that's leaving the church. I thought this episode was so interesting because I wanted to see what is happening and how many other people are leaving the church. So let's get into a little bit of research. As of now, 42% of US adults have deconstructed from Christianity. So at the moment, 54% of Gen Z adults who left their formative religions are women, and 46% of them are men. 42% of US adults who say they have deconstructed from their faith of their youth. Also, 40% of women ages 18 and 29 are now religiously unaffiliated. 65% of young women say they do not believe that churches treat men and women equally, which is like, duh, right? What I was really looking into while, you know, thinking about this episode was a why. I've told you guys my why. I was really curious about why everyone else's why were. And from more digging, I found that everyone else's why is not that far off from mine. Everyone is discovering that the patriarchy and the Bible go hand in hand. A lot of women, obviously 65% of them, are believing that, first of all, women do not get treated equally in a church like they do men. The interesting thing about that is the Bible tells us all men are equal. Also, in the wake of our current president, y'all's president for real, and how Christianity is something that is deeply, deeply tied in the way they are stripping away women's rights. When it comes to the pro-lifers, people who are pro-life, they are literally stripping away people's rights in the name of it's not what we're meant to do. It's a sin. Abortion is a sin. You know what's a sin? Leaving children literally starving. You know what's a sin? Putting children into concentration camps because they are quote unquote illegal aliens, even though God says, welcome all. The Bible literally says treat your neighbor like you treat yourself. The same people who will come here and tell me abortion is a sin are the same people who will not tell me, who will also say that immigration, right, should not exist. Who will say close the borders, who will say deport the people, who will look at their neighbor and say, you look like a different color, therefore you are not human. They have used Christianity to attack my rights over and over and over again to the point where I'm tired. My body is no longer mine because in the Christian world, in the Bible, it says that my body belongs to my husband. They have used Christianity to not only strip away a woman's rights, but to make us smaller. If you don't have kids, if you're not a mom, then obviously you're not doing what the body's intending to do. Women belong in the kitchen. A man is supposed to lead. Lead me where? Where is he leading me? They're using the Bible to make it so that women are less than, not just equal human. A lot of women and people who are deconstructing from Christianity are really just deconstructing from patriarchy and realizing that, oh shit, it's the same thing. They're deconstructing from many, realizing, oh shit, it's the same thing. So my reasons are pretty similar to everyone else's reason for beginning this journey to deconstruct. Now, I know I'm telling you guys that I don't know if I can sit here and say that yes, I am on a journey to deconstruct from Christianity. But the biggest question I get asked is, well, then how are you teaching your children about Jesus? How are you going about religion? I will tell you, when it comes to religion, we treat religion like we treat any other topic in our household. Our kids are learning about religion the way they will learn about science, the way they will learn about English. It is just another topic, another subject. We research religion, we talk about different types of religion. I talk about what I believe in. I tell him I believe in Jesus and He's in this Bible. I believe in God, he's in higher power. Why do you believe in God? Is he like Santa Claus? I tell him, honestly, a little bit. But he is someone that gives me the peace that there is something bigger than myself. And when things are out of my control, it gives me peace to believe that God has them in control. When I pray, it's another sense of relief, of peace that someone of a higher power is looking over me. What does that mean? Well, different people, different countries, different states, different types of people have different beliefs in different higher powers. Some people believe in Buddha, some people believe in this. It's just different. But that's what religion is. We all pick what makes us feel safe, what we worship, and we worship it. That's really how we're going about Christianity. I would never ever stop my kids from wanting to go to church if they want to. At the very beginning, I was kind of like telling myself, well, it's COVID, we can't go to church, let's watch church on TV. And then I remember when our girls were like three, and it was Easter, and I was feeling nostalgic, and I was like, God, let's take our kids to church. Let's take them to church. Church, you know, because I had such good memories in church, you know, playing with other kids. My girls are on the spectrum, which means they have sensory issues, um, need a little extra care. It also hit me that these churches are actually also not a safe space for children who need extra care. Church is not inclusive. What? Church, where it says, come all, we welcome all, is actually not inclusive. I'm gonna give you guys a little homework. If you are currently a Christian who goes to church, can you positively say your church is inclusive for families with children on the spectrum or children with special needs? Quickly, come to the