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TheFraggle
Guest
You should meet the ones I talked to. I have a friend that believes this as well.
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Xantippe
Guest
I suggest you look at the list alphawoman (I think) provided and think about it. It was a good list.
I forget if she mentioned postpartum depression separately, but I will, because I think it deserves its very own line.
I’ll also add that in general depression is very prevalent among SAHMs and is one of the great perils of the SAHM lifestyle.
“The study found that 28 percent of stay-at-home moms reported depression a lot of the day when asked how they were feeling the day before, but only 17 percent of employed moms did. Of the group, 26 percent of SAHMs said they experienced depression, vs. just 16 percent of working moms. And 41 percent of the at-homers reported worry, compared to only 34 percent of their counterparts.”
metroparent.com/daily/parenting/parenting-issues-tips/stay-home-moms-depressed-angry-sad-study-says/
For more information, see my recent thread on the care and feeding of the SAHM:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=979972
That post was based on this post here, which I also recommend to you:
thepracticalconservative.wordpress.com/the-practical-conservative-guide-to-proper-care-and-feeding-of-a-sahm/
It’s a piece on the question of what are the obstacles standing between the average woman and being able to have a larger family and to be home with them.
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Xantippe
Guest
Also, bear in mind that in real life, people aren’t going to share their deepest darkest secrets with you, nor should they have to. A lot of good, solid reasons for NFP are embarrassing or at least very personal.
Examples:
–We think Steve may lose his job soon
–We’re scared that little Pax Francis will hurt his younger siblings if mom isn’t very, very vigilant
–Steve has a huge pornography habit/drinking habit/etc. and it gets worse when he’s under stress
–Suzanne has huge problems with postpartum depression and we don’t have family to help and we can’t afford paid help
–our finances aren’t as good as everybody thinks
Etc.
So don’t be expecting exhaustive explanations of why casual acquaintances (or even reasonably good friends) are doing NFP.
Also, read Simcha Fisher’s NFP book.
Examples:
–We think Steve may lose his job soon
–We’re scared that little Pax Francis will hurt his younger siblings if mom isn’t very, very vigilant
–Steve has a huge pornography habit/drinking habit/etc. and it gets worse when he’s under stress
–Suzanne has huge problems with postpartum depression and we don’t have family to help and we can’t afford paid help
–our finances aren’t as good as everybody thinks
Etc.
So don’t be expecting exhaustive explanations of why casual acquaintances (or even reasonably good friends) are doing NFP.
Also, read Simcha Fisher’s NFP book.
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bitterhope
Guest
No one has said you all can’t use NFP or that people should attempt to get pregnant every month that they are not currently pregnant. No one thinks big families are an option for each and every married couple. No one I know or have ever met goes around discussing or wondering or asking why a couple has no kids or one or even four. We are too busy caring for our families. If people are doing so they are rude and wrong. Prejudices come in all forms but that is all it is. Ignore it. They are not worth your time. And maybe their attitude has nothing to do with the number of kids you have. It could be other things. It might even be internal yet projecting on them. Who knows for sure. Sometimes infertility will make couples feel judged even when no one is judging them. Sometimes people say stupid things but are trying to be funny. Sometimes we take comments in ways they aren’t meant. And sometimes sensitive people are offended by everyday life. Normal people–even sinners!–don’t spend their time wondering the causes of childlessness or family size. Unless someone tells us why they don’t have more kids or mention that they are infertile we tend not to even think about it, and then it’s usually to pray for them or offer help. Sometimes it does just get weird when they blurt out way too much info and that can cause uncomfortable interactions from that point forward. But yeah, sometimes people are never going to be happy unless they are finding faults in others. Those are people to avoid.
I’m still waiting for examples of real discrimination in place against “normal” sized families. What laws are used to prevent you all from renting hotel rooms or houses? What companies don’t hire dads of three? Where are you immediately investigated for neglect because your child has a learning disability (and no other signs of neglect)? How hard to you need to search to find vehicles that your family fits in? What barriers to everyday life are placed in your path due to the size of your family?
