Morality of NFP to limit family size

[mommamaree]

Is it moral to have more children than you can send to college, thereby saddling them with student load debt such that they might not get married or ever own a house? College is almost required nowadays.

Are you serious with this question?!

Are you really making this out to be a decision with moral implications?

Are you really suggesting it is sinful to have more children if one is unable to pay for higher education?

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

Do you understand the judgmental and condemning attitude that implies? I think a lack of understanding of history is implicit in most conversations of this subject. In my opinion there are a lot of uneducated people about these things, perhaps their parents should have not had them since they were not provided the correct education.

This thinking is a direct result of Margaret Sanger. Her intent and attitude of the poor and elite and their breeding rights fits right into your thoughts. The only difference is NFP is the avenue you wish to choose to impose your standards.

Re Margaret Sanger.

He first “clients” were poor inner city women who had multiple children. She provided them with contraceptive devices (something called a pessary, which to my understanding worked like a diaphragm). The women would use these without their husbands knowledge. The reason they used them without their husbands knowledge, is because they could not “refuse” the “marital embrace.”

Too bad that Sanger thought of contraception to help them.

NFP would have been the moral alternative. Instead of wives merely submitting to sex while being dishonest to their husbands, the couples could have used NFP to work together to grow in love.

As for poorer areas in the world, It’s difficult for me to get an appointment with my OB frequently during many parts of the year. The reason being is that he volunteers in Africa, providing OB/GYN services for the poor.

What does he provide? access to safe birth mainly. He also teaches NFP. Longer spacing of children in Africa leads healthier babies and mothers. Moms who space can provide breast milk for longer. Nurslings can nurse longer and not have to wean prematurely when mom becomes pregnant. Moms can recover from pregnancy, and childbirth longer before having another child.

 

[Rau]

Are you serious with this question?!

Are you really making this out to be a decision with moral implications?

Are you really suggesting it is sinful to have more children if one is unable to pay for higher education?

These decisions are left to individual couples because there is not a fixed right or wrong answer. There is not an absolute standard or morality to be applied here. Some posters, notably Hoosier Daddy are not grasping this.

 

[PaulinVA]

Are you serious with this question?!

Are you really making this out to be a decision with moral implications?

Are you really suggesting it is sinful to have more children if one is unable to pay for higher education?

Let’s start with the high. Is it immoral to create a baby you can not feed? Is it immoral to create a baby that you can not support? That you can not house?

So, is it so different to ask about the morality of creating a child that you can not ensure will be successful in life?

 

[Abu]

PaulinVA #221
So, is it so different to ask about the morality of creating a child that you can not ensure will be successful in life?

Absolutely different and quite immoral to fantasize that anyone could possibly ENSURE “success” in life, and similarly not to really know what “successful in life” really means.

The Christ mandates “if you love Me keep My Commandments.” [Jn 14:15].

 

[Xantippe]

Re Margaret Sanger.

As for poorer areas in the world, It’s difficult for me to get an appointment with my OB frequently during many parts of the year. The reason being is that he volunteers in Africa, providing OB/GYN services for the poor.

What does he provide? access to safe birth mainly. He also teaches NFP. Longer spacing of children in Africa leads healthier babies and mothers. Moms who space can provide breast milk for longer. Nurslings can nurse longer and not have to wean prematurely when mom becomes pregnant. Moms can recover from pregnancy, and childbirth longer before having another child.

Yay!

It’s nice that he didn’t decide to skip college and manage a grocery store instead…

 

[Xantippe]

I know this was an earlier comment, but I really had to address it, even so late in the conversation.

Honestly, I am stunned at this comment. Truly astonished. I was rocking my baby while reading along, enjoying the debate by three of my fave members of CAF (you Xantippe, Longing Soul, and Hoosier Daddy) and when I read this I gasped and stopped rocking the baby abruptly and woke her.

Really, Xantippe? How could you say such a thing?

Very, very easily.

Let’s imagine two possible outcomes (there are more, of course), but we’re looking at the more siblings vs. college comparison.

1. I was one of three children and while we struggled a lot financially when I was growing up, I went to college, did two years in the Peace Corps, then went to graduate school where I immediately met my future husband. (The grad school institution was nearly 3,000 miles from my hometown, so we would otherwise probably never have met.) Over the next 16 years, we’ve had three lovely children that I love more than anything.
2. Hypothetically, let’s imagine that my parents have more than the three children, and that as a result, I do not go to college. I do not go to the Peace Corps, I don’t make the friends I made there, I don’t go to graduate school, I don’t meet my husband there, and I don’t have my three lovely children.

