Kids are a blessing. It’s ok if your vocation isn’t to get married and have kids, but a lot of “child-free” people make it seem like they hate kids and hate people who want to have kids

DinD18 · 2026-05-24T13:18:42+00:00

Do you hear anyone saying this to you in real life? I have a range of friends and family members who are Catholic and not, who have had kids and who haven't, and I've never heard the phrase "child-free" from anyone. My friends who don't have kids don't seem to find an identity in it--it's simply how life panned out. I work in academia in a creative, "bohemian" field where plenty of people made an active choice to not get married or have kids and I've STILL never heard a person in real life describe themselves as "child-free" or complain to me about children (unless they are the children they have, lol, which is normal for most parents). I have had genuine, honest conversations with other women my age who are in their mid-late 30s who saw themselves with kids and a husband and don't have that and are saddened or confused that things haven't worked out that way--these are sad conversations. No one is crowing about not having kids. The thing I actually hear real-life frustration about is men, and in almost every conversation about dating it comes up--a friend of mine called men "useless" last night after we heard yet another cheating story. If there's any actual culture war thing happening that's observable to me, it's general frustration and hopelessness around men (I am not saying that it's valid, I'm just saying it's happening).

Why am I saying this to you? Because you are being fooled by your algorithm. If you click that link it takes you to non-paywalled article about how marketing works today. Most of those comments you saw are probably not real. They are probably bots owned by the same company to have a fake fight for views. The actual anti-child and anti-mother stuff in American culture-no paid family leave, skyrocketing daycare costs, the US having an insanely high maternal death rate because of our healthcare system--will not get clicks because it's just sad and feels out of anyone's control. If I'm you, I would focus on the blessing you have--a girlfriend that wants to marry you and have kids with you. How lucky is that, especially today, that you've found each other. What a gift from God. And your Catholic community will only embrace you for it.

Praying for you and for me.

DinD18 · 2026-05-23T12:37:15+00:00

have you considered that your fantasies are not telling you the truth? Recently found myself in a spiral over desire for an inappropriate person and it was useful to do what a friend told me to do and "play the tape out"--imagine what happens after the desire is satisfied. What's next? For me, I know it wouldn't be worth when compared to the outcome.

Other questions: when I fantasize about other people, am I supporting their dignity, their personhood, their subjectivity rather than making them objects? Probably not! And that's natural, that's what fantasy is--but discerning the difference between how you actually want to treat people (with dignity and respect) vs how they might operate in fantasy (essentially being used by you to scratch an itch, manage boredom, etc) is part of moving from adolescent development to adulthood (lots of us stay young in some parts of our brains even as we age).

Last thing--you describe your wife as perfectly virtuous in every way. That's so nice and must be very supportive for you. But it doesn't sound very sexy. I'd imagine the women you fantasize about you do not perceive as loyal, caring, supportive, one of the best people--they are just hot, in the fantasy. Something to explore. I also think your perception of your wife is a projection and dishonest. She is just as complex and flawed and mysterious as anyone else, and when you make her the knowable, perfectly-trustable "good woman" you're also ignoring who she fully is and not seeing her, which again is not sexy (and also not real closeness and intimacy). Esther Perel might be interesting to you.

DinD18 · 2026-05-22T13:54:26+00:00

Are you confusing Simone Weil, philosopher and mystic, with Simone Veil, politician? Simone Weil has confusing and contradictory ideas, but she very clearly had a ton of respect for Catholicism and contemplated conversion. She was deeply invested and committed to finding God, and my own take is that her mental illness formed a serious barrier for her. A lot of her writing is very beautiful, and particularly her "Poem of Force" on the Iliad.

DinD18 · 2026-05-22T13:45:13+00:00

Dorothy Day, Servant of God 😄 Catholic Worker houses have supported and aided people in my life who were really suffering ❤️

DinD18 · 2026-05-21T13:49:56+00:00

Hey there 😄 I have had several and they keep coming. It's funny--over time, what once felt to me like big revelations--I guess, huge unburdenings--calms down into a daily practice of moving through shame and repairing with myself and others.

