Boundaries

OK, so I am not going to harp on this, but the conversation about boundaries (like my last post, “Do Not Touch“) has been stirring a lot this week in other areas of conversation with colleagues throughout the country. And I have to say, I am shocked.  I am shocked by the numbers of clergy (male and female included) who seem to believe that people aren’t being wrong or violating the person when they touch you or when they make comments about your appearance, etc…that this just goes with being a pastor.  One commenter particularly said that if we seek to prevent or stop these act of touching and speaking we may jeopardize the relationship.

My friends, no one…NO ONE deserves to be approached by anyone and touched or commented on body, appearance, etc…without invitation or a clear and intimate relationship that pays attention to context of touch or conversation.  A parishoner should not be let off “scott free” if they are making comments about a pastor’s weight, make-up, appearance; or if they are touching the pastor’s stomach (pregnant or not), backside, chest, face, etc…  All of these are violations of personal space and personhood and the longer we accept them as “normal” or “harmless” the longer we perpetuate in society that a person is all about the physical, and a person’s body is not their own.

Earlier today I had a conversation with a young mom who was telling me that she struggled with people touching her belly when she was pregnant, but that she struggles even more with people touching her 6 month old child, commenting on the child’s appearance or her appearance, or critiquing her and her partner’s parenting decisions (like cloth or disposable diapers, breastfeeding or not, crib or co-sleeping.)  In listening to her and watching her get more anxious as she shared experiences it just affirmed for me the need for us to speak up for ourselves, our boundaries, and our personal decisions.

Yes, if I look like I am tired or I am sick comments like, “Are you ok?” or “You look a bit flush.” are fine.  Comments like “nice shoes” or “that’s a great color on you” are ok (as long as you are making the same comments on a regular basis to my male colleague). But comments like, “You’ve put on a few pounds, maybe you shouldn’t eat that.”  or “That shirt really accentuates your curves.” or “Are you pregnant, you look pregnant.” are not appropriate and should be responded to pointing out the boundary crossing and correcting it.  If we aren’t able to engage conversation without the ability to care for and protect oneself, then the conversation is not healthy and does not help to lay expectations for relationships and cultural and social patterns in our lives.

So, I’ll leave it there.  I still stand by my convictions that no one has permission to touch my body or offer physical or sexualy laden commentary without my direct permission.  I will respect that space for you, and I ask you to do the same for me and all other people who come to know.

 

DO NOT TOUCH!

So today begins the 24th week of my pregnancy and I have learned to say some things that I have never had to say before.  The first is, “DO NOT TOUCH!”  Truly last week, for the first time in my life, I had to say to someone, “Please don’t touch my belly.”  I knew it was coming, I’ve heard it from so many other moms, but for some reason I thought being the pastor of a large congregation, being a tall and bigger woman who is assertive and strong that I would be able to avoid this.  Alas, this has not held out to be true. I was in the Narthex (entrance to the church) last week when an older parishoner (a person who is a member of my church) came up to me and two other women as we were talking and simply put her hand out and touched my belly saying, “Ah, we are starting to show the bump.”  I was shocked at first but then quickly and quietly said, “Please don’t touch my belly.” The parishoner pulled back, looking a bit embarrassed and tried to change the conversation with an “I’m sorry.”  I didn’t go any further, as I was running through my mind several questions:

1. Did that really just happen?!?
2. What did the two other women think as they saw what had just transpired?
3. Did I really upset her? Should I follow up with some witty statement about boundaries and personal space, or should I crack a joke and move on?

Here’s the thing, as a pastor there truly isn’t much in my life that is private and personal.  When I am sick the whole world knows.  When I am having a bad day the whole world knows.  When I totally blow something the whole world knows.  When I get pregnant my partner and I HAVE to plan meticulously how to make the information public, so the whole world knows – otherwise the whisperers will begin and pretty soon the story goes, “Hey, did you hear that pastor is pregnant with triplets and her husband only wanted a puppy!”

Yet, there are a few things that we can keep private and personal and one of those is our bodies. No one has the right to touch my body without an invitation (unless of course you find me lying in a pool of blood in the sacristy after a long Holy Week, then by all means you can touch me to see if I am alive and if you can help me – but call 911 first!).  In fact no one has the right to touch anyone else’s body without an invitation. This includes my belly during pregnancy. My belly, no matter if it is covered with a tee shirt or covered by an alb is NOT public property and touching it is a violation of my personal space and boundaries. How would you feel if I came up to you and reached out and touched your belly – pregnant or not?  Quite uncomfortable I assume. The same is true for me, so please refrain from reaching out and touching my belly.  Remember, I am a person just like you and my body is my own. (I suspect the same will be true – because I’ve heard stories – of our babies when they are born, so I am sure we will return to this subject soon enough.)

 

Expectations

José Manuel Ríos Valiente – Creative Commons, some rights reserved

I have bantered back and forth with myself about this blog for several months now and I have finally come to the place that I want to do this, I mean I think (we’ll see in the months to come), after all with the hormones that are raging one can’t be too sure of anything.  But truly, what brought me to create this blog was the continued sense of “expectation” that I have felt since we publicly announced that we (my husband and I) were pregnant.  Sure, we’ve felt a personal “expectation” in the sense that we are expecting our first child together, but the expectation that has brought me to begin to share my thoughts publicly are the expectations that others and society have for me as a woman, as a pastor, and as a soon-to-be-mother.  These expectations have ranged from, “Oh you should expect to feel tired all the time” (which I have!) to “Oh, you’ll have to breastfeed” or “You’ll have to take six-months at least off from your position to do it right” to “You’ll finally get the scheduling pressures of life with kids.” Some of these have been quite easy to hear and move on from, while others seem to imply that the 40 years of life and experience – including being a public school teacher, a youth director, and now a pastor – don’t amount to anything until I have a child.  Well, I am here to be open and honest about what I am feeling, what my own experiences have taught me, and to share some stories of ways that we (all of us) are helpful or burdensome in our expectations and advice that we so generously heap out on expectant mothers (and fathers).

So who I am?  I am a 40 something woman who serves as a pastor in a Christian congregation in the Pacific Northwest. Prior to serving as a pastor I was a middle school language arts/reading teacher, and a university instructor in Children’s Literature and Reading Methods.  My husband, who is also a pastor, and I met when I moved to begin new call in a new congregation. My husband has two children from a previous marriage – a 20 something, and a teenager who don’t live with us but are here throughout the year.  We found out in February 2014 that we were expecting, and after waiting some time to tell the kids, we went public to both of our congregations in April.

With that, I invite you to join me as I reflect on this journey, rant at times at important and not so important things, rave about people’s love and care and probably the latest and greatest gadgets, experiences and giggles, and generally just ramble about this life of becoming a mother, while living the very public life of a pastor. I don’t pretend to be an expert in any of this, yet I don’t pretend to be a complete novice.  I believe that we learn in and as community and I hope and pray this is another space of community in which we grow, laugh, learn, and love together – while trying our best to set expectations aside and simply and boldly live!