So, it’s quite possible that if I didn’t go to college, my alternate fate would be quite as good as my current one, but the problem is that path #2 does not lead toward my husband and children (barring some sort of drastic divine intervention). Furthermore, even just the Peace Corps time is really important–all sorts of important chains of events for at least several different people started because of the fact that I was in a particular place at a particular time.

I should add that despite the fact that I feel like there were a number of unnecessary bad events in my childhood and young adulthood, I would not change any of it if I had the power to, because I’d be too worried that I would accidentally deprive myself of my husband and children.

My suspicion is that very few people feel that they didn’t have enough siblings. You often hear that from only children (particularly when their parents are elderly and there is no one to help) and occasionally from people with one sibling that they don’t get on well with, but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anybody in the US from a family of three regret the fact that they didn’t have more siblings. As the oldest of three, I never felt the lack of more siblings–there was always somebody around for me to organize. Interestingly, though, I’ve heard that it was very hard on my baby brother when first I left home when he was about 7 and then my sister left home a few years later. He was left the only child on a ranch out in the country, 1/2 a mile from the nearest neighbors, with no other kids at all to play with, and 20 minutes drive from town, and with parents that were preoccupied with a business they were building. So, despite the fact that we all of us siblings grew up in the same family, we each had a rather different experience because of birth order.

 

[Xantippe]

I know this was an earlier comment, but I really had to address it, even so late in the conversation.

Honestly, I am stunned at this comment. Truly astonished. I was rocking my baby while reading along, enjoying the debate by three of my fave members of CAF (you Xantippe, Longing Soul, and Hoosier Daddy) and when I read this I gasped and stopped rocking the baby abruptly and woke her.

Really, Xantippe? How could you say such a thing?

To continue my thought, even with “only” three kids, we did without a lot of things. At the time, it wasn’t a big deal and it was all an adventure (including living in an unfinished house for literally years), but now that I’m all grown up and have a family of my own the same size but a much larger household income, there’s so much that I remember that I would not have done and where I now realize how much of a difference a little money here or there makes.

For one thing, I literally had no friends in school right up until 6th grade and we moved out in the country when I was finishing 3rd grade, so we suddenly had almost no neighbor kids to play with. The public school itself was so-so and not a good fit for me, but it was all that was available. My sister had a fair amount of musical talent (she had perfect pitch), but she never had a single private music lesson. With my kids, on the other hand, they’ve got a good private school that is in many ways like an extension of our family and a very good peer group and we prioritize camps and extracurriculars. My oldest has an Asperger’s diagnosis (which I would almost certainly have gotten as a kid if it had been a thing at the time), but she has benefited from going to a small private school that goes from pre-K to 12, so she’s (hopefully) going to be able to be with the same basic group of students right through high school. I’ve been a bit derailed the past 3.5 years due to pregnancies and new baby, but over the years, my oldest has done therapy and social skills groups and I’ve stage-managed her social life. In all modesty, I can say that her social life, her social skills and her friendships are easily 10X better than mine were at the same age. When I was a child, there was certainly no private school, there was no therapy, there were almost no activities, and my mom was just spread too thin to spend much time developing my social life. (Baby brother was a very frisky toddler, and my mom was supposed to be finishing a house.)

Aside from education, there were also issues with health in my family of origin. When I was a kid, we literally never had health insurance. Nothing immensely terrible happened because of that, but there were things here and there that really should not have happened. I once fell off a horse and landed on my ankle. It swelled up and I couldn’t walk for three days–I literally crawled up the stairs to bed. No doctor–the family figured it was a hairline fracture. It eventually improved, so I guess they were right. When my sister was in high school, she wound up having 10 fillings or so done at the same time before she went abroad for a student exchange. Presumably, it had been a while since her last dental appointment.

Looking back, I realize that my parents (and particularly my mom) were stretched to full capacity, especially in the years when my baby brother was little. They argued a lot (and very loudly) when I was growing up. At the time, I thought that it was just that my mom was bad with money (my dad’s theory). But with more life experience, I’ve realized that there really wasn’t enough money and that even just a little bit more would have made a big difference in quality of life. Hence my lack of enthusiasm for hypothetical extra siblings.

Sorry for the novel, but these are my honest feelings on the subject.

