L
louisak
Guest
Hi all,
I hope this is the appropriate forum. I am new to this site. I am 44 years old and my wife is 35. She is 10-12 weeks pregnant with our third child (not counting two miscarriages). Her morning sickness is pretty severe, and numerous times during this pregnancy, she has said she wants this to be our last child. A couple of nights ago she talked about having a tubal ligation.
My wife is a cradle Catholic and although she takes her faith seriously (and is pro-life), she was never well catechized and she doesn’t understand Church teaching on things like birth control and sterilization. I had to persuade her to rely on NFP for spacing our children although until now, she has been happy with using it.
I am hoping someone can help me find some persuasive writings I could share with her. They would need to be “intuitive”, that is, appeals to authority (i.e. the pope says so!) won’t mean anything to her, neither will manuals of moral theology which use arcane terms (i.e. the principle of double effect). It would need to be something that she can relate to easily.
For example my gut tells me that if she did have herself sterilized, it would subtly affect our relationships with our existing children, making them feel that our love for them is no longer unconditional, that we see children as a burden, etc. But it is hard for me to verbalize these things to her, I need help from others who have already learned how to express these ideas more effectively.
One complicating thing, is that apparently her mother had herself sterilized after having six children. My wife thinks highly of her mother, so it is delicate for me to try to portray her negatively for what she did, and I can’t argue that her mother was not “open to life” after raising six children with great dedication.
I am most grateful for anyone who can give me suggestions - a book, an author to refer, a web site, anything. Thanks and God bless. Oh and, of course I appreciate prayers too.
I hope this is the appropriate forum. I am new to this site. I am 44 years old and my wife is 35. She is 10-12 weeks pregnant with our third child (not counting two miscarriages). Her morning sickness is pretty severe, and numerous times during this pregnancy, she has said she wants this to be our last child. A couple of nights ago she talked about having a tubal ligation.
My wife is a cradle Catholic and although she takes her faith seriously (and is pro-life), she was never well catechized and she doesn’t understand Church teaching on things like birth control and sterilization. I had to persuade her to rely on NFP for spacing our children although until now, she has been happy with using it.
I am hoping someone can help me find some persuasive writings I could share with her. They would need to be “intuitive”, that is, appeals to authority (i.e. the pope says so!) won’t mean anything to her, neither will manuals of moral theology which use arcane terms (i.e. the principle of double effect). It would need to be something that she can relate to easily.
For example my gut tells me that if she did have herself sterilized, it would subtly affect our relationships with our existing children, making them feel that our love for them is no longer unconditional, that we see children as a burden, etc. But it is hard for me to verbalize these things to her, I need help from others who have already learned how to express these ideas more effectively.
One complicating thing, is that apparently her mother had herself sterilized after having six children. My wife thinks highly of her mother, so it is delicate for me to try to portray her negatively for what she did, and I can’t argue that her mother was not “open to life” after raising six children with great dedication.
I am most grateful for anyone who can give me suggestions - a book, an author to refer, a web site, anything. Thanks and God bless. Oh and, of course I appreciate prayers too.