Last night I had an hour long conversation with my best friend from university. We met almost 20 years ago when we were just seventeen and entering our first year of university at Dalhousie. We are both almost 37; could we then have imagined our seventeen-year-old selves in twenty years? I don't know. Life moves so very quickly and in such unexpected directions.
She and her husband have been married one year longer than Dave and I and have four kids under ten. She also works full-time in a ministry to women who are coming out of drug addiction and off the streets. Many of these women are pregnant or have young children and babies. It's a wonderful ministry, take a look.
My friend and I met at an Intervarsity Christian Fellowship meeting during frosh week. I attended at the behest of my Hindu friend, now a Christian. I had made some decisions not to live the typical life of an undergrad and had lost my immediate friends as a consequence. Thus, I found myself at a praise and worship meeting surrounded by Protestants. At the time I didn't realize what a rare bird I was, a Catholic who was actually a "Christian". Apparently, the group leaders had been praying for such a person to show up and I seemed to be the answer to their ecumenical prayer. What followed was quite beautiful: my faith came alive as I claimed it personally and these wonderful Protestants never once discouraged me from remaining a Catholic. In fact, many of them, especially my best friend, were incredibly open to the teachings of the Church. Teachings that I barely understood at the time.
I remember sitting in my attic bedroom with two of these friends listening to Janet Smith's cassette tape (now I'm dating myself!), Contraception, why not. I had stumbled across the tape and, having listened to it, was zealous to share its reasoned arguments and flawless logic. Both friends listened
with open minds. One, in the nursing program, was inspired to work her term project around the unknown side-effects of hormonal birth control and the advantages of Natural Family Planning. I have since lost contact with this friend, although I know that she is married with children and working as a nurse in her home country of Bermuda. (Some of us are closer to heaven than others.)
The other friend took the Church's teachings on life and allowed herself to be changed by them. What brought this to mind was something that my friend said in last night's conversation. She was telling me that their babysitter is a young woman in the nursing program at the local university. She is Protestant and has become heavily involved in the pro-life group at the university. She told my friend that she was really surprised that the pro-life movement seems to be mainly Catholics. "Did you know that the Catholics are pro-life?" she exclaimed. "Did you know that hormonal birth control is making its way into our water system?" My good friend laughed and replied, "You're surrounded by Catholics; you don't know the half of it yet!"
I smiled and thought about all of those wonderful Protestant friends who helped form my faith at such a crucial time in my life. I am so very thankful for them and their witness. But, there is one thing. As we slowly began to graduate from our three and four-year undergrads, many of us married within five years or so of our leaving the university. But, only one of us had children quickly. (Don't jump all over me, I'm just questioning some basic and mainline assumptions about marriage and family.). Can you guess who? (No, not better, just different...)
I recall running into a friend from the group one Christmas when I had returned to visit my parents. The twins were almost three and I was pregnant with Benjamin. In aisle 2 of the local grocery store, her jaw dropped when I mentioned that I was having my third child. Congratulations were as far from her lips as birth control was from mine. "But what about your marriage?" she asked. She and her husband had been married two years or so and she simply couldn't imagine how kids could fit in. Embarrassingly, I didn't know what to answer, "Uh, our marriage is still there?"
Another friend and her husband, dedicated to full-time Christian ministry, visited Dave and me at my parents' house when I was expecting the twins. We were only 7 months married, and she and her husband were genuinely concerned that all was well between us. A child, let alone two, how could that possibly be indicative of a happy marriage? All I could do was encourage them to maybe try out the pro-creation route as well.
After last night's conversation, one more memory came to mind. I was in my third year of university and two of the Christian Fellowship members had just married immediately after graduation. One of the leaders of the group gathered us in a smaller group and asked for prayers for a serious intention. I waited, expecting the worst. Instead, I heard that this couple had conceived a child on their honeymoon - quelle horreure! At the age of 19, and largely unschooled in my Church's grand and beautiful theology of the family, I instinctively knew that something was very, very wrong with these people's worldview. I felt sad and distanced from their fellowship.
How easily so many dedicated followers of Christ have allowed the zeitgeist to infect their understanding of marriage and family life. If life begins at conception, then it goes without question that all things anti-life begin with contraception. How easily they had accepted babies as burdens rather than gifts.