 

[fpt]

In the marriage, there is a general rule among many that is the responsible procreation (responsible motherhood and responsible fatherhood). This rule is linked to the procreation, per se, the fact of having a new baby (the human conception, the human fecundation, the human pregnancy, the human childbirth), and linked to the education and instruction of children: they are indissociable.

As catholic, we have to think of this indissociable link between procreation and the two corollaries, education and instruction.

Eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, bathing, to be housed, to learn to read, to learn to count, to learn to write, to learn to speak, to learn the local culture, to learn a work, a job or a profession, to learn to discern good and evil, to learn the catholic religion, to learn catholic spirituality, to learn the Catholic morality, to be capable to choose in the life,…etc. The purpose is to be autonome, independent and thus adult for being a free human being.

 

[fpt]

The marriage, only, for procreation is a simplistic view of marriage. That is *a doctrinal reductionism *that is unacceptable, in my humble opinion.

 

[fpt]

As the the fact of having a large family is not one of ends of marriage, as the fact of having a large family is not one of moral obligations of marriage, as the fact of having a large family is not* a condition or a requisite of the validity of the marriage*, and as the fact of having a large family is not a dogma, why there are catholic couples for saying that:

The “NFP, while distinguishable from contraception in not being absolutely immoral, is seldom licit and always regrettable;”
“Most married couples (especially in the wealthy West) are perfectly capable of having large families, and most reasons cited for not having large families are bogus;”
The fact of wanting to finish your education and of wanting to save up for children’s future education are not serious reasons.
“Couples who choose to have large families are making the religiously and morally superior choice;”

In reality, conscientiously or unconsciously, those couples have issue with the liberty of the catholic doctrine on the use of the N.F.P. They do not agree with the diversity of reasons who are given by the Catholic Church. For them, the catholic doctrine on this topic is too much liberal, not quite strict. Who are they to want to protest???

May be, they are touched, conscientiously or unconsciously, by the doctrine of the SSPX, of some crypto-sedevacantists, of some semi-sedevacantists, of some sedevacantists and or* the view of Dr Jay Boyd (N.F.P. and Co)*. Perhaps, they are polluted, conscientiously or unconsciously, by some reactions against the post-conciliar documents concerning the marriage and Co, and are touched by some heresies and some ideologies: encratism, manicheism, catharism, quietism, fideism, jansenism, puritanism, victorianism, theoretical providentialism, quiverfullism, absolute procreationism, angelism, primary anti-personalism, the moralism against the conjugal joys of the marital act during the infertile times of wife.

As catholic, we have no right to put more conditions than the magisterium. Only, the doctrine, *not more and not less. *If the conditions are so large and no strict, thus, it is wished by the Catholic Roman Church. The fact of wanting to impose more conditions than what is in the official documents of the church is morally wrong, it is a falsification, it is a lie, it is totally uncatholic.

 

[fpt]

Corrections: consciously or unconsciously

As the the fact of having a large family is not one of ends of marriage, as the fact of having a large family is not one of moral obligations of marriage, as the fact of having a large family is not* a condition or a requisite of the validity of the marriage*, and as the fact of having a large family is not a dogma, why there are catholic couples for saying that:

The “NFP, while distinguishable from contraception in not being absolutely immoral, is seldom licit and always regrettable;”
“Most married couples (especially in the wealthy West) are perfectly capable of having large families, and most reasons cited for not having large families are bogus;”
The fact of wanting to finish your education and of wanting to save up for children’s future education are not serious reasons.
“Couples who choose to have large families are making the religiously and morally superior choice;”

In reality, consciously or unconsciously ,

those couples have issue with the liberty of the catholic doctrine on the use of the N.F.P. They do not agree with the diversity of reasons who are given by the Catholic Church. For them, the catholic doctrine on this topic is too much liberal, not quite strict. Who are they to want to protest???

May be, they are touched, consciously or unconsciously, by the doctrine of the SSPX, of some crypto-sedevacantists, of some semi-sedevacantists, of some sedevacantists and or* the view of Dr Jay Boyd (N.F.P. and Co)*. Perhaps, they are polluted, consciously or unconsciously, by some reactions against the post-conciliar documents concerning the marriage and Co, and are touched by some heresies and some ideologies: encratism, manicheism, catharism, quietism, fideism, jansenism, puritanism, victorianism, theoretical providentialism, quiverfullism, absolute procreationism, angelism, primary anti-personalism, the moralism against the conjugal joys of the marital act during the infertile times of wife.