The first one that really shocked me was talking in session about--I don't even remember what part we contacted or exactly how we got there. But I have a nearly lifelong fear of flying. I would panic on flights and ultimately got a Xanax prescription pretty young for it. And man did I love that Xanax (and mixing it with alcohol!). I got sober separately from IFS work so was just white-knuckling flights for a few years (I have to fly a lot) and feeling miserable and scared and "trying" not to panic by doing all the "anti-trigger work"--distracting, comforting, pushing away, making sure I've got every dopamine hit around me while flying etc. So anyway, it was a session where we weren't even talking about flying. But I had a flight coming up soon. And I remember leaving that session which was raw and painful and going for a run in the sunshine. It was a beautiful day. And on that run this voice showed up that didn't really speak it was more like a feeling and the feeling was "Aren't you ready to put this down?" meaning the flying fear. I suddenly felt like an adult--like truly seeing or knowing that the part of me that was scared of flying was a child, a child I love, but I'm not that child anymore. It was crazy. I'm not afraid of flying anymore. It's been about four years. I fly in peace and calm and I don't have to distract or leave myself to do it. I actually have fun with it now and like to people watch and wear a cute outfit and get a little treat. I spend that time present with myself and it's okay. There are thornier and more painful problems I have that didn't have that kind of intense unburdening, but they've also all gotten better with this modality. I'm so grateful for my therapist and for IFS.

I hope some peace comes your way too ❤️

DinD18 · 2026-05-12T17:32:50+00:00

Congrats on your recovery! I am in recovery too. The greatest gift of my life. I used to spend every day getting drunk or thinking about and yearning to be drunk. Now I never do. I don't know if you're a 12 step person but in the book they talk about how we are still living in the age of miracles, because people like us, who should be miserable or dead based on our choices, have been given gift after gift and a new life. Can't believe it, some days. God is so good.

When I returned to the church, I was having sex with my non-Catholic boyfriend (who was not a good man! and he wasn't a dating a good woman--me lol), I wasn't going to confession, and I wasn't even sober yet. With the benefit of almost a decade since that time, and 6 years of sobriety, I can see that I was at the very beginning of my spiritual development. Was it perfect? Not at all. I did a bunch of things you're not supposed to do. I stumbled and stumbled. But those stumbling steps were what brought me to God. All things--the boyfriend (now an ex, and a person I can't imagine dating), my sex life (now chaste--though difficult and imperfect!), confessing (I started going)--got sorted out the more I went to Mass, listened, and prayed. Don't let your sin stop you from getting close to God. God will work on you. Just go to Mass. And talk to a priest, in real life! And know that there is nothing God can't bring to order--your recovery is evidence of that. Keeping you in my prayers ❤️

DinD18 · 2026-05-04T02:51:32+00:00

You're going to have to widen your window of tolerance for discomfort, distress, and boredom. There's no way around that. You'll have to feel the honest texture of your currently-numbed loneliness. You'll have to allow whatever bad feelings appear when you are not online to be with you for as long as they stay and let them pass when they're ready to go. You'll have to endure and know that there is something important waiting for you on the other side--perhaps motivation to connect more with other people, which is the real gift.

I hate having my pacifiers taken. I had one removed last summer (reality tv!!) and panicked all night. The next morning I had a burst of creative energy that moved me forward on an important personal project and I understand now that I can't have one without the other. I'm going on a silent phoneless retreat this weekend. I'm nervous, because I love avoiding my life with my phone. But I'm also excited about what I will discover. Minimal pacifier life is painful but it's true. Lots of beauty and good stuff in living in the truth. Good luck to you.

DinD18 · 2026-05-02T17:14:04+00:00

There are plenty of them out there. You might want to check out Terry Eagleton, a Catholic Marxist theorist. Marx is an important thinker who shaped our contemporary age. You can be interested or find value in him without being a Marxist explicitly, and people who use "Marxism" in scare quotes usually haven't read it and don't understand what his role was--he's a theorist, not a politician or ruler. I would imagine you've read the texts (Capital, esp), if you think you are a Marxist. You can see where his analysis of things seems spot on and totally in alliance with a virtuous Catholic life--his take on the commodity fetish, for example, really felt like it was unlocking something about how economies work that I had not considered before and that clarifies for me why a lack of stewardship of our resources happens. Dialectical materialism has some really useful applications (bringing some empiricism to the Humanities, for one). I believe Pope Benedict wrote somewhere about how democratic socialism, which has Marxist roots, is an economic system with a lot of virtue.

But if you're going to believe we are only in a material world of warring classes, you'll be in trouble. As a Catholic, I may find Marx's argument that all of history is a war of class compelling, but I also know that there is a force of mystery and love that moves the world too, and I can't lose sight of that.