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UbiCaritas
Guest
I think the picking at people with fewer kids tends to happen in very specific circles, often more traditional/inclined to homeschooling ones. Granted, these groups are, by their nature, far smaller than the population that will look at a large family and make rude remarks to the parents, or discriminate against them in the ways you describe. (Though to also be fair, I don’t think that, for example, a rental car agency that has no call for a 15-passenger van on a regular basis is discriminating by not having one on site at all times; that’s just a common-sense business practice.)
In some such groups, it’s not uncommon, anecdotally speaking, for a woman who hasn’t had a baby within the last couple of years and isn’t visibly pregnant to get “reminded” by other moms at the church or even their priest that their reasons, of which neither might actually know them, aren’t serious enough to use NFP and that they must be using it “contraceptively.” (One friend, a SAHM whose husband was in a rather low-paying job, was once told by her priest that the fact that they couldn’t yet afford, though they were actively saving for, a car that would fit three carseats wasn’t a good enough reason to use NFP to avoid. How, precisely, he expected them to transport all the kids without such a car and without getting reported to CPS was a bit beyond any of us.) I also once heard one such priest give a sermon about how LAM works for nearly all women (snort), and that that six months of infertility between pregnancies is all that they should want, need, or expect.
As I said, I quite agree that these comments and attitudes are rarer by nature than the negative ones about bigger families, but they’re there, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they sting rather more than those from the general population, just as negative comments from fellow Catholics about big families hurt those Catholics with big families a bit more. Why? Because one not unreasonably hopes for support in making the right (and moral) choices for one’s family from one’s faith community. Even if the community doesn’t provide the support, of course, the family should make the right decisions for their family, but in an ideal world, the community is, well, a community, and not a bunch of self-righteous busybodies.
Sadly, we live in a fallen world.
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bitterhope
Guest
Believe it or not, renting a van is not difficult. Finding one to buy is harder though. We actually bought ours from a rental company. Apparently groups rent them for trips so they have them in their fleet. But when traveling and a hotel won’t give you a room, when job searching or house searching, those things are discrimination. I don’t find it wrong that it’s hard to find a van to buy but it is a barrier that makes things difficult. Other things are discrimination. Legally we could fight it but why? If we win the suit it makes for a long line of battles which causes more problems. What do small families have in their way?
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Lou2U
Guest
But why is it any of your business? You say your brother met a couple who used NFP for years to avoid having children, but you don’t know that they had a “contraceptive mentality”. You are assuming this without even knowing the couple yourself. Just because everything on the outside looked fine doesn’t mean everything was. You or your brother don’t know if there were mental, physical or financial issues meaning they were trying to avoid, and honestly, you have no right to know.
I don’t think you realise, but this post is exactly why it was suggested you were being self righteous. You are not in other people’s shoes, and you do not know the reasons why they decide they do not want to have any more children.
Or maybe devout Catholics are struggling to cope with the amount of children they have, for whatever reason.
No, you’re right. But sometimes women are physically unable to have children. Sometimes men are infertile. Sometimes a marriage is so shaky that children should not be brought into it. Sometimes people need to put their other health issues before having a child. Sometimes, people suffer miscarriages and they (or their spouse) does not feel ready to try and have another child.
Again, you’re right. Some don’t see children as a blessing. Sometimes people are barely coping with a situation and having a child on top of it is overwhelming. Sometimes parents of one or two children feel as though they would not be good parents if they had any more children.
I don’t think it is silly. I don’t have children either, but I have read posts from people here at CAF, I have family members who have had children. However, you are posting, looking through “rose tinted glasses”. Having children is not as easy as you seem to think it is, and I bet it’s a lot harder than what I think it is as well. Posters here with children will always have arguments with more weight than yours and mine, simply because they have the experience.
Do your brother and sister really encourage others to have children? This sounds incredibly invasive to me. It is none of their business as to why a couple are not having children, and they should not be encouraging people to conceive just because they are “good upstanding Catholics”. Imagine if they said this to a couple unable to have children - how would the couple feel? It isn’t their job to say “we are unable to have children”, it is your siblings’ job not to ask.