As catholic, we have no right to put more conditions than the magisterium. Only, the doctrine, *not more and not less. *If the conditions are so large and no strict, thus, it is wished by the Catholic Roman Church. The fact of wanting to impose more conditions than what is in the official documents of the church is morally wrong, it is a falsification, it is a lie, it is totally uncatholic.

the CCC:
2399 " The regulation of births represents one of the aspects of* responsible fatherhood and motherhood.* Legitimate intentions on the part of the spouses do not justify recourse to morally unacceptable means (for example, direct sterilization or contraception). "

N.F.P. is acceptable mean.

 

[PaulinVA]

Absolutely different and quite immoral to fantasize that anyone could possibly ENSURE “success” in life, and similarly not to really know what “successful in life” really means.

The Christ mandates “if you love Me keep My Commandments.” [Jn 14:15].

Well, we know that women who get pregnant outside of wedlock and remain single moms are probably going to live in poverty, and sentence their children to living in poverty. Is that moral? That is setting up children for failure, as statistics tell us that socio-economic status of parents is the number one predictor of academic success for children.

Do we have an obligation to the children we bring into the world? If so, what is it?

As to your bible quote, I have no idea what you are trying to say with it.

 

[Xantippe]

I know this was an earlier comment, but I really had to address it, even so late in the conversation.

Honestly, I am stunned at this comment. Truly astonished. I was rocking my baby while reading along, enjoying the debate by three of my fave members of CAF (you Xantippe, Longing Soul, and Hoosier Daddy) and when I read this I gasped and stopped rocking the baby abruptly and woke her.

Really, Xantippe? How could you say such a thing?

Oh, and one last (hopefully) item to the Xantippe’s childhood saga.

When my mom got upset, she’d chase us around with various implements. She literally broke (!) a spatula and a wooden spoon on us at least once.

Now that I’m older and have a family of my own of about the same age my mom had when she was breaking stuff on us, I’m noticing for the first time when remembering that that sort of stuff only happened after we my baby brother was born and we moved into a half-finished house. Up until then (as a mom of one and then two living in rentals), my mom was pretty mellow. Her stress level must have been off the charts once there were three of us (especially when my baby brother was little).

So, yeah, I’m not eager to get into a time machine and try to replay my childhood with even more siblings.

 

[fpt]

The ten commandments are elements of the natural moral law. The rules of marriage who are taught by the Roman Catholic Church are coming from the Natural Law and of Holy Bible. Thus, the rules of the use of the N.F.P. given by the Church are *elements of the natural law and of the revealed anthropology that are inside the Holy Bible. *The rules of the N.F.P. are willed by the Jesus and by the Holy Ghost.

 

[fpt]

Corrections:

In the marriage, there is a general rule among many that is the responsible procreation (responsible motherhood and responsible fatherhood). This rule is linked to the procreation, per se, the fact of having a new baby (the human conception, the human fecundation, the human pregnancy, the human childbirth), and linked to the education and instruction of children: they are indissociable.

As catholic, we have to think of this indissociable link between procreation and the two corollaries, education and instruction.

Eating, drinking, sleeping, dressing, bathing, to be housed, to learn to read, to learn to count, to learn to write, to learn to speak, to learn the local culture, to learn a work, a job or a profession, to learn to discern good and evil, to learn the catholic religion, to learn *a *catholic spirituality, to learn the Catholic morality, to be capable to choose in the life,…etc. The purpose is to be autonomous, independent and thus adult for being a free human being.

The catholic couples are not robots, they are not machines, they are not only for making babies. The conjugal act is not,only, for procreation. The dialogue between faith and reason, and reason and faith is important. The rules of reason, the reasonability, the rationality, the reality, the balance, the moderation, the conscientization, in the procreation**, are essential rules;

 

[fpt]

The ten commandments are elements of the natural moral law. The rules of marriage who are taught by the Roman Catholic Church are coming from the Natural Law and of Holy Bible. Thus, the rules of the use of the N.F.P. given by the Church are *elements of the natural law and of the revealed anthropology that are inside the Holy Bible. *The rules of the N.F.P. are willed by Jesus and by the Holy Ghost.

In catholicism, the primary paradigm is the pleasure in the order. We have to live, to act and to get some pleasures, in respecting the moral order explained by the Roman Catholic Church.

