Having Mother-Daughter Pregnancies Shouldn't Be A Status Symbol

Yet somehow, it is in fundie groups.

Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash

As a person who is watching fundie content annihilate young women’s brains, it always feels unsettling to me to see how women get so vocal about refusing to use their rights or even protect their rights.

It’s my belief that modern “trendy” Christian fundamentalism is a very dangerous culture for women to be in. There are a multitude of different Christian sects that I have no problem with, but this, in particular, deals with the far-right “fundie” world that has brought us a lot of misogyny, transphobia, and homophobia.

It is a culture that literally turns you into property. You are not supposed to have your own goals or life—just the goal to be pretty, birth kids, and do whatever your man tells you to. If your man leaves, this culture views it as the fault of the woman, never the man.

With a world that tends to prize women as broodmares, it’s not surprising to hear that a lot of the status symbols for women tend to involve them martyring themselves, giving birth to more kids, or going to extreme lengths to look good.

Some of these status symbols can be extremely damaging to all people involved, but recently, I found one that took the cake. This is the point where I had a gross-out moment.

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The Duggar family made giving birth to over a dozen kids a major status symbol in the past—but this is old news.

I’ve gone into this at length, but Christian fundies have a weird obsession with extremely large families. If you’re the type of person who wants to have six, seven, or eight kids, that’s fine as long as you can provide for them all and you actually want them because you love them.

This is not what many of these fundies do.

A lot of them give birth to kids because they feel obligated to or because they want to get more and more and more status in the church. Most of the children in these families do not have access to sufficient resources to lead a decent life, with some families having to resort to extreme measures to make ends meet.

In extremely large families, older siblings often become parentified. In other words, they’re expected to care for their younger siblings in a way that robs them of their own childhood. It’s a form of abuse that isn’t spoken about enough.

All the while, their mom keeps pushing out more and more kids, giving them fewer resources and time with their current kids. Parents in fundie circles are often strict to the point of abusive, so kids are kept in line and given ONE path—the one they already know as a form of personal hell.

Many of the women who do this are also not doing well physically. Their bodies start to break down from all the stress they’re putting on them from giving birth. Some, such as Andrea Yates, end up killing their kids due to the postpartum psychosis they experienced—often a break that happens after doctors warn families not to get pregnant again.

It’s a disturbing reality, but this is old news.

The new status symbol among fundies is being pregnant at the same time as your daughter.

So, this is apparently the one way they could push it even further down the crazy parenting rabbit hole of fundie status symbols. The gold status some are chasing (and even attaining) is being pregnant at the same time as their kids.

You may be wondering how this is possible, if you’re a bit sheltered or just haven’t seen it IRL. It’s simple: fundie women start popping out kids very young, with many becoming new moms at 18 ot 19 years of age.

Let’s break this down into the mother and daughter sides of things.

The Mom Status Boost

A woman is generally still fertile up until her mid-40s, though it gets increasingly difficult by the time she hits 40. In the eyes of fundies, a woman’s value is (mostly) in her fertility and her ability to mother others. The more kids a woman has, the higher status she is considered to have.

Women in fundie families are often expected to keep popping out kids until the baby factories close. So, knowing what we do about fertility, it is possible for a woman to have her first kid at 18 and another kid at 36…or another kid at 46.

Well, the math is there. First kid at 18. Kid gets married and knocked up by 19, the next kid gets popped out when the mom is 37. It’s possible, though not always advisable depending on the family situation.

Still, there is clout in it for mothers in this world. The older she is when she gives birth, the higher status she has because it’s proof that she’s still fertile.

The Daughter Status Boost

For a fundie family, having a daughter married off and having a first child between the ages of 18 to 22 is a good thing. They view it as a sign that the girl was “raised right,” and that the fundie parenting was successful because she now is living the way her parents wanted her to.

Here’s why it’s a messed-up status symbol.

I’ll start off with the obvious. Most new moms need their moms by their side, but not like this. This is weird. When your kid’s grandma is currently pregnant with your sister, the time that would normally be devoted to helping you parent your kid or support your kid kind of evaporates.

Or, let’s say that it somehow works out. You and your mom pool labor to take care of the kids together. Okay, that kind of sounds wholesome. You both bond over babies or something else similar to a Lifetime chick flick.

The Hidden Issue With Mother-Daughter Mothering

However, there’s a problem here: your mom still has a long chain of other kids she has to care for, and now you have your own baby that needs help. Moreover, the younger mom might have had other goals in life—and those just all took a backseat to Baby.

In other words, she’s locked in, and her mom, who would traditionally act as a caretaker when she needs a break, is now working with yet one more baby on her list. The daughter will likely find herself babysitting her siblings again. This leaves the daughter often feeling stuck, alone, and a bit betrayed.

This isn’t a shock to the daughter, per se. Many of the older siblings in fundie families have been parentified to hell and back. Some fundie women openly admit that they hope to get a little more freedom from “the life” under their husbands.

This “status symbol” is one way to ensure they never experience what it’s like to have their own time and their own career. It’s a status symbol that effectively proves that she’s not about to leave the fundie world. It also has the connotation that she’s going to be a tradwife.

The Nonstop Competition

Finally, there’s also the other, other reason why this is a really gross status symbol: the connotations of competition. Fundie circles tend to breed a lot of internalized misogyny, which spells trouble for young women.

One thing I’ve noticed in fundie groups is how often there’s a certain level of one-sided competition between mothers and daughters as a result of the misogyny. This status symbol can act as the older mom's (grandma’s?) statement where she flaunts:

• She’s still fertile/she still “got it”

• She’s a better mom than her daughter is

• She’s superior as a birthing machine

• She made sure her kid lives the same way she did, regardless of what her daughter may have wanted

In other words, it can be a tacit way to rub success in her daughter’s face while dooming her daughter in the process. And why do I say “doom?” Well, there’s a known tradwife-to-homelessness pipeline…and our society no longer has the safety nets it once did.

Parents, don’t try to do this to your daughter.

If it happens, it happens. Sometimes, teen pregnancies happen and I understand that. But to go out of your way to get pregnant at the same time as your child for clout? Yikes, that’s bad.

Moms, support your daughters when they’re pregnant. They’re not competition. They’re your family—and they need you to act like a mom right then and there.

Yay! Neon and pillows.