Why is it wrong not to want children?

[budgie2]

I have a question about Catholic morality (well quite a few, but I’ll start with this one), why is it wrong for a married couple not to want to have children?

I understand that having children is a blessing and that it’s necessary for the continuance of the human race but why does that make it immoral to not want them? Not everyone wants the same thing, not everyone would even necessarily be great parents - so that makes them lesser people, or not a proper couple? With respect, I just don’t understand this belief.

Please will someone explain it to me?

God told Adam and Eve in the Bible “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the Earth.” Genesis 1:28. This is one of the reason’s why the Church teaches that the purpose of marriage is procreation. However, it’s not just the Church. Even atheist scientists like Richard Dawkins would say the main purpose of life is to pass your genes on to the next generation. Our lives on Earth are so short in the big scheme of things so we have to pass on our genes. When we are dead we live through our children.

 

[Rence]

I guess the bigger question here, for those who *desire *this “childless” marriage (for the sole purpose of simply not having kids - not those who have legitimate reason to avoid)…

What is the point of getting married? What benefit does it serve?

Companionship and bonding with another in a more intimate manner than other bonds. God created Eve so that Adam would not be lonely and would have a companion. Then he told them to be fertile, reproduce and multiply, and fill the earth — which we have. There are no longer small bands of tribes scattered about, but huge nations all over the globe.

 

[Calliso]

I guess the bigger question here, for those who *desire *this “childless” marriage (for the sole purpose of simply not having kids - not those who have legitimate reason to avoid)…

What is the point of getting married? What benefit does it serve?
This is a much bigger question that easily falls into the same category as same-sex marriages.
The entire formality seems awfully pointless… and baseless!

The difference with our Faith is that marriage is not just a contract binding two people legally. It’s a SACRAMENT… that conjugal act is SACRAMENTAL.

Morality is meaningless if it’s not based on something… for Catholics, that basis is the Sacraments.

Sure, it’s *easy *to disagree or not understand my point when I mentioned those “underlying meanings” of sex when the procreative aspect is separated from the unitive if you aren’t basing your morality on the Sacramental nature of marriage.

We’re talking about two entirely different “marriages”.

For me the point of getting married is because I love my husband. To me it is the ultimate commitment that showed I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him. To me chosing not to get married to him would basically be like saying I donlt really love you and donlt want to spend the rest of my life with you because I donlt think your the one.

 

[acca23]

maybe marriage isn’t your vocation. I don’t think God would call someone to a vocation in which one of the purposes for said vocation would cause the one being called to be so against it. Remember, marriage is a vocation, just like the religious life. And both offer great companionship and both must be discerned very carefully, to not do so would cause the one entering to have a very difficult road at the least and be dangerous at the most.

it’s your choice if you don’t want kids don’t have em. After all you don’t need to accept Gods grace if you don’t want it. It’s not forced on you. It’s a free gift but it’s your choice. You can still love each other without children.

 

[Calliso]

**** How does the nation or world advance without children?

*** Do we need more police, or do we need more ‘good’ people in the world?

*** Do we ‘make’ good people by raising them to be secular atheist, or by raising them to love the Lord with the knowledge they are to love and serve others?

*** How does God build and advance His kingdom without children?

*** When did God revoke the earliest command to “be fruitful and multiply?”

*** If people who make-up the Body of Christ cease having children (and large numbers btw), than that void will be filled by other people, other ideologies, other religions, other values and principles. Do we want that?*

**** Beyond faith, ask yourself: what sort of world do you want to live in?

*** Do you have certain values and principles you hold that you also feel are good for the nation and the world as a whole? If yes, how do those values and principles get propagated without children?

*** If it is okay for one person or couple to NOT have children, than why would it not be okay for all people and all couples to NOT want children and to literally put an end to humanity on earth? After all, what is good for one, should be good for another, correct? *

IMO, it is a moral duty for Christian people who are able: to get married and have as many children as they can. It is a moral obligation that mature God loving adults will embrace with joy, not with regret, remorse or any form of sorrow. It should be a joy to serve the Lord by serving others and the world.

