About My Family

I was raised on the East Coast of the United States, in an Orthodox Jewish community. At the age of five, my mother and father got divorced, and three years later I acquired a loving step-father. At the time time of the divorce and re-marriage, the phenomenon was rare and embarrassing. As a child, I can remember the faces of pity when I walked into the room, the whispers and assumptions that my mother must have driven my father away, when in fact my father was cheating on her.

The oldest of five children in our blended family, two of my brothers and my only sister are married, with children. My youngest brother is not married, but only because he is still in college, though my family is already planning his wedding. That is the assumed path of a "normal" Jewish child.

Go to college, find spouse, get married, provide grandchildren and live happily ever after. For a variety of reasons, I missed that train, and to this day am mystified as to why an attractive, intelligent, and successful woman like myself has not found the Ultimate Roommate, the man who will want to make love to me and raise a family with me, and grow old with me. I will not, however, deny my character or be ashamed for living outside the box.

My personal mission is such that I commit deeply and emotionally to my friends and family, and to any cause in which I believe. Added to my rigid Orthodox upbringing, I am quite simply unable to have random sex without a great level of trust and connection to my partner, no matter how great my natural need for intimacy.

As a result, I am today 39 and a half years old, and a virgin. In halachic terms, I am able to marry a Cohen.

(Awkward pause. Right now you are thinking, "My G-d, what a cliche. She should join a nunnery, or the Jewish version thereof.")

In my own defence, I attended a Charity Ball last week and had every intention of getting piss drunk and sleeping with a man who vaguely fit the bill, to end the tyranny of my virginity and make the subsequent birth of my child just a bit easier. This time Gaea intervened and gave me my period.

It has taken me time and space, geographically far away from my family, and therapy, to realize and embrace the idea that not everyone follows the conventional path. That despite the fact that I am single, I run a business, own a car and pay taxes. I am a grown-up, and in many ways, more capable of raising a child responsibly than those who marry young, or marry badly.

So have I told my family about this choice to become pregnant in the next few months? No, between unfounded superstition, closed-minded religious beliefs and the pervasive "What will the neighbor's say" mentality that runs in my family, I do not trust them enough to be supportive of me in these precious months when I must be relaxed and exuberant about my future, and all the changes a child will bring.

Upon the advice of my new friends - women I have found in Jerusalem who successfully gave birth at a later age and are raising the child (or children) on their own - I have made various hints to my parents, but will only tell them for certain when their grandchild is growing and healthy in my womb. I do promise to give them enough time to absorb the information, and hope and pray that when their grandchild, my child, is a fact on the ground, they will get past their own issues and be able to give all the love this child deserves, without judgement.