Kelfa also wrote her post from the heart.
To me, it sounds as though your message is “If a couple or small family appear from the outside to look healthy, then they should have children, and they have no excuse for not doing so”. The simple fact is it is none of your business as to why couples aren’t actively trying to become pregnant, and that large families are simply not for everyone.
Lou
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Lou2U
Guest
OP, I’ve just read your profile. You say you live with your mother, and you do not need a job due to your father’s social security.
This tells me why you don’t seem to understand why a couple may not want children. I’m guessing you’ve never faced financial instability, as so many have on CAF. I’m guessing you’ve never really felt stress or conflict in your home life, either. These reasons are major in the decision of having a child. Some people, for example, have to move away to an area with no family for support, in an unfamiliar neighbourhood with not a lot of money. These reasons can lead up to “I don’t want to have children right now”. How do you know that Catholic couples are not facing this?
Lou
This tells me why you don’t seem to understand why a couple may not want children. I’m guessing you’ve never faced financial instability, as so many have on CAF. I’m guessing you’ve never really felt stress or conflict in your home life, either. These reasons are major in the decision of having a child. Some people, for example, have to move away to an area with no family for support, in an unfamiliar neighbourhood with not a lot of money. These reasons can lead up to “I don’t want to have children right now”. How do you know that Catholic couples are not facing this?
Lou
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Xantippe
Guest
Actually, the OP does have more or less that attitude.
And haven’t we all bumped into the guy (or gal) on CAF that jumps into every single blessed NFP thread to make sure that the OP has “serious reasons”? I saw one of those just this morning.
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Xantippe
Guest
Presumably, all of those issues are “serious reasons” for smaller families to avoid becoming bigger families.
I hope the OP is listening!
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bitterhope
Guest
No, it’s “serious reasons” for ending the discrimination and pretending it does not exist
“Serious reasons” keep getting stretched farther and farther. Maybe the OP does have a point. This is pitiful.
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bitterhope
Guest
You know Xantippe, maybe growing up as a WASP has made you blind to real discrimination. Maybe you think that in order for someone else to warrant decency they need to conform to exactly the life you and the majority think is best. Maybe it is something you should spend some time in prayer or Adoration contemplating. No one should bow down and conform to what others think is best so that they can avoid being discriminated against. That’s so very wrong
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jmjZelie
Guest
We faced a decision about whether or not to limit our family size because the cost of Catholic parochial school was cost-prohibitive for more than a couple children. And that is despite the fact that my husband makes a very good living in his field.
We chose to use Catholic homeschool curriculum and have a larger family. But plenty of wealthy, non-Catholics are able to afford Catholic parochial school education because they have, far too often, become elite private schools and offer status to parents who use them, rather than remaining an accessible form of Catholic education for families who respond to God’s call to be generous with their family size.
Yes, discrimination against larger families is “serious”, and my husband and I are often stressed out by how, despite his ability to afford a good living, many things in parishes and communities are priced out of range and are arranged poorly for large families. This happens because families have become so small, that when companies target their services and products for families, they look at things such as median income and number of children, and they aim for that. What has happened is that cost per child has increased, as well as accessibility issues, while there overall cost to the family has not substantially increased. It has artificially depressed the number of children parents assume they can afford.
Eta: it is perhaps understandable when secular companies do that, but when Catholic parishes and schools do it as well, it is unconscionable.
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Xantippe
Guest
If a larger family is going to mean a family won’t be able to buy a car that they can all fit into, won’t be allowed to stay in a hotel, or will face discrimination at hiring, why yes those are “serious reasons” not to expand the family.
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jmjZelie
Guest
I cannot speak for bitterhope, but in my opinion, it is sad that these decisions to discriminate (with the exception of the car) are even allowed at all, let alone that parents must take into account such unjust discrimination when planning their family, especially when it involves saying no to children that the couple might otherwise say yes to and can afford to feed, clothe, and educate, and most importantly love and raise with the love of God foremost in their minds and hearts.
