How old were you when you learned the Church's teaching on contraception?

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And how did you learn it?

I am in my late 40’s. I learned from Catholic radio which has been in the area only a few years. I learned about oral contraception for women and its possible abortificient proprties from Catholic radio also.

How about you?
 
I’m 30 now and converted to Catholicism 2 years ago. I learned about the teaching on contraception around then. I think i learned most of it here on CAF and then from the links provided by many people as well. The book “the good news about sex and marriage” really helped me put it all together and finally “get it”.
Of course, I “knew” of the teaching for many years. My Catholic hubby tried to get me to stop taking the BC pill from day one…but I trusted it and didn’t know any better. I had to learn for myself why contraception was wrong and stopped immediately when I realized the abortifacient effects.
malia
 
I think I was in college. It certainly wasn’t anything I ever heard during my 9 years in Catholic schools.
 
As a cradle Catholic I learned about the Church’s teaching on contraceptives probably in my teens. Unfortunately, it wasn’t constantly taught - just a mention here or there. I knew of many young Catholic women, including myself, married or otherwise, that used contraception during that time.

What really got me to thinking was that one of my best friends married a devoutly Catholic young man - and he went on and on about how he and his new wife were going to adhere to the rhythm method (common at that time). They went on to have 5 children.

For me, it’s one of those situations where if I knew and understand the teaching more, then I would’ve probably adhered to it better.
 
I “knew” about it for a long time…but never had it explained to me. I read, studied and learned about it after my 1st daughter was born.

I think it’s really sad that it’s not something taught a little more fully on an adolescent level…that’s where it’s needed. Unfortunately, so many parents don’t know it to teach their children when the time comes. sigh Of course, it’s difficult to compete with the “sex-ed” kids receive at school, too, I suppose…public school anyway.
 
I learned it when I was 13 years old, at a Planned Parenthood lecture that I attended at my public school - they were scorning and putting down the Catholic Church for forbidding artificial birth control and abortion, making dumb jokes about the “rhythm method,” etc. :rolleyes:
 
I knew about it since the 1960s when I was in elementary school, but didn’t partially understand it (the BIG WHY) until I was in my late twenties, and didn’t get the full, etinre grip on it until my husband and had it explained to us in-depth when we married.
 
I learned my sophomore year of college. I am a junior now. I didn’t fully get it at first, my main thing was, what’s wrong if you’re married, but it makes perfect sense now that I have learned more and when the time comes for me to get married I will definitely learn nfp.
 
Since my mother was writing and publishing articles in both local newspapers as well as in the Homiletic & Pastoral Review defending Humane Vitae as soon as this encyclical was released and in need of defending, I’d say the Church’s teaching on contraception was a part of my life in one way or another from the time I was a child … Obeying the Pope just came naturally in my family, and I grew into understanding this particular teaching in a sensitive, age-appropriate manner as deemed fitting by my mother.

~~ the phoenix
 
This is a hard one. I had some vague knowledge about it as a kid. I remember my dad pooh poohing it when I asked him about it. I next heard about it when I was in premarital preparation. Our sponsor couple said that they used NFP until they had two unplanned pregnancies, so they got a tubal ligation.

So…didn’t get it. Of course the pastor didn’t bring it up in our session with him.

The next time I encountered the doctrine was in my late twenties when I stumbled across it in the Catechism. Soon after, I joined Familia; and there, I finally understood it was a doctrine of the Church and not just some old fashioned thing no one should pay attention to.

I’m still mad that no one in authority over me taught me the evils of contraception! :mad: :mad:
 
in my Catholic HS we had classes our senior year on marriage and family in the context of Catholic moral teaching and this was covered. Girls participated with their mothers, boys with their fathers, in separate sessions. It was also covered in our pre-marriage classes, which we took in 1968 at the height of the furor over Pope Paul’s encyclical on the topic. I cannot believe any Catholic who came of age in those years could have escaped hearing the teaching, it was so much in the news. It was certainly covered in pre-baptismal classes on responsibilities of Catholic families we took in the 70s as our kids were baptized, and the discussion on both sides of the issue was a hot topic in that era, again no Catholic who married and had family at that time could have avoided hearing the teaching, if only in the negative from those opposed to it.
 