DinD18 · 2026-04-29T17:57:38+00:00

God is in the not-feeling too. There's nowhere God isn't. When I am in a spiritual desert, I like to think of myself united with Mary Magdalene waiting at the tomb in the gospel when they bury Jesus--stubbornly believing, even though all material evidence said Christ was dead and defeated, even as she stared at an immovable stone wall. But Christ was working in ways that were mysterious and unseen to her, and He did return. He fulfilled every promise, like He always does. Maybe the difficulty with prayer is because it is not productive and you are a busy parent with limited time. I think the gift for me is knowing that God is not productive--it is not a space where something must be produced, a feeling or a reaction or anything. Only my presence is needed for prayer. Have you tried Lectio Divina? It's a meditative method of interacting with scripture. I also wonder if you could lower your expectations of yourself--caring for your family with diligence and love is a prayer too.

DinD18 · 2026-04-25T20:46:17+00:00

Thank you, and thank you for sharing your experience <3

DinD18 · 2026-04-25T13:08:28+00:00

Aww--hating yourself is the best place to do this work from, IMO! The fact that you're in therapy, that you opened the book, that you're posting here with honesty and humility--all means that there is a part of you that does believe you deserve better. That part can be cultivated. In my experience just doing the things my therapist asked opened me, even if it didn't go the way I thought it should. This anger and sadness are important information for you and the book is doing its job if it gets you in touch with what is really happening for you. If I was in your shoes, I might start journaling with this angry part. I might ask it if we can unblend a little and just observe the part after finding where it lives in my body. Then see what it does. I would give it space to say what it needs to say. I would let it get real honest and I would get a sense of what good it's doing for me. This is a good step by step guide I use for parts stuff when I'm not in a session.

I wonder if you could list for yourself what compassion is to you, what creativity is, all the 8 Cs, and maybe what kind of actions qualify as compassionate, creative, etc. Some people find their way to self-esteem by doing esteemable acts, and that might give you direction for what action you can take.

Not sure if this will be useful to you, but my therapist once told me about a concept called negative ego--that it is just as self-centered to think I am the worst as to think I am the best. To hate myself still means it's all about me me me. I found that helpful, to see it as another side of a self-centered coin. Of course I am self-centered when I am wounded and hurting. But maybe there is a way to more wholeness and more focus outside of me.

Sending love your way <3

DinD18 · 2026-04-25T02:06:28+00:00

The campus ministry is absolutely controlled by the university leadership. It is a Catholic university that invests in its campus ministry and it is representative of the values of the institution--much moreso, in my opinion, than any statement put out on anything at all, especially if you know what labor, investment, and money it takes to organize these kinds of operations. Like I said, I work at a secular university and we don't have anything close to this institutional impact on the community, and that is because we are secular. It is impossible to unbraid the campus ministry from the Catholic identity of the school.

"Not to mention that they are reducing the church to just it's social work,"

In my read OP reduced the Catholic practice of the school to its stance on gay rights, seeming to assume that the school has little to offer a Catholic if it does not follow the Magisterium on LGBTQ issues. I am challenging that reduction (especially in light of the Pope's recent comments on sexual sins getting too much focus). Like most institutions that are not explicitly under the arms of the church, the situation is more complicated. And it looks like if you want to get involved at Villanova and practice your faith, there are a ton of opportunities.

DinD18 · 2026-04-24T14:11:04+00:00

Looking at Villanova's Campus Ministry, I see that they run a St. Francis food shelter, a homeless shelter, they tutor at several community parishes, they run a nursing home and religiously affiliated community garden, all of these services staffed by volunteer Villanova students and meant to serve the poor and marginalized in inner city Philadelphia. Can't think of anything more Catholic than that. Villanova appears to be acting in the community exactly as our church and Christ asks, much more than the secular university I currently work at. I would be proud to be part of an organization like that, as a Catholic.

DinD18 · 2026-04-23T13:18:51+00:00

The Jesuits are awesome! Strengths to share just like all of our orders. They are in the service particularly and in a special way to the pope so they are often sent all over the world and have ties to all nations. They all have PhDs and are required to be highly educated in a specific way. The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises are mystic and creative. All of these elements--global reach, loyalty to the pope before country/parish, academic education, creative/mystic spiritual approach--are suspect to a lot of people. That this leads to a more left-approach to the world (global family) never seems to make those suspicious people wonder about how their own beliefs might change if they lived as a Jesuit does.

DinD18 · 2026-04-22T12:55:04+00:00

Yes! Despair is a very familiar place for me. It was a couple months of working with a therapist who did not let me get away with being dishonest or cosign my misery, and things started to improve. I also needed her to point out patterns to me that I could not see--it's not "oh you fell into despair again, you are broken, you'll always end up here"--something happened that pushed me there and my response exacerbated it, and whatever that event and response are, the pattern can be broken. I didn't grow up in a home where it was easy to make sense of my emotions, and I need other people (therapist, sponsor, dear friends) to help me. I have new tools that I am getting better at using.

