Is having one child a sin?

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Fiventina

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We have one beauty seven year old girl. I don’t feel I want more children. I never judge people, but people judge me. They say that our girl will be lonely etc… but we just don’t want another. Is this sin?
*I got siblings 🙂
 
Fiventina said:
We have one beauty seven year old girl. I don’t feel I want more children. I never judge people, but people judge me. They say that our girl will be lonely etc… but we just don’t want another. Is this sin?
*I got siblings 🙂
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Address to Midwives, Given by His Holiness Pope Pius XII, 29 October 1951 (excerpt):
The reason is that marriage obliges the partners to a state of life, which even as it confers certain rights so it also imposes the accomplishment of a positive work concerning the state itself. In such a case, the general principle may be applied that a positive action may be omitted if grave motives, independent of the good will of those who are obliged to perform it, show that its performance is inopportune, or prove that it may not be claimed with equal right by the petitioner—in this case, mankind.

The matrimonial contract, which confers on the married couple the right to satisfy the inclination of nature, constitutes them in a state of life, namely, the matrimonial state. Now, on married couples, who make use of the specific act of their state, nature and the Creator impose the function of providing for the preservation of mankind. This is the characteristic service which gives rise to the peculiar value of their state, the bonum prolis. The individual and society, the people and the State, the Church itself, depend for their existence, in the order established by God, on fruitful marriages. Therefore, to embrace the matrimonial state, to use continually the faculty proper to such a state and lawful only therein, and, at the same time, to avoid its primary duty without a grave reason, would be a sin against the very nature of married life.

Serious motives, such as those which not rarely arise from medical, eugenic, economic and social so-called “indications,” may exempt husband and wife from the obligatory, positive debt for a long period or even for the entire period of matrimonial life. From this it follows that the observance of the natural sterile periods may be lawful, from the moral viewpoint: and it is lawful in the conditions mentioned. If, however, according to a reasonable and equitable judgment, there are no such grave reasons either personal or deriving from exterior circumstances, the will to avoid the fecundity of their union, while continuing to satisfy to the full their sensuality, can only be the result of a false appreciation of life and of motives foreign to sound ethical principles.
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http://www.fisheaters.com/addresstomidwives.html
 
If you’re following the Church rules and are open to life, and the Lord only sends you one child, then that’s what the Lord sent you. I was an only child, most likely because my parents were already in their late 30s when they got married and Dad was traveling on business or else seriously ill for a lot of my childhood, so my parents ended up just having me. I was not lonely or miserable or any of that and have quite a good time by myself to be honest. I also know quite a few other only children and the vast majority of them were just fine with not having siblings.

Other people should not be nebbing into your business regarding having children. It’s between you, your spouse, your priest, and God, so feel free to tell other people to butt out.

However, your statement that you only want one child is concerning because it suggests maybe you’re not open to life. I would suggest that you and your spouse discuss that with your priest. And ONLY with your priest. Not with the Internet, not with people at your church.

I have never seen so much business-minding by other people as I have on the subject of “how many children” in some Catholic circles. I’m fortunate that I never encountered that because I would have probably committed 10 more sins telling nosy busybodies where to step off.
 
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It’s none of their business.

If anyone asks “when are you having another,” respond, “since when are my health concerns any of your business?”
 
I’ve not got a clue, but I will tell you, that when people tell my mother that they could never have as many kids as she does, it comes across as very offensive to not only her, but to me. How you are preventing the conception of said child, might be sinful, however.
 
Why is it offensive? They could be asserting her ability to handle it when they could not. My mom gets similar comments regarding how many kids she has but just mentions how blessed she feels and how she loves kids. I really don’t think most people can or should have that many kids though and wonder myself why or how she does.
 
Fiventina said:
We have one beauty seven year old girl. I don’t feel I want more children.
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All I can say is that being the only child in the family doesn’t seem that fun actually. I prefer to have siblings. It seems very natural (using the term like the philosophers) to have at least two kids in the family.
 
Fiventina said:
We have one beauty seven year old girl. I don’t feel I want more children. I never judge people, but people judge me. They say that our girl will be lonely etc… but we just don’t want another. Is this sin?
*I got siblings 🙂
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It may or may not.

It really depends on your motivations. If you don’t want any simply because you don’t want, i.e. they are an inconvenience, then there may be a sinful element there. If there are legitimate reasons, e.g. health, finances, etc. then there is no sin.

Then there is also the element of society’s needs. The sustainable fertility rate for a developed country is 2.1 children/woman. This does not make having more than one child a moral obligation of course for any individual parent but we can see what happens to a society when this kind of mentality becomes widespread. Below this rate, a population starts to age, and along with it comes serious health, economic, and demographic concerns.

Regardless, we are not to engage in artificial contraception or direct intentional sterilization under any circumstances.

This is something to be taken up with your pastor.