 

[AP4Him]

I see 3 different approaches…

1. The family that uses NFP to control size-big or small-they use it as a tool and prayerfully discern each and every child. Family size is intentional and planned.
2. The family that does not use NFP but is not trying to conceive a baby whenever they can. They just kind of let nature takes it course, and if they have a baby, great. If not, no big deal.
3. The family that has an almost evangelical outlook on procreation and decide that they should try to have a baby as soon as wife’s fertility returns. They want to have as many kids as they can.

All these discussions center on the first and last example. The middle example(2.) is getting lost or not addressed…can we talk about the middle example?

I can infer that Pope Francis may not approve of the middle example’s approach. To me, there is nothing wrong with just not thinking about it and letting it happen…and trusting God. But is that irresponsible? Or is it faithful?

Of course, extreme examples trump it all, but in the ordinary course of life, do we all need to use NFP to be responsible parents? That I don’t agree with…if you don’t want to use NFP, I think that is ok. If you want to just see what baby’s God sends…I don’t see that as irresponsible.

 

[Xantippe]

I see 3 different approaches…

1. The family that uses NFP to control size-big or small-they use it as a tool and prayerfully discern each and every child. Family size is intentional and planned.
2. The family that does not use NFP but is not trying to conceive a baby whenever they can. They just kind of let nature takes it course, and if they have a baby, great. If not, no big deal.
3. The family that has an almost evangelical outlook on procreation and decide that they should try to have a baby as soon as wife’s fertility returns. They want to have as many kids as they can.

**I think that division is very insightful.
**

All these discussions center on the first and last example. The middle example(2.) is getting lost or not addressed…can we talk about the middle example?

**I think that despite #3 being very un-Catholic, it is actually influencing people in 2. There have been at least 2 posters on this thread that show a lot of influence from #3.
**

I can infer that Pope Francis may not approve of the middle example’s approach. To me, there is nothing wrong with just not thinking about it and letting it happen…and trusting God. But is that irresponsible? Or is it faithful?

**Pope Francis was talking about a real-life case where a woman had had seven c-sections and was pregnant with an eighth child, so yeah, I think there would be a lot wrong with just “letting it happen.” What logically follows in that situation is that eventually, the woman’s uterus ruptures, her unborn baby dies, and maybe she dies and her surviving children are left orphans. That’s the worst case scenario, but there might be some combination of the following: the baby dies, she dies, she has to have an emergency hysterectomy, and/or she has a long/hard recovery, during which her children are less than ideally cared for.

When a couple has had multiple c-sections and knows that it’s going to be all c-sections going forward, I think that the responsible thing is to space subsequent babies out as much as possible to prevent this nightmare scenario. It’s a nightmare scenario, but it’s totally avoidable with a little forethought and a lot of self-control.**

Of course, extreme examples trump it all, but in the ordinary course of life, do we all need to use NFP to be responsible parents? That I don’t agree with…

Not all of us, but some of us need it really bad.

if you don’t want to use NFP, I think that is ok. If you want to just see what baby’s God sends…I don’t see that as irresponsible.

 

[pensmama87]

But you could have the same family doing all three approaches depending on where they are in their marriage and on other circumstances. A family does not pick one and necessarily stick with it during all of their childbearing years.

What best describes our family right now is #2. #3 is often accused as being Church teaching but it is not (of course, if a family deliberately intends to have a large family, that’s fine, but we’re not mandated to and it’s not the only path to holiness). But I could see us doing #1 if our circumstances changed. (And to be fair to #3, I did pretty much feel as soon as my fertility resumed on its own that I was ready to get pregnant again - but that was when my son was 18 months old.)

As it is right now, we’re comfortable, with a good standard of living. I know that we can accommodate a new child without too much change to our financial situation, and that I have the emotional and physical support system that I’ll need (this actually was not so much an assurance with #1 and #2 - so I’m feeling more confident this time than I was before.)

As far as education, of course everyone has different expectations and standards. I know that being able to assist with higher education is a priority for us with our kids, but that does not mean that I look down on those who choose differently. It’s just that in our family, people have been going to college and graduate school for many generations (long before it was considered “normal” to do so, including the women in my family, even if they were intending on staying home with the children) and our natural inclinations, talents and passions tend to fall within academics. I would like to be able to nurture that in my children.

I’m kind of hoping the tuition bubble will burst, too, because it’s beyond ridiculous, because even though I really value post-secondary education I am not a fan of seeing it as job training, but hey, my kids are 14-15 years away from college on a regular track, so we’ll see what happens before then.