1. It doesn;t but to be perfectly honest I am not sure if any possible children of mine would actually be advancing the world or just another drain on it.
2. We need more good people but I cannot guarentee any kids I would have would be good people.
3. You know plenty of secular atheists are very good people with good morals. One does not need religion to have good morals and to be a good person in general.
4. By converting more people.? And your children are not guarenteed to end up with your religion. Plenty of people leave their parents religion.
5. He never really revoked it. But at the time it was made the world was basically empty. Now we have close to 7 billion humans on the planet and have spread to almost every continent I think Antartica is the only one without humans living on it year round. We have done our job of being fruitful and multiplying very well. That doesn;t mean that everyone should stop having kids. I mean if you want them and would actually make good parenting material have them. But I doubt God is super concerned about some couples not having kids.
6. I guess it depends on which ones. But christians donlt hold the only good morals and principles.
7. A good peaceful world I guess. Where people are free to practice their faith. as long as it does not harm others and pursue what they wish. once again as long as it does not harm others
8. You can pass on your values and principles without having kids.
9. That will never happen…however if it did…well so be it.
10. So where are you getting this claim from? But yeah I am going to have to disagree here. Besides trust me I really wouldn;t be doing the world a favor by having kids. I think I am doing it a favor by making sure I never become a parent. lol.

 

[Calliso]

God told Adam and Eve in the Bible “Be fruitful, multiply and fill the Earth.” Genesis 1:28. This is one of the reason’s why the Church teaches that the purpose of marriage is procreation. However, it’s not just the Church. Even atheist scientists like Richard Dawkins would say the main purpose of life is to pass your genes on to the next generation. Our lives on Earth are so short in the big scheme of things so we have to pass on our genes. When we are dead we live through our children.

Well we donlt HAVE to pass on our genes. But yeah in a way if you want to live further and you donlt believe in an afterlife the only way is through children. Personally if there really is an afterlife I am not going to care about living on through any hypothetical kids. And if there isn;t and oblivion is all that awaits us in death well then I wonlt be around in any capacity to care.

 

[Calliso]

Now, there are definitely legitimate reasons for wanting to postpone and/or avoid conception (with moral use of NFP), but these need to be discerned prayerfully.
Saying “still trying to work through things” implies delaying for an emotional/mental illness issue (which can be definitely legitimate)…
This is TOTALLY DIFFERENT than selfishly saying “I just don’t WANT children”.

I cannot say this with 100% certainty. But I doubt most people who chose not to have kids just decide it on a whim and a feeling. I know for myself I didn;t just decide that kids were not for me because I just didn;t want them. I have thought about it long and hard and have many reasons…many of them selfish yes but maybe a few I would like to say are at least somewhat unselfish. But I am guessing that most people who donlt want kids probably actually have many reasons for not wanting them.

 

[Vico]

I cannot say this with 100% certainty. But I doubt most people who chose not to have kids just decide it on a whim and a feeling. I know for myself I didn;t just decide that kids were not for me because I just didn;t want them. I have thought about it long and hard and have many reasons…many of them selfish yes but maybe a few I would like to say are at least somewhat unselfish. But I am guessing that most people who donlt want kids probably actually have many reasons for not wanting them.

That seems correct that it is not normally a whim and a feeling behind not having children. What Pope Pius XII said (Address to Midwives) is that couples are not bound to have children, unless they make use of the “specific act of their state”. So, couples with no desire for sexual relations, yet still mutually granting the right, can mutually abstain and are under no obligation to have children. But the same statement positively identifies the imposition by “nature and the Creator” of the preservation of 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.”

~

 

[Em_in_FL]

I cannot say this with 100% certainty. But I doubt most people who chose not to have kids just decide it on a whim and a feeling. I know for myself I didn;t just decide that kids were not for me because I just didn;t want them. I have thought about it long and hard and have many reasons…many of them selfish yes but maybe a few I would like to say are at least somewhat unselfish. But I am guessing that most people who donlt want kids probably actually have many reasons for not wanting them.

And it’s no one’s right to judge those reasons whatsoever… that’s between the married couple and God… selfish or unselfish, those are totally between the couple and God.

Again, the only question of *morality *comes in surrounding act of marital sexuality itself.

 

[NotReligous]

I will never have this problem!

Hooray for Atheism! :extrahappy:

(sorry, had to say that )

Okay…now to the more serious point, I have to agree with the OP. To say that it is immoral/wrong not to have children in a marriage seems very sick to me. Are you honestly suggesting, that two persons can’t love each other, and not want children? Of course they can! They could have loads of reasons not wanting them; Not enough money, children take time, they just don’t like children etc.

And people get married just to show that they are committed to each other, they love each other! Also economical reasons, etc.

Just my two cents.

 

[ac_claire]

I will never have this problem!

Hooray for Atheism! :extrahappy:

(sorry, had to say that )

Okay…now to the more serious point, I have to agree with the OP. To say that it is immoral/wrong not to have children in a marriage seems very sick to me. Are you honestly suggesting, that two persons can’t love each other, and not want children? Of course they can! They could have loads of reasons not wanting them; Not enough money, children take time, they just don’t like children etc.

And people get married just to show that they are committed to each other, they love each other! Also economical reasons, etc.

Just my two cents.

Well. you know…atheists and Catholics talking about this is sorta like comparing apples and oranges IMO. You would think that the natural law argument would bridge the gap, but it doesn’t apparently.

Catholics see marriage as a Sacrament, as more than the sum of its parts. The fact that the couple “has a reason” to not want children is sort of beside the point from how I see it. The Church ackowledges that couples can space or put off having children as well for a reason, but it does have to be a good/just reason; ie: not a selfish reason. To do it for selfish reasons would warp and damage the marriage since again…we know that a real Christian marriage is deeper than what y’all think it is.

 

[ChristinaM]

Well. you know…atheists and Catholics talking about this is sorta like comparing apples and oranges IMO. You would think that the natural law argument would bridge the gap, but it doesn’t apparently.

I have to agree…it is clear just from this conversation that there is a huge gaping chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between the Catholic view of marriage and secular society’s view of marriage. No wonder marriages are so fragile these days. If marriage serves no greater good than companionship and finding our own personal happiness, then of course we can and should be free to leave whenever that marriage no longer satisfies our personal ends. There’s no permanence there at all.

What makes me sad is seeing how many Catholics have totally or at least partially bought into that secularized view of marriage. My hat is off to the priests and the lay people who face the big task of preparing us young Catholics for marriage today. It must be frustrating to see how many can’t or won’t “get it.”

 

[NotReligous]

Well. you know…atheists and Catholics talking about this is sorta like comparing apples and oranges IMO. You would think that the natural law argument would bridge the gap, but it doesn’t apparently.

Yeah, I wasn’t trying to compare those two, the beginning of my post was a bit off topic.

 

[Em_in_FL]

For me the point of getting married is because I love my husband. To me it is the ultimate commitment that showed I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him. To me chosing not to get married to him would basically be like saying I donlt really love you and donlt want to spend the rest of my life with you because I donlt think your the one.

I
And people get married just to show that they are committed to each other, they love each other! Also economical reasons, etc.
.

I have to agree…it is clear just from this conversation that there is a huge gaping chasm the size of the Grand Canyon between the Catholic view of marriage and secular society’s view of marriage. No wonder marriages are so fragile these days. If marriage serves no greater good than companionship and finding our own personal happiness, then of course we can and should be free to leave whenever that marriage no longer satisfies our personal ends. There’s no permanence there at all.

What makes me sad is seeing how many Catholics have totally or at least partially bought into that secularized view of marriage. My hat is off to the priests and the lay people who face the big task of preparing us young Catholics for marriage today. It must be frustrating to see how many can’t or won’t “get it.”

YES CHRISTINA M!

This is what I meant by my previous post where I said we’re just talking about two entirely different definitions and understandings of “marriage”… and how at some point it becomes almost meaningless unless you view it in it’s entirety!

 

[EasterJoy]

I will never have this problem!

Hooray for Atheism! :extrahappy:

(sorry, had to say that )

Okay…now to the more serious point, I have to agree with the OP. To say that it is immoral/wrong not to have children in a marriage seems very sick to me. Are you honestly suggesting, that two persons can’t love each other, and not want children? Of course they can! They could have loads of reasons not wanting them; Not enough money, children take time, they just don’t like children etc.

And people get married just to show that they are committed to each other, they love each other! Also economical reasons, etc.

Just my two cents.

Back for a minute today…

Of course, “they are committed to each other, they love each other! Also economical reasons…” are reasons that many people could want the benefits of marriage. Neither is there any reason that this kind of arrangement would have to be confined to just two people. That is because the thing that was conveniently left out of your descriptions of marriage was the sex.

It is a very recent idea that society’s interest in marriage was so that adults could take care of each other. I’m not against arrangements like that, I am not even opposed to giving societal benefits to adults who have some contract of mutual care, but those arrangements are not marriage. It is fairly hard to argue what interest a secular society has in knowing whether or not those arrangements are sexual or not, why they could not be contracted between siblings or other close relatives, and so on. Yes, couples without children can raise orphans. So can convents, though. It is quite possible to do a competent job of raising an orphan without having a sexual relationship with the child’s other caretakers.

Even forgetting the religious aspect, marriage as a societal institution was established in order to protect familial property rights, based on a mutually-exclusive sexual relationship that had the purpose of producing and recognizing heirs. This is the civil reason for marriage. Even ancient societies that recognized same-sex unions with some sort of civil recognition did not make them into the equivalent of marriage. (Well, unless you’re Nero, but I hope we can agree that many examples of how he thought the rules applied to him in general argues that he was an outlier.)

At any rate, if you boil marriage down to a sexual relationship between two adults that share exclusive mutual property rights, if the idea of raising heirs is no longer an essential part of the equation, you have taken something away from it, even in a purely secular sense. A marriage that has the aim of producing and raising children has something that other adult relationships don’t. I don’t know how that can be fairly neglected.

 

[Em_in_FL]

Back for a minute today…

Of course, “they are committed to each other, they love each other! Also economical reasons…” are reasons that many people could want the benefits of marriage. Neither is there any reason that this kind of arrangement would have to be confined to just two people. That is because the thing that was conveniently left out of your descriptions of marriage was the sex.

It is a very recent idea that society’s interest in marriage was so that adults could take care of each other. I’m not against arrangements like that, I am not even opposed to giving societal benefits to adults who have some contract of mutual care, but those arrangements are not marriage. It is fairly hard to argue what interest a secular society has in knowing whether or not those arrangements are sexual or not, why they could not be contracted between siblings or other close relatives, and so on. Yes, couples without children can raise orphans. So can convents, though. It is quite possible to do a competent job of raising an orphan without having a sexual relationship with the child’s other caretakers.

Even forgetting the religious aspect, marriage as a societal institution was established in order to protect familial property rights, based on a mutually-exclusive sexual relationship that had the purpose of producing and recognizing heirs. This is the civil reason for marriage. Even ancient societies that recognized same-sex unions with some sort of civil recognition did not make them into the equivalent of marriage. (Well, unless you’re Nero, but I hope we can agree that many examples of how he thought the rules applied to him in general argues that he was an outlier.)

At any rate, if you boil marriage down to a sexual relationship between two adults that share exclusive mutual property rights, if the idea of raising heirs is no longer an essential part of the equation, you have taken something away from it, even in a purely secular sense. A marriage that has the aim of producing and raising children has something that other adult relationships don’t. I don’t know how that can be fairly neglected.

THANK YOU :bowdown2:…
This is exactly along the lines of what I was trying to get at using my “athropological” view of marriage in previous posts.

The “purpose” of marriage in society is based on legal rights that stem from an exclusive sexual relationship… not “someone to commit myself to” (where’s the legal motivation in that?)…

Removing that “procreative” aspect fundamentally reduces the very meaning of marriage!

 

[Alexander_Smith]

I will never have this problem!

Hooray for Atheism! :extrahappy:

(sorry, had to say that )

Okay…now to the more serious point, I have to agree with the OP. To say that it is immoral/wrong not to have children in a marriage seems very sick to me. Are you honestly suggesting, that two persons can’t love each other, and not want children? Of course they can! They could have loads of reasons not wanting them; Not enough money, children take time, they just don’t like children etc.

And people get married just to show that they are committed to each other, they love each other! Also economical reasons, etc.

Just my two cents.

I suppose you think Catholics are bound by subjective truths then? If so, you are wrong. It wouldn’t matter if everyone on earth was an atheist, the truth would still exist because it is not based on opinions or feelings.

The reason it seems logical that a couple capable of having children could choose to not have any, is that marriage from a modern secular perspective is for the satisfaction of the two people involved. This is not the case. One of the most important reasons why a couple must be married to engage in the marital act, is that it creates a sacramental and legal foundