Are You There, God? It's Me, Christine
Crying my way through the Judy Blume film adaptation
Usually I get my posts done before Thursday night, because Thursday is my busiest day, but here I am beginning to write on Thursday night. Does anyone else feel a shift about this year? I’ve been trying to navigate several big-ish new things this week: the religious trauma support group I wrote about last week; finding new office space and planning that transition; looking for daycare for my kids this summer1. I haven’t yet dove into the tarot cards I referenced last month, but it might just be the time to bust them out and see where my Inner Wisdom is leading me.
Plus, based on last week’s discussion in the comments, I think I should be considering how we can do an IRL (errr… IIL?? In Internet Life? Maybe just “virtual,” huh) meetup with each other! An online religious trauma support group with whoever wants to show up from this little community. Give me a little time to figure some stuff out, but know it’s on my radar :)
Anyway, that’s my prelude to saying: today’s post will be pretty short and sweet. Also, probably much more relatable for all the people on here raised female in the 80s and 90s. 😅
Myst, the film adaptation of Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. In case you never read it or saw the film from last summer, it’s a coming of age story that follows 11-year-old Margaret as she navigates puberty, social pressures, and family challenges. Margaret’s mother is Christian (in the cultural way, I think) and her father is Jewish. Margaret is being deliberately raised as no religion and her parents want her to choose for herself when she’s an adult.
The first scene that gutted me was when Margaret inquires of her mother Barbara why the family isn’t in touch with Barbara’s parents. Of course, you and I know perfectly well why: Barbara married a Jew, so her very religious parents probably disowned her. Well, Barbara spells out to Margaret, through tears, that her parents had a very hard time with a Jewish son-in-law and they no longer consider her their daughter. Margaret protests in shock, “But you ARE their daughter!”
The next scene Margaret is praying to God, feeling confused about her grandparents’ actions. It was this line that made me want to sob:
“What kind of parents would do that, and blame it on religion?”
Margaret gets it. It’s so easy to get. How could a parent do that to their child, and blame it on religion? In what world is it acceptable and normalized for a parent to prioritize their religious beliefs over their love and connection with their child?
Later on (spoiler alert) the estranged grandparents end up coming for a visit to meet their granddaughter for the first time, enabled by Barbara’s hope that maybe they have changed. Maybe they really do want a relationship. Maybe they will recognize how good of a job Barbara has done with creating a loving family and a good life. Maybe.
Well… you’re from this background too, so you’re probably guessing what happens. Yup. Everything is going okay until it becomes clear that the grandparents are here to proselytize Margaret and make sure she’s involved in a church.
Her parents are IRATE and a huge conflict erupts. I would be irate too. I scream words in my head right along with them: Get out of my house. Fuck off. We do not need you here. You will never get to have a say in how we raise our child.
And Margaret’s takeaway about religion is that it makes people fight with each other. Yeah girl… you’re not wrong.
There were other parts specific to raising a daughter that made tears stream down my face, but the religious trauma stuff was gut-wrenching in a sad way. But wow, it felt like the pain of being estranged, the futile hope that things will be different this time, the anger at boundaries being crossed, the wish that the ones who raised you would recognize that even though you’re coloring outside their lines, you’re making a beautiful masterpiece… all of that was portrayed so well in this film that on the surface is an awkward preteen coming-of-age chick flick. But in reality, this film is as much about Barbara as it is about Margaret! And I loved it more than I thought I would.
You don’t have to have seen the film to feel what I’m talking about and leave a comment about how this hit you! Or if you have seen it — what did you think of it? And is anyone else feeling like this is some kind of season of change?? Looking forward to conversation in the comments!
We have been extraordinarily lucky humans to have my mom’s help raising our precious kiddos while I work the last two years, so this is their first group setting childcare outside of a half-day preschool for my older. But! I include this on the list of big-ish new things because paying a flat weekly rate for daycare means… maybe I will actually take some time for ME instead of doing the always-working-or-momming thing (if I’m not running). And maybe I could devote more time to writing? And maybe maybe maybe I can work towards publishing the book that’s been sitting in Microsoft Word for the past 3 years? To be continued…
Both my grandfathers were “holiness revivalist preachers. My father was a parish pastor in a “holiness” fundamentalist church. I was steeped in an environment that included religious/spiritual terrorism. I want to say, Christine, that the work you are doing is so important. Thank you. Keep going.
That movie was on my list and I completely forgot about it. So relatable, and such a hard thing for a kid to understand. (In our case) why do my loving grandparents say unloving things in the name of religion? It’s very hard to hold my inner kid and my actual kids at the same time 💔