What I learned about serious reasons and NFP

[setter]

Kendy:

My college dean had a significant impact on the lives of thousands of women. She inspired us through her writing and her leadership. Somebody has to run the university and she did an awesome job. She shaped women who are going to influence the lives of many people as mother and professionals. I don’t see how that is less important than her having more children.

As for the IT manager, she helps several people run their businesses. Every aspect of our lives depends on the service of business people. Their work is crucial to all of our daily lives. If we all committed ourselves to the cause of having more children, than lots of things couldn’t get done.

I run a tutoring companies. Lots of mothers depend on me to help their struggling do better in school. Often they have struggled for years and have not been able to help their children who are several years below grade. Thus, as a business person, I help families shape the lives of their children. I bet my parents would feel very sad about me dropping out of the labor market.

So long as these women are not purposely ignoring God’s calling for their vocation or neglecting their current chosen vocation. Otherwise, it can be perceived as a self-serving rationalization for resisting God’s call and will for their life.

 

[svoboda]

maryceleste:

I’m not sure who you mean by “we.” Last I heard, Canadians had just voted in a conservative Prime Minister, who won a lot of support by promising to scrap the proposed national day care system in favor of a “child care credit” that families could spend as they pleased.

I was among those who voted for the Conservative prime minister. I don’t know how much you know about Canadian politics, but a lot of people voted Conservative because the party in power was in power for too long and had become corrupt and unaccountable. Anyway, our conservatives are fairly liberal and have a minority government. They will need to cooperate with the liberal parties to get anything done.

The thing is, not all parents want to put their children in institutional day care. Not even most do, I’d say. Many parents would rather use the money to pay a friend, relative, or neighbor to watch their children on a casual basis, as needed.

The problem with the money they want to give to parents is that it is a very small amount. Some families need daily daycare because they are poor and must work one or more jobs. Single parents need this sort of daycare as well. The money they will be given by the Conservatives will not be enough to afford this type of thing. Plus, there is the additional problem of having enough spaces in existing facilities.

Rich families will not have a problem finding babysitters etc. But the problem is that there may not be enough good babysitters for poor people, and that poor people will not be able to afford quality daycare.

so they could afford to have the mother stay home in the first place

. (What a radical concept!) It’s not going to happen with the amount of money they’ll be given.

Why should the government take these people’s money away and spend it on a program they don’t want to use?

Well, many rich people here may not want or need government health care. But at the same time their tax dollars are the ones paying for health care for poor people. If they were allowed to opt out of paying taxes there would be no money for poor people’s care. Personally I would be willing to give up a chunk of my earnings to provide good daycare for poor families. I guess this is the price for living in Canada, we have to give up more of our own money for the sake of creating a system that gives to the least of us what they otherwise couldn’t afford.

Poor people aren’t really taxed anyway, so they wouldn’t really be paying for daycare.

Canadian women are allowed to take up to a year of pregnancy/parental leave without the risk of losing their jobs, and they’re eligible to collect Employment Insurance benefits (55% of their salary) during this time. This obviously places a great burden on their employers, who have to pay the EI premiums, find temporary replacements for the employees, and – in some provinces – continue paying the premiums for the employees’ benefits until they return. This burden is then indirectly passed on to all employees, male and female, in the form of lower salaries.

And at the same time it encourages women to have children. Maybe women would have no children at all if they weren’t able to have them without risking job-loss? I see maternity leave as being no different from benefits payed to employees who suddenly become ill and are unable to work. In my opinion it creates a better society for people to live in. I would be willing to take a pay cut to allow sick people to have benefits and women to have children. This is the sort of thing Canadians tend to support and it works for us. If we didn’t support it there’d be really conservative parties such as there are in the States.

In part because of supposedly “family-friendly” policies like this, Canadian families have a lower disposable income than Americans do.

We don’t have the very rich, but we don’t have the extremely poor either. I hear that in America the gap between the rich and the poor is growing while the middle class is shrinking.