And also regardless, whether someone has one, none, or many kids, it is never something that is appropriate for any third party to inquire about. My wife and I were not blessed with kids, and I was greatly offended when our peers started showing us their new babies and asked, “don’t you feel envious of these?” as if we somehow had chosen to not have them.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
If you’re following the Church rules and are open to life, and the Lord only sends you one child, then that’s what the Lord sent you. I was an only child, most likely because my parents were already in their late 30s when they got married and Dad was traveling on business or else seriously ill for a lot of my childhood, so my parents ended up just having me. I was not lonely or miserable or any of that and have quite a good time by myself to be honest. I also know quite a few other only children and the vast majority of them were just fine with not having siblings.
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This is similar to my situation; parents were married late and had me even later.

If the question is whether it’s unfair to the child not to give the child brothers and sisters, I’d say not. It would have been nice to have older brothers and sisters to “show me the way” but being the only child meant more attention and more help from Mom and Dad.

And as an adult I’ve had others tell me “you’re so lucky you don’t have brothers and sisters” because they were involved with squabbles about, for example, the parent leaving the house to this one instead of that one.
 
Well, I am a Lutheran but I greatly respect the Catholic Church’s teaching on life so I will reply here:
Firstly, I believe that the number and spacing of children should be up to the married couple and God, if they are Christians.
However, I will also say this: I thank God for my 2 siblings.
I remember my Mother telling me when her only surviving parent died( My Grandfather)(back in 1990)
that she was so grateful for her siblings,(3) because they were the only ones who could remember her life growing up with her parents and had actually shared it- something that no best friend or spouse could ever do no matter how close- and she was so grateful she was able to relive those memories with her siblings.
After my Mother died, my Dad was already gone) I saw exactly what she meant. My siblings and I often talk fondly of memories that only we share.
Now having said all that, I also know there are circumstances where one child is all a couple can have physically and there are other reasons why it may be advisable as well, too, to limit children, such as health, etc. And of course only children can have full lives too.
 
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It is the mission and duty of married couples to “be fruitful and multiply” if possible. But the number of children can be limited or even avoided completely (using moral means) for a good reason. It seems to me there should be more consideration than just “I don’t want more” or “I don’t feel like more.” Here’s what the catechism says:
2367 Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power and fatherhood of God.154 "Married couples should regard it as their proper mission to transmit human life and to educate their children; they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Creator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters. They will fulfill this duty with a sense of human and Christian responsibility."155

2368 A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood.
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For brevity, I excluded the parts about the moral means for avoiding or spacing children, which come into play when you have a just reason to do so, but they are important too.
 
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It’s up to you how many children you want to have. There are miserable only children and miserable people with siblings, and there are very happy only children and very happy people with siblings. The main factor determining people’s outcomes in life seems to be the quality of (name removed by moderator)ut from their parents, not how many siblings they have.
 
Fiventina said:
I don’t feel I want more children.
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The thing is, it’s not for us to decide how many children we have, it’s for God to decide.

Let God plan your family and you will have many Graces for it, as will the children.
 
I can’t address the sin part and others have given you good information.
Like @Tis_Bearself , I am an only child. We have advantages and disadvantages. Only children are excellent at learning to work independently and be self entertaining. On the other hand, all the parents hopes and fears for their children fall on the one child. Only children tend to share more than those with siblings because they were seldom forced to share so seem more willing to do so. A few can become worse for it, though. There is something to be said for having siblings to share the burdens of aging parents yet this also seems to fall on only one of them anyway…so, it’s a mixed bag.

While I’ve often wished for sisters…never brothers!..I can also look back and realize I really didn’t mind it much either!
 
We dont use any immoral methods to avoid having second. We’re both catholics. And… We like kids, but both we feel that just… No… We both was tired while she was little. For many years I was sick, sometimes we had financial problems. And we’re both not so young.

And… We love big families but both we think that our life is okay. We have friends, family, she has cousins, neighbors, us, Jesus…

Of course I’m still praying and asking God… maybe we change our opinion, but now jsut feel “enough”. And maybe I can say that NOW is just “I dont want cause I dont feel”.
Please pray of us.
Thanks for answers
 
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As a parent who is further down the road, we had very good reasons to avoid another pregnancy.

Then, it ends up that my husband became sick very suddenly, suffered for about 3 years and died in his early 50’s. The birth defect disabilities that I have mean that now “taking care of me” as my condition progresses falls on the shoulders of our one child. Not that he every complains or does anything less than loving, but, I feel guilty that such a burden lies on his shoulders.

Everyone of us is going to die, and if we live a long time we will most likely have a decline in our abilities. For parents of single children, make sure you are well set financially where you can afford a good retirement/assisted living situation.
 
Welcome to the forum. Sin is between you and God. Your desire to have only one child is not a sin. How to achieve that might be but that is not anyone’s business. I have siblings. It is nice to have them but then there are friends who often are closer than family members. I am close to my cousins. You are not being unfair to your child which ever way you choose. This of course is with obeying the Church which others have rightfully stated.
 
That would depend on what you did to prevent yourself from having other children.
 
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