How different it is to watch the undergrads and alumni of our local Catholic Academy. At most, OLSWA has had 90 students at a time. But, when they come back for their alumni gatherings, their numbers swell. So many are married a few years and arrive back in the Bay towing a toddler and a baby seat. This is normal, expected and celebrated. A culture of life, indeed. They don't look any different than their secular counterparts - they are paragons of stylishness - except for their wedding rings and offspring. The image they present is strikingly different than my Christian friends from university who married early and had kids late. Truthfully, their lives don't look any different than those of the culture; the culture that they are supposed to challenge and revitalize by the radical nature of their lives.
I don't know how to end this. It's not an attack, more of a lament. We're not crazy for rejecting birth control and abortion. In fact, we're the sanest people around; also, some of the most joyful. As I creep closer to 40, I realize that childbearing comes to an end. Sometimes far too quickly; all things really do have their season. Have children, enjoy children, love children - there's really nothing quite like them. Why settle for a life of comfort, the ego-drama, when you can live the theo-drama? It promises you so much more than you could ever dream of. And to the woman in the grocery store who recently rubbed her stomach and with raised eyebrows told me, "It's nice to see you, you know... not pregnant.": Harden not your heart.
13 comments:
I feel like I need to defend Protestants a bit here. (Wait - what?!) Yes, the mainline Protestant denominations have no official teaching regarding artificial birth control, and many are fine with it. But I am reminded of our experience with the reformed episcopal church, wherein it was normal to have 4 and 5 child families, with a handful of 6 and 7 (including the preacher himself). Anytime anyone got married there would be a child within a year and if not, people were worried why not! Also, many other conservative Protestant denominations are clearly against ABC - just look at the quiver full movement. Just because they don't talk about it explicitly doesn't mean the teaching isn't there.
Mainline Protestantism, however, has more or less become a tool of the left, and not just on family size, birth control and abortion. As you pointed out.
Yes, I know he quiver full movement and that many hotter prots are against ABC, but that is a very recent development. I was in university 16-20 years ago and, at that time, the number of prots who were beginning to question their teachings (or lack thereof) on life was minuscule. Responsible parenthood was about waiting a year or two into marriage, responsibly using birth control and limiting family size. By the nature of what I wrote, I am going to sound judgemental, but guess who was judged big time for having kids right away? I am definitely trying to stir the pot (of my very limited audience). The reality is that many of the younger prots seems to be looking more to the root teachings of the culture of life, but the mainline magazines liek focus on the family etc. still feature perfect looking couples who dabbled in ministry for a requisite amount of years before thinking about having children. The stats are on my side: having children sooner in a marriage the later actually significantly ups the chances of success for that marriage. Blah, blah, blah.
Ah, I'll add my .02 for what it's worth. There are some very fine Protestants who are incorporating the culture of life re family size, but not that many as far as I can see.
I volunteer at the crisis pregnancy centre here and most of the volunteers and staff are evangelicals. Several are newly married young women, and nope no children on the horizon. They are getting careers, etc. They have adopted the culture that they live in. But so have all the Catholics.
At church, it is only the older generation that has large families and not very many of them either. The largest young family has 4 children, mom being the daughter of a family that had 8. And people stare when a large family arrives, as one did a few weeks ago, with 7 children in tow.
On the whole, everyone has bought the contraceptive mentality. It is totally refreshing to meet moms and dads with more than two children, and especially to meet moms who stay home. I think that is the real clincher, every woman is expected to be as career-oriented as her husband.
I find it sad really. And in retrospect, I wish I had had more children.
I think what, in my haste, I failed to convey was that a huge majority of Catholics have bought into the culture. So, they're attitude toward family and marriage doesn't surprise me. They are essentially unevangelized and therefore unable to be catechised. What a find sad about my Protestant friends is that these are people who are truly evangelized and want to live for Christ, yet when it comes down to marriage and family life, they are still toeing the party line. I wish I had more siblings, mom - for what it's worth - thanks for adding your honest regret, that takes guts.
Wow there is so much I'd like to say on this subject.
"But what about your MARRIAGE?"
I can not judge what goes into anyone's decisions about family size or spacing, but am I free to say I do question the GALL people have in saying such things? Someone you hadn't seen in years saw you pregnant with your third child and immediately assumed your relationship with your spouse was in jeopardy or something. That not only shows a complete lack of tact but belies a really heart-breaking philosophy on marriage as being so distinct from childrearing.