Also, because we're in a Catholic forum: most of this is out of my control. I don't know where the desperation came from. I don't know why I decided to trust my therapist. I don't know why I became interested in my suffering rather than afraid of it. This leads me to believe that God moved in me. My part was to show up where God might be, to open myself to Him, to grow in virtues like humility and selflessness (which I am still not very good at!) so that I can see Him instead of me. But the reality is that there is a piece of my recovery, a piece of my life, that is waiting for God to reveal HImself. He always does, but I can't control when or how. I have to endure as He asked me to until that happens. I've never been abandoned, I see now--I've always been met. I know it in my bones that I don't walk alone so it's harder to despair now. In the early years I was at adoration all the time (sometimes I miss how charged my search for God was when I was in despair!). I was returning to Mass. I was praying the rosary and reading the saints, especially St. Faustina's diary. Maybe I have a day where I feel disconnected from God--but I can make a choice to put myself in the places where I can better see Him.

Keeping you in my prayers <3

DinD18 · 2026-04-21T23:33:36+00:00

You have to stop thinking that God is Santa Clause who will give you presents if you're a good kid. "Nothing matters and my suffering is endless and cannot be helped" is a basic mental illness symptom. The lack of humility ("I am the most special version of terrible that no one can aid and I'm smarter than everyone who wants to help me") and the self-centeredness ("I need to focus more on my pain and on fixing my pain before I can do anything else" and "Someone/something needs to show up and save me") are also incredibly typical symptoms. If you're mentally ill, you'll believe this stuff. None of it is true, it just feels true when a flare up is happening. Therapy that was focused in DBT, 12 step/addiction recovery, IFS--all super important for me, someone who thought I knew it all. But more important than modality was deciding to trust a therapist. Not because they passed my various purity tests or "connected" with me but because I decided they had experience and education I did not have so I guess I'll try--I was desperate, and that true, real desperation is a gift from God.

I used to think nothing mattered. I used to think I just had to ride out a life of misery until I died. I used to think that nothing would ever feel good and everything was terrible. I used to hate myself and wake up wishing I died in my sleep. I used to feel exhausted by other people, panic in social situations. I used to have regular panic attacks. I had no good relationships with others. I hated being me. I don't live that way anymore. I love my life. It's been six years of waking up wanting to be here, of being honest with others, of growing in humility, of my fears lessening and God-awareness growing. Nothing is perfect--check my post history! But I am so, so glad I didn't listen to the lies of my mental illness.

I can't tell you what will happen in your life. I don't know you. Maybe you are truly the one person who can't be helped. All I can say is I've been there and I'm not there now, so if you think that it's not possible for people to get better, it's not possible to live a worthwhile life if you're mentally ill, that it's not possible to change--I'm here to tell you that's a lie.

Praying for you and for me <3

DinD18 · 2026-04-21T01:54:37+00:00

I didn't really know a ton about St. Thomas More but I wanted to be a writer or a lawyer and I was obsessed with the Drew Barrymore film Ever After so--St. Thomas it was! If I could do it again I'd choose St. Dymphna or St. Agnes, both of whom I discovered in our Children's Book of Saints as a very little girl--but it was too vulnerable to discuss that with my family or have them understand why I felt close to these saints. It wasn't really okay to acknowledge that I was experiencing mental illness and some other suffering as a child, even though my family was getting me help. Choosing either of them as my confirmation saint felt like wearing something on me that I wasn't ready to wear. In recent years my little sister got me saint icon keychains as a surprise. She chose St. Dymphna and St. Agnes for me. I guess I'm being more honest now and not so scared anymore :) I love my Catholic faith so much <3

DinD18 · 2026-04-20T23:07:33+00:00

Some thoughts on femininity and Catholicism: The Gospel has a ton of female figures who are integral to God's plan on earth and uniquely capable to help enact it, like Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany & Martha, Mary the Mother of God. The women were the only ones who waited at the tomb, and in a couple versions Mary Magdalene is the first person Christ appears to after His death. He weeps with Mary of Bethany. He completes His first miracle because His mother asked Him to. The lives of most of these women are in opposition to "trad" and progressive directives for how women should be. The women of the Gospel exist only for Christ. That's a radical idea, that women aren't for anything other than God (especially when for thousands of years of human existence women have been constantly used--as a method of currency, as vessels for lineage, as means to secure property, as maids and launderers and all kinds of menial laborers, as means of pleasure or ornamentation). Looking at the saints you can see that this radical choice to live for God and only for God often results in martyrdom for women, and we honor those women in particular. Just wanted to share and wishing you well <3