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bitterhope
Guest
Xantipe, do you purposely miss the point? If discrimination is a serious reason to avoid having children, many groups of people would be extinct. Matter of fact, many are.
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Xantippe
Guest
Dear bitterhope,
I’m culturally WASP. Yep–that’s true.
But it’s also true that I saw a lot as a kid that I only really understand now that I’m all grown up and have big kids and which has lately been informing my views on these discussions. Here are some highlights:
–having a dad that didn’t have real jobs or real benefits…ever (my parents got to be prosperous when I was already a college student and only got health insurance by aging into Medicare). Now that I’m an adult, I realize that that the lack of a real job was largely my dad’s choice.
–the first time I can recall my dad having any sort of job with a paycheck (no matter how briefly) was when I was a 7th grader. Otherwise, he was pursuing entrepreneurial stuff…with mixed results until much later.
–never having health insurance as a child
–at least one major episode of medical neglect involving myself (my sister’s teeth were also horribly neglected). I once literally spent three days after an accident unable to walk, without being taken to a doctor, and that was viewed as totally normal in our home. Now, I think it’s horrifying and neglectful.
–my mom going through cancer and our family having no health insurance
–having my grandma mostly buy us shoes (presumably because my parents couldn’t). My sister remembers being told to ask grandma to get her shoes…
–being moved into my grandparents’ house when my parents hit an economic rough spot (years later, I finally learned that my mom hadn’t liked it at all, but it was my dad’s go-to solution to hardship)
–around the time my younger brother was born, my parents were building a house. They moved us in (mom, dad, me, almost kindergarten sister, baby brother) right after the roof was on. There was initially no running water and no indoor toilet (we did get it pretty soon, but they were finishing the house probably the next 5 years). We initially used to go potty in the woods or at the campground next door.
–the only time I ever got to go to my high school homecoming, it was because some nice Mexican sisters that lived at the trailer park lent me a dress
–quite a number of episodes of being struck with wooden spoons or spatulas or even a horse quirt, right up into my early teens. My mom broke at least one spoon and at least one spatula at different times that I recall.
As I now realize, my mom was not coping well with the combination of 1) living 20+ minutes from town (that’s how far the closest gallon of milk was) 2) two school kids and a baby/toddler 3) no money or very sporadic money 4) no help at home from my dad.
As an adult life has been much easier ever since I left home (how could it not be?), but even so, my husband and I got our first car when I was 32, he was 34, and we already had two kids. Also, we bought our first house when I was 37 and my husband was 40.
If this is what getting everything handed to you looks like, man, I must be doing something wrong.
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Xantippe
Guest
“Serious reasons” don’t mean that avoiding is mandatory, it just means that it is permissible.
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lifeisbeautiful
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bitterhope
Guest
Once again, way too much information and missing the point. No where did I say you had every handed to you. I said that discrimination is something you might not be accustomed to see discrimination because you haven’t had to face it. You don’t recognize that discrimination is set up to dissuade people from not confirming to societies ideals. That is the purpose of those laws. If we allow the world to make laws that purposely restrict a specific group of people, that is wrong.
Let’s turn this around and play a what if game. What if a country had a law that all people must have a minimum amount of people in order to rent a house? Somehow you have to gather at least 8 people or they won’t give you a lease. Do you think society would stand by and let that happen? Of course not. What if employers won’t hire men unless they have at least 6 kids because they consider all others as inexperienced or not qualified to lead? Yes, it would be preposterous. No one would allow that to happen. It would be wrong. However we stand back and allow the opposite to occur.
Let’s turn this around and play a what if game. What if a country had a law that all people must have a minimum amount of people in order to rent a house? Somehow you have to gather at least 8 people or they won’t give you a lease. Do you think society would stand by and let that happen? Of course not. What if employers won’t hire men unless they have at least 6 kids because they consider all others as inexperienced or not qualified to lead? Yes, it would be preposterous. No one would allow that to happen. It would be wrong. However we stand back and allow the opposite to occur.
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