I like to think of myself as part as the OLSWA alumni crowd you reference (except perhaps lacking somewhat in the style department, being a late bloomer and all) and it is refreshing to be with my former classmates where we are very much in the norm for having had a baby in tow at our first anniversary, and then two more fairly soon afterward. I actually don't too often consider whether such choices are radical or not, except that I know when Patrick and I were newly married on campus at the Christian Reformed college, we definitely were a hot-button discussion topic. The students there frequently married before their graduation, some at 18 or 19 years old, but postponed children for many, many years.
It is deeply sad to me that our closest friends in the married students' quarters, who were our age and had already celebrated their 4th anniversary back then, are already divorced. We were odd for having a baby right away... and yet he is already on his second marriage before his thirtieth birthday.
Would a baby have saved their marriage? Perhaps not. But how odd it is that like the woman in grocery store to you, or the people on campus at the college to me, see the fruit of our marriage as a *threat* to its stability when it not only theologically, but biologically and sociologically these children are quite likely the glue.
Jenna, how exactly do I spell shazam? Because that's what I wanted to say when I read your comment and especially your last line. We have been so conditioned to believe that our marriages will be ok if we just make our weekly date night or keep things interesting, and make sure to keep the kids limited and at a distance. But that's not what our hearts say, is it? The marriage and the children are as connected as the members of the Trinity. Living it is so very, very different than being afraid of it.
Maybe it's because I married late, but I always thought it was funny when people would be so concerned with being perfectly prepared to have children when they would be "ready". In some sense, you're always ready, and you're never ready. Might as well jump in, it's really not so scary.
I heard a good and pithy assessment of marriage these days: marriage as the capstone rather than the foundation. That's certainly what we see in marriage prep.
I Just listened to an interview with a professed Christian marriage counselor on what makes a healthy marriage. It wasn't especially compelling. What stuck out though was that the man said he and his wife didn't have children until 12 years into their marriage (he didn't specify whether that was by choice or by circumstance) but he said it was the best thing for them because they were "ready". I couldn't help but think how most couples I know would call postponing children for 12 years a "cross" but perhaps he was just emphasizing it's benefits from hindsight? Also but more tellingly was that he hosts his own podcast called "the sexy marriage radio show" and it's a whole show dedicated to "spicing up" one's marriage. I could just slap my forehead over stuff like this. What tremendous pressure contraception puts a marriage under -- to be always "available" coupled with the staggering number of Christian men consuming pornography on a regular basis, the wives feel like they have no choice but to "compete" with whatever filth he's viewing online. And so entire radio shows are created to "spice things up.
One thing the man said in the interview which I thought was great, though, was that marriage wasn't ever intended to make us happier people, but rather better people. Again I'd point to the beauty and hard work of raising a family and say they are a perfect example of that. In many ways I was "happier" when I had more time to myself before having children but I am so much more an actual adult, and so much more myself, by learning how to look after them and love them. I don't want to sound prudish in my previous comment that it's somehow immoral to have a radio show about having a "sexy" marriage. I don't think that. I just think it's probably a misplaced priority. We make an idol out of sex. It's one part of a bigger picture of marriage AND family.
Jenna, I have always been disturbed by those sorts of shows and books. I remember a book called Sheet Music and I looked through and just felt such pressure to measure up in yet another area of life. Contraception does that, doesn't it? Jen fulwiler wrote a great post on that. I was also disturbed by all the catholic bloggers, led by moxie wife, writing about spicing up ones marriage. I mean, sure, go ahead; but, why are we talking about these things out in the open? I especially hate the, "me and the hubs can hardly stay away from each other." I really don't need to know about that, do I? We can share these things with close friends, which is think is good, because we feel less isolated; but enough of it in the catholic blogosphere.
I liked this very much. I alway spuzzle over people who are so there and yet not quite...
It was very interesting how you talk about the concern of the couple that kids will harm your marriage - sincere concern.
My pet theory right now about Prots: they follow the Gospel of Peace, not of Christ. How's that for unwarranted generalizations? More on this to come at thetheologyofdad.blogspot.com
I really do spuzzle. Great word.
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