Reason Number Whatever for Getting Married

…or for getting your hands on some school-aged children in some other manner (artificial insemination, adoption, etc).

Back when we were in school, the lead-up to any holiday was full of anticipation. Even in high school, every teacher would so bemoan the fact that we didn’t learn “Yahadus” anymore that they’d mix something related into their lessons. Now… well…

Good4 has joined my annual tradition of waking up the night before Purim and going “Ohmigosh! I didn’t arrange matanos l’evyonim yet!” I’m flattering myself, of course. She’s way ahead of me. My first year out of seminary I didn’t remember until Purim day.

Then Best4 sent a video of Kinfauna #4 telling the Purim story as a musical production, complete with school-crafted popsicle puppets and pre-school level musical numbers. (And parental prompts from the class newsletter.) Best4 gets the same running start on all the holidays just from being around kids. (And he gets to watch Kinfauna #4 ham it up on a regular basis.)

And yeah, I miss that. These days holidays just happen and I show up to them as a guest. When you’ve got your own household, you own the holiday. And when you’ve got kids, that same old story becomes  fresh again, popsicle-stick puppets, Vashti songs, and all.

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So It’s Not Just Me…

This is your Monday morning controversy post. Keep it interesting for longer by waiting an hour or so before posting your comment. Oh, and behave.

It’s not really a creative idea. There have been communes of spinster women before. But I really thought there were only a few of us frum women with that idea floating around…

It’s like this: you’re single, you’re not in any danger of getting engaged. You want a family, a cute little kid or two to call your own,  and someone you like to help you raise them, but you can’t find a guy to join up with you.

On the other hand, you know plenty of girls who want families too, a kid or two and a partner in life.

Of course you know the difficulties of being a single mother. It’s pretty crazy to try to raise a kid on your own while keeping house and paying bills. A person really needs a little help with that.

So, the world is full of floating halves. All these women, just like you, who just want to settle down. Why not pair up with one of them? Or two?

Granted, it’s not romantic, but you’re not doing so well in the romance department as it is. You’ll be good friends, you’ll look out for each other, you’ll raise a few kids together in a dual-(or triple)-parent household. You can argue IVF versus adoption after you’ve found a house with enough bedrooms in a community far enough out of town that they’ll be willing to overlook the weirdness of your domestic situation.

Why this now? Well, it’s an idea that floats across my mind every now and then and that I occasionally pitch to parties who are in Despair Mode. I would say I get an 80% You-Are-Crazy response rate even from the I’m-going-to-be-single-forever types. For a while I wavered and thought that perhaps I was crazy. (Could it be?)

Then one Shabbos someone pitched the same exact idea to me. Talk about the happiest moment of the week! If I was crazy, at least I was in good company. But the anecdotal evidence in the comments of FnF’s post about skipping to motherhood suggest that there are a number of people who think this way all the time. They’re just too jealous of their reputation as non-crazy to admit it.

So come out of the woodwork, folks. Maybe we can buy out a residential complex. The more of us there are, the less weird it becomes.