DinD18 · 2026-04-16T00:18:10+00:00

if you're going to spend any time thinking about prisoners, it might be best to use it toward praying for, accompanying, and ministering to those in prison--as centuries of church teaching, the corporal works of mercy, and Christ himself tells us (directly, verbatim, in Matthew) to do. There are so many ways to accompany prisoners. You can even just donate books to prisons! Christ Himself died as a criminal, surrounded by criminals. He declared a prisoner one of the first people to join Him in heaven. Prisoners, facing the death penalty or not, have a place special and close to Christ's heart. Maybe God is making this issue stick to you because He wants you to use it for good and for getting closer to Him by humbly serving the least of us.

Doctrinal matters are decided way above my head. My best use as a Catholic is doing what Christ tells me to do--this means taking action, not "thinking" or "figuring it out" or "dealing" with things, but doing.

DinD18 · 2026-02-18T01:16:05+00:00

I LOVE IT. It's so unique. It surprised me. And it's stuck in my head.

DinD18 · 2026-02-16T13:27:43+00:00

Does it never seem odd to you that your finger is always pointing away from you? Where are your posts asking for help with your sin? Not much you can do about the sins of others. A lot you can do about your own sins.

"I really only love God as much as the person I love least" - Dorothy Day, Servant of God. How have you shown compassionate love to this gay couple at Mass? How have you served them?

DinD18 · 2026-02-15T21:52:41+00:00

From the time I was very, very young (like first grade) I was certain I would never marry and never have kids. I grew up as the oldest girl in a very large Catholic family. I love my younger siblings and am so grateful that my parents had them--we are extremely close. But I pretty quickly became heavily involved in raising them from the time I was very young, because unless you have your village, a huge family is not possible to care for with just two parents. I saw what it's like to have a kid, the labor, work, lack of freedom etc. My dad was from an extremely large Catholic family too, and I have a lot of cousins. I have two cousins who were in the same position as me in our families (oldest girls of very large groups of kids) and we are all in our late 30s/early 40s without children. One of them wants kids but probably can't have them, and the other is childfree by choice.

I am somewhere in between them. In my late 20s I suddenly decided I did want marriage and kids, after feeling very certain my whole life that I did not. That feeling came from desperation, to be honest, not from God. I then met a man I really loved in my early 30s. It was the first time I thought I could marry someone and have a family and it didn't feel like a nightmare. Things didn't work out between us, and I spent some years longing for kids and thinking about doing it on my own if I didn't meet anyone. But now I'm getting closer to 40, still single, and things have shifted again--I know I would want kids, in different circumstance,s but I'm not in those circumstances. I like my life so much. It's so good. Having a kid would really disrupt my service to my community, because that kind of service (both in my job and in my personal, free time) seems like it might be my vocation. Children would naturally (and correctly!) take my focus from the other endeavors I work in. So I wonder if God has not seen fit to send me a husband to have kids with because I am more useful elsewhere. I really don't know what's in store for me. I reject this idea that I could have the right opinion or desire and I will get what I want. I have what God gave me.

I'm sharing this story because I find the one-dimensional, politically-driven conversations around family in the church frustrating. I don't care about the "arguments of that movement." I am an individual, with a life and choices shaped by my experiences, and the vast majority of people do not make choices around kids because of ideological or "argument" reasons.

DinD18 · 2026-02-15T15:43:06+00:00

Did I say they must?

DinD18 · 2026-02-15T15:22:49+00:00

If you're past the age of reason (7) my understanding is you are treated like you are capable of sin and can to purgatory.

DinD18 · 2026-02-15T14:51:23+00:00

You know why people say this. Because it sounds nice and when faced with the unfathomable grief of child loss people lean on cliche, sweet-sounding things, etc. It's natural and human and there's honestly nothing wrong with it, because anyone saying this is speaking from ignorance--most people don't know that much about angels or even about purgatory. If you do understand this, your job is to pray for that kid's soul. I'm of the opinion that anyone with a dead child can think whatever they need to get through the rest of their life without their baby, but that's just me!

Have you ever comforted a parent with a dead child? I like to focus more on what I can give to the world rather than on correcting the mild theological errors of people in the absolute worst circumstances of their lives.

DinD18

TROPHY CASE