If you are highly educated and have a good job, you’re better off in America: you’ll be richer, you’ll have more disposable income etc. For this reason many highly educated Canadians do leave for the US. But if you are not particularly educated, and most people aren’t, and if you have an average job, then being in the US will not help you earn more money, and you might be struggling to even provide health insurance for your family.

Or at least that is how it seems to me.

 

[svoboda]

maryceleste:

For instance, one might argue that it’s reasonable for a given woman to limit her family size if she happens to have exceptional gifts in, say, pro-life or missionary work. But I’m not sure how you could say the same of a woman who chooses to work as a college dean or an IT manager. While those are good things in themselves, they’re not at all equal to cooperation in God’s “supreme gift” of bringing new life into the world.

You ignore the fact that professional people have built this world. Professional people have invented science that gave rise to medicine and technology we all benefit from. Professional people have written books, have made art. Professional people have built businesses we use. Virtually every aspect of this society involves some profession or other.

If everyone right now decided to stay at home and have babies, there’d be a ton of babies but no medicine so many of them would die early on the way it used to be. There’d be no schools and no subjects to teach them. There’d be no technology to make life easy. Maternal mortality rate would be huge etc.

Professional people contribute tremendously to this world.

Chidlren are immensely important as well. No one is saying that people shouldnt have children. But maximizing the number of children and ignoring the professional aspect is a mistake in my opinion. We need talented people to use their talents to make this world run, without them we’d still be living in caves using stone tools.

Even little jobs like cashier are important. How would you get your groceries if no people were involved in those jobs?

People can do both. They can have children, replace the population, and at the same time increase human knowledge, human understanding of the world, medicine, technologicla advancements etc. And even do the little things like get the trash taken away to the dump, repair ditches in the road etc. Without these things there’d be no world for all the children to grow up in and live in.

And as mentioned in my original post, this is perfectly consistent with Catholicism.

 

[migurl]

I am not quite sure why this NFP thread had to come to a working vs. sahm situation. God calls women to be many different things. SOme are mothers, some are doctors some are both. Now that being said the NFP issue is that having a contracepting attitude when using nfp is morally wrong. Limiting the number of children in order to make your own life convienient is wrong. God would not force a woman to have 10 kids if He, in His infinite wisdom, knew that it would bring her and her family needless suffering. In the catholic faith, suffering is a path to Grace. SO if a family is suffering from health issues or financial troubles or even severe stress, they are in truth being given the chance to recieve many graces. It all comes down to faith in God. If a couple truly trusts God, then they will not fear the possibilty of children because God will take care of those who love and Follow His commandments. If we can handle it and He wills us to have 8 kids, we will and He will provide for us. If we can’t, He will be merciful for we put all our trust in Him to make that descision for us. So, we may end up only have 2-4 kids. It is all up to God, He can do all. Have faith in Him, and no fear will grip you at thought of 10 kids. No matter how much $ you have.

 

[maryceleste]

svoboda:

You ignore the fact that professional people have built this world. Professional people have invented science that gave rise to medicine and technology we all benefit from. Professional people have written books, have made art. Professional people have built businesses we use.

Nobody has denied that the professions are worthwhile pursuits. But you ignore the more fundamental importance of mothers. They gave life to the “professional people” – and to all the other people, too. Without mothers who were willing to bear children, there would be no medicine, no technology, no books, no art, no businesses.

If everyone right now decided to stay at home and have babies, there’d be a ton of babies but no medicine so many of them would die early on the way it used to be.

Do you mean, if every person, male and female, decided to get pregnant and drop out of the workforce? I’m not concerned about that happening any time soon. But it’s a very colorful image.

Even little jobs like cashier are important.

I’m glad you’ve acknowledged the importance of blue-collar work. If anything, it’s more important than the professions, and more conducive to holiness.

God could have come to earth in any time and place He wanted. He chose a family where the father was “just” a carpenter… and the mother was “just” a mother.

 

[svoboda]

maryceleste:

Nobody has denied that the professions are worthwhile pursuits. But you ignore the more fundamental importance of mothers. They gave life to the “professional people” – and to all the other people, too. Without mothers who were willing to bear children, there would be no medicine, no technology, no books, no art, no businesses.

This is false. I have acknowledged the huge importance of mothers and children over and over and over, I now do so again.

Do you mean, if every person, male and female, decided to get pregnant and drop out of the workforce? I’m not concerned about that happening any time soon. But it’s a very colorful image.

I exaggerated to illustrate a point. Both professions and children are needed to make our world.

Talented people, male or female, should use their professional talents to contribute to society. Restricting this to one gender eliminates 1/2 of human talent and the good that can come from it.

Terrible waste if you ask me.

I’m glad you’ve acknowledged the importance of blue-collar work. If anything, it’s more important than the professions, and more conducive to holiness.

Intellectual professions will perhaps one day eliminate the need for blue collar work. Japanese are already building robots who can do simple tasks.

As far as manual labor being more conducive to holiness, you’ll have a hard time convincing me of this. Maybe more conducive to boredom and exhaustion.

 

[maryceleste]

migurl:

I am not quite sure why this NFP thread had to come to a working vs. sahm situation.

It does seem to keep getting sidetracked, doesn’t it?

The basic question seems to be, “If a woman wants to get married, but also wants to concentrate on her professional career, is it morally acceptable for her to use NFP to limit her family size to one or two children?”

God calls women to be many different things. SOme are mothers, some are doctors some are both.

Yes, of course. St. Gianna is a perfect example.

Then again, I’d say that all mothers are called to be primary health care providers… and teachers, dieticians, and much more.

[W]hen people begin to talk about this domestic duty as not merely difficult but trivial and dreary, I simply give up the question. For I cannot with the utmost energy of imagination conceive what they mean. . . . If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun a Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes, and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.

– G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong With the World

 

[migurl]

it is odd that few people respond to my point about having faith in God.

 

[maryceleste]

svoboda:

As far as manual labor being more conducive to holiness, you’ll have a hard time convincing me of this. Maybe more conducive to boredom and exhaustion.

I’m sorry you feel this way. An understanding of the holiness of manual labor – and the holiness of motherhood – are intimately tied to understanding and acceptance of the Good News of Jesus Christ. If you’re open to the possibility of this happening in your life, you might try reading the Gospels again with an open mind, and a sincere prayer to the Holy Spirit for guidance.

That’s it for me; this thread has gone on long enough. I wish you a blessed Lent. (Feel free to have the last word. After all this time, I’ll be kind of disappointed if you don’t. )

The most important person on earth is a mother. She cannot claim the honor of having built Notre Dame Cathedral. She need not. She has built something more magnificent than any cathedral – a dwelling for an immortal soul, the tiny perfection of her baby’s body… The angels have not been blessed with such a grace. They cannot share in God’s creative miracle to bring new saints to Heaven. Only a human mother can. Mothers are closer to God the Creator than any other creature; God joins forces with mothers in performing this act of creation… What on God’s good earth is more glorious than this: to be a mother?

– Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, The Mother

 

[Kendy]

svoboda:

As far as manual labor being more conducive to holiness, you’ll have a hard time convincing me of this. Maybe more conducive to boredom and exhaustion.

Hey,

I would be careful with this line of thought. Blue collar workers are important and their work is not less valuable and certainly not less holy. The trash collector is of much greater service to me than the IT manager.

Kendy

 

[Kendy]

migurl:

it is odd that few people respond to my point about having faith in God.

People (or maybe it’s just me) like to respond when they object. Your post was insightful .

Kendy

 

[svoboda]

migurl:

God would not force a woman to have 10 kids if He, in His infinite wisdom, knew that it would bring her and her family needless suffering.

God doesn’t force anyone to have any kids. He has given human beings the complete control over when they get pregnant and how many times. It is up to us.

I guess I don’t see the point you are trying to make. God has given us complete control, God does not come down from heaven and tell us what he wants, he leaves both the discernment and the actual decision entirely in our hands.

If people have sex during the fertile times they will keep having babies whether it is beneficial for them or not. If they don’t have sex during the fertile times they will not have babies.

The whole point of this discussion is to discuss how to decide when it is acceptable to have sex only during the inferitle times. And, Pope Piux XII himself said that “the limits of legitimacy are very wide.”