In college in the 70s, (Catholic at that), we really did not hear of “contraception”, still less of abstention from premarital sex. The priests were careful to tell us that we should follow our conscience–but they did not inform us that the teachings that we could have found, with difficulty as this was pre computer days, but still could have found so I’m not excusing myself, the teachings were rock solid. So if we had any trouble, it was our conscience that was incorrectly formed and not the other way around.

About 6 years ago, when I found sites like this and other good solid Catholic sites, the real teaching came through.
 
the_phoenix said:
Since my mother was writing and publishing articles in both local newspapers as well as in the Homiletic & Pastoral Review defending Humane Vitae as soon as this encyclical was released and in need of defending, I’d say the Church’s teaching on contraception was a part of my life in one way or another from the time I was a child … Obeying the Pope just came naturally in my family, and I grew into understanding this particular teaching in a sensitive, age-appropriate manner as deemed fitting by my mother.

~~ the phoenix
Click to expand...
How blessed you are!
 
Maybe I learned about that “stupid” rhythm method when I was in my early teens. I also learned that some really “stupid” Catholics would only use that. I wasn’t Catholic at the time. Perhaps I learned it from a book my parents gave me or from my mother. No one discussed it with me though, and it was a forbidden topic at school. I heard about it again in college, in a short presentation about contraception, and again in conjunction with a Monty Python movie.

In RCIA, the topic wasn’t really mentioned. When I got married, I was clearly told that contraception was not allowed, but that NFP (whatever that was) was allowed. I took myself off to the Couple to Couple league to learn what that was. I still had no clue why one was okay and the other wasn’t. I understood both to be a type of contraception, just that one type was okay. Maybe in my late twenties I started to get a feel for the why, and only from extensive searching. I also learned a few nuances of what was allowed and what wasn’t.
 
I think it was about two years ago… I learned it here.

I asked my Catholic SIL a couple years ago if the Catholic Church was OK with birth control and she said it used to be a sin but now it’s not. :rolleyes:
 
mark_a said:
And how did you learn it?

I am in my late 40’s. I learned from Catholic radio which has been in the area only a few years. I learned about oral contraception for women and its possible abortificient proprties from Catholic radio also.

How about you?
Click to expand...
I was 26. I’m now 31.
 
I was 14 when I began studying birth control. At the time I had become involved in the prolife movement on a “kid” level, but ran into a group of people who heavily debated me.

I soon started engaging in counseling and debating with adults and had to learn extensively about medical facts and the basics of classic logic to keep up.

It was very invigorating, but I remember being that young and immature, and feeling very depressed because all of these smart “grown-ups” didn’t even know the names of the hormones in their birth control, or the various abortive procedures.

Then when I was 16 I started regularly meeting with my now DF. We attended Christopher West seminars, rented marriage preparation/marriage resolution books, and continued our prolife activities together. This second part of my teen years really tied things together, as it gave me a firsthand foundation to apply my broadly acquired facts.

See, now I wasn’t just an overly book-smart little girl. Now I knew the feelings of love, the hardwork a good relationship reqires, the fear of making ends meet and worrying about motherhood.

And yet, because I so thoroughly learned about the Church’s teachings and the facts of ABC/NFP/abortion at a young age, I had a bigger picture to play with and a better ability to solve the issues everyone experiences in life without reaching for this recent noxious collection of rusty tools.

But I better admit that my parents taught me the facts of life! 😃 😉

Anyways, in part because of my experiences, I advocate education at the pre-teen or new teen stage. They just about know everything else at that age anyways, so it’s a good time to teach the real facts and give them some answers!
 

Before I became a Catholic, if memory serves - while I was at university. Probably because of the Life Group (which was not confined to Catholics). It was not a Catholic university, BTW. 🙂​

 
I was a teenager. My mom told me that contaception was a sin. That was about it. As a teenager, I read the package insert and understood that OCs may prevent implantation of a baby.
 
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