Question for people "done" raising families

[rmbrulotte]

Seven pregnancies, two miscarriages. We have five living children. We used NFP throughout our marriage (29 years and counting). NFP was a blessing throughout our marriage. It was completely counter-cultural… in the sense that we often felt like we received no support. This is the reason I am sharing this with you now. All of us who use (or used) NFP need to tell people what a blessing it is for a marriage. There is nothing more honest, open and natural than natural family planning. It requires communication, which always helps a marriage stay strong. It is a beautiful act of trust between a husband and wife as well as an act of trust in our loving God. God always gave us more than enough… enough resources to take care of our children, feed and shelter them. Be generous with your life and you will find that God will not be outdone in generousity.

We, too use NFP. I know what you mean when you say you often felt like you received no support. Most people think that my husband and I are crazy. His sisters will use every opportunity they can to bring up “so and so who didn’t believe in birth control and got pregnant or has X number of kids.” I suppose we flabbergast them because a) we don’t use contraception, b) we have more than the politically correct number of kids, and c) we think that kids are awesome, no matter how many!

We are striving to be generous, but I think that we do struggle with worry. We look at our relatively meager income, and wonder how we could pay for school for more kids, let alone ever be able to retire! What about my sanity? What about our marriage? It is a very murky situation. (And just so that I don’t get replies telling me to get out of debt, save more then I spend or live below my means, I just want everyone to know that we do and are already very good with our budgeting, being frugal, and not getting caught up in consumerism. To illustrate: We only have our house payment and one payment for my husband’s business vehicle. I drive a 13 year old vehicle.)

I guess the main thing is to trust that God will take care of us. But where do you draw the line between trust and throwing caution to the wind? I always think of Jesus being tempted to jump off of the temple. Can it be tempting God to take care of us by consciously choosing to conceive when our financial/emotional/spiritual faculties seem stretched to the max. Or is it that we don’t trust God enough to provide for his children? What a conundrum!

 

[3GirlsRUs]

Can it be tempting God to take care of us by consciously choosing to conceive when our financial/emotional/spiritual faculties seem stretched to the max. Or is it that we don’t trust God enough to provide for his children? What a conundrum!

I think about this all the time myself. For the first 9 years of our marriage, we were NOT very good with our finances. We are correcting that now, but of course, I look at the balance sheet and sometimes wonder…isn’t that enough of a reason not to engage my husband during the fertile time? But then I wonder…maybe it’s not. I don’t know.

 

[LLMom]

I have had 12 pregnancies and 7 living children. We are nearing the end of our childbearing years and have been using NFP for the last 4 years. We feel our family is complete because of age, finances, and anxiety/depression issues. We find there is very little support for older women using NFP because it is much harder than we you are young and signs are clear.

 

[manualman]

We found that it is best NOT to get firm preconceived ideas about how many kids to have. Perhaps that was easy for us as we married late (nearly 30) and each pregnancy had complications that suggested avoidance for at least 1.5 years afterwards. My wife gets a pregnancy condition called ICP (google ICP and “itchy moms” for details) that worsens with each pregnancy and combines poorly wer her natural tendency towards worry.

We think this is as big as the family will get, but you really don’t know. That’s the beauty of the catholic approach to family planning. You listen to God and change your plans when/if he makes a suggestion! It’s just plain silly to make rigid plans on such a matter. At one point we weren’t sure we could do it again after two…

 

[Catholictrain]

…
We are striving to be generous, but I think that we do struggle with worry. We look at our relatively meager income, and wonder how we could pay for school for more kids, let alone ever be able to retire! :

One option that we embraced was Homeschooling instead of Catholic school. Best decision (next to using NFP) we ever made. Much cheaper and much better.

 

[manualman]

One option that we embraced was Homeschooling instead of Catholic school. Best decision (next to using NFP) we ever made. Much cheaper and much better.

Gross oversimplification, I’m afraid. Depends heavily on the kid, the parent, the catholic school available and the family finances. I have no doubt that my kids are better off at their catholic school than they would be if we tried to home-school. And we aren’t exactly strangers to the concept. We have inlaws and numerous friends into it. But we’ll only derail this thread if we debate it more here.

 

[Catholictrain]

Gross oversimplification, I’m afraid. Depends heavily on the kid, the parent, the catholic school available and the family finances. I have no doubt that my kids are better off at their catholic school than they would be if we tried to home-school. And we aren’t exactly strangers to the concept. We have inlaws and numerous friends into it. But we’ll only derail this thread if we debate it more here.

Just to clarify what I said… it is ONE option, not the only option. Since it seems that for some the cost of Catholic School puts pressure on them to NOT have more children (because the cost seems too much if they had more children attending), I presented homeschooling as an option to reduce some of that financial pressure. Homeschooling is not for everyone, obviously. For many large families, however, it is a wonderful option.