God has given us a lot of freedom in how to live our lives, many choices are legitimate, including the choice to have a small family in order to contribute to society via profession.

Does God call a person to be a teacher or a doctor, or does he leave the decision in that person’s hands and is pleased either way? This is how we should see NFP: there are many, many legitimate reasons for using it just as there are countless career choices for men (to avoid the debate).

 

[svoboda]

Kendy:

Hey,

I would be careful with this line of thought. Blue collar workers are important and their work is not less valuable and certainly not less holy. The trash collector is of much greater service to me than the IT manager.

Kendy

I agree that they are important, but I don’t see how doing manual labor will lead to holiness. I worked a manual labor type of job a while back, nothing seriously physical, but it was completely monotonous, boring, and something I would rather never do again.

I didn’t find God, I didn’t become spiritual as a result. It was just something I did to earn money.

 

[Consecrated]

migurl:

I am not quite sure why this NFP thread had to come to a working vs. sahm situation. God calls women to be many different things. SOme are mothers, some are doctors some are both. Now that being said the NFP issue is that having a contracepting attitude when using nfp is morally wrong. Limiting the number of children in order to make your own life convienient is wrong. God would not force a woman to have 10 kids if He, in His infinite wisdom, knew that it would bring her and her family needless suffering. In the catholic faith, suffering is a path to Grace. SO if a family is suffering from health issues or financial troubles or even severe stress, they are in truth being given the chance to recieve many graces. It all comes down to faith in God. If a couple truly trusts God, then they will not fear the possibilty of children because God will take care of those who love and Follow His commandments. If we can handle it and He wills us to have 8 kids, we will and He will provide for us. If we can’t, He will be merciful for we put all our trust in Him to make that descision for us. So, we may end up only have 2-4 kids. It is all up to God, He can do all. Have faith in Him, and no fear will grip you at thought of 10 kids. No matter how much $ you have.

I wish more people understood how living like this is FREEDOM and almost complete inner peace! Not slavery, as some would argue.

He is my Father, and I am his child. He takes care of me and my family infinitely better than my husband or I could by ourselves. :yup:

 

[migurl]

We are not in complete control. Do you create a soul or does God? God can choose when to infuse a body with a soul and when not to. He chooses whether sex during fertile times results in pregnancy, not us.

 

[Kendy]

svoboda:

God doesn’t force anyone to have any kids. He has given human beings the complete control over when they get pregnant and how many times. It is up to us.

I guess I don’t see the point you are trying to make. God has given us complete control, God does not come down from heaven and tell us what he wants, he leaves both the discernment and the actual decision entirely in our hands.

If people have sex during the fertile times they will keep having babies whether it is beneficial for them or not. If they don’t have sex during the fertile times they will not have babies.

The whole point of this discussion is to discuss how to decide when it is acceptable to have sex only during the inferitle times. And, Pope Piux XII himself said that “the limits of legitimacy are very wide.”

God has given us a lot of freedom in how to live our lives, many choices are legitimate, including the choice to have a small family in order to contribute to society via profession.

Does God call a person to be a teacher or a doctor, or does he leave the decision in that person’s hands and is pleased either way? This is how we should see NFP: there are many, many legitimate reasons for using it just as there are countless career choices for men (to avoid the debate).

Today’s Mass reading from the gospel from Luke where Jesus says, whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will gain it.

God does give us control. He allows us to ignore his will for a time. However, as Christians, we are called to complete surrender our will to His. That does not mean that every woman should have eight children, but it does mean that we should accept that should he ask us to. As for our careers, I do think we should spend time discerning what God has called us to do.

Frankly, I think I would throw a good tantrum if God asked me to give birth to eigth kids, but ultimately, I would accept His will. He knows better than me.

As you try to make decisions about your career and family, I suggest that you spend some time praying, and seeking spiritual direction. Don’t exclude God from your decisions. He’s got a wonderful plan for your life.

Kendy

 

[Julian_Peters]

Thank you to all those who have participated in this discussion. This thread is now closed.