front and tell me. If you're a Christian who attends a church, how many of you can positively say your church is inclusive and that saves space for families with children on the spectrum? Come to the front and tell me about your church. I want to know. And I want to know how that inclusivity looks like. How do you support those moms who also want to listen to the sermon but have a child on the spectrum? Can those kids safely go to the basement with the rest of the kids into the kid center? That was another reason I said, absolutely not. Immediately no. Not only that, that one time I was in that church and I spoke to multiple people at the church. They kept telling me to pray for my child, that God saved them. I remember asking that lady, I said, but God makes no mistakes. Are you saying me he made my children by mistake? Oh no, no, no, no. But you know, sometimes God makes miracles happen and changes things. So what are you saying? What are you saying? Children on the spectrum don't need to be saved by the Lord. I don't need to pray, they don't need to be saved by Jesus. But that's a different story for another day. All of those things combined made my decision that much more sure when it came to how we want to approach religion and church in our household. So as of now, I do not attend any churches. I definitely pray. I still try my very best to connect with God spiritually. It looks very different. It also looks very new, confusing. And I am sitting in this season. I wish I had this like fantastic ending of saying, like, and then I just stop believing in Jesus and the Bible. That would be a lie because I still find so much solemn and comfort in the Bible. I think the question that I ask myself all the time is can duality exist in Christianity? Can I believe in the Bible and still acknowledge that it was written by a man and it's massaging and it is full of patriarchal beliefs and it is very harmful to women? And I think that makes me ask myself, then how do I find comfort in that? How do I explain? Like, I don't know. I don't know if that duality exists. And I'm struggling with that. I'm struggling with what my heart tells me versus what my head tells me. I also struggle a lot with when I pray and I say, oh, God answered my prayers. I got that new car. And then I think I'm like, I currently work with hundreds of women in the Democratic of Congo, Republic of Congo, who are being raped due to a war they did not ask for, who are being forced into motherhood at the age of like 10, 12, raped by soldiers. And those girls play. They pray harder than I ever could. And then I pray for those girls every day. And it's like, so God decided to give me a new car, but not save that 10-year-old from getting raped by a random soldier while she's on her way from getting water. Girl, what? Why would he do that? I can walk. Like it just never makes sense. And before, and the worst thing is I'm always being told, well, free will, free will. Is he free will or does he know what's going to happen? Let me know. Either way, I am genuinely just battling it. I'm struggling, y'all. It's, and I don't have an answer. I don't have this solid, happy ending. Like, I feel like I'm in this constant state of a crisis of wanting to be deeper with my faith. And then when I get there, I'm like, girl, that don't even make sense. So I don't know. I really wish that I had this beautiful ending that I can wrap up in a bow and say, and now I'm no longer Christian, or and now I'm back to being Christian, but I don't have it. And maybe I'm alone. I don't know anyone else who's in this in-between space and how their story ends or continues, but I want to hear. I want to hear from you guys. And truly, my journey really did become from the fact that I did not want my daughters to grow up the same way I did in the church and deal with the traumas that I endured in the church. And it has led me to the place that I am today. So as a mom to two daughters and two boys, I generally do not know what our future looks like when it comes to the church. Will they grow up and want to be in church? I would support that. But I do know that I won't be the ones taking them to church. There's also a little bit of mourning that's coming with that. I'm mourning the great experiences that I had in church, the community that I had from church. And the values that church taught me and the communication skills that I learned. All of those things are so valuable to me today. And there's mourning that comes with knowing that I really don't I'm not gonna give my kids that even the sense of belonging that comes with being a part of a church, having people come check on you, care about you who may not be your family. Especially because I'm growing up in an entire new state without my immediate family here, I can a hundred percent see how church could or would have been that honestly center village for me, and it's not. So that's where I am. I don't have a safe, happy boat tie this episode over for you. But all I will say is if you are also experiencing this in-between space that I am, I want you to know that you're not alone. Literally 42% of other people are going through the same thing as you. I will love to hear from you. I would love to hear how you're going through it, how you're working through it, what's helping you, what's not helping you. And of course, I am glad to have you as part of my community. And for all of you who are new, welcome. Don't forget to like, comment, share, follow us on Instagram, TikTok, all the good stuff. And I'm really excited for this conversation. Keep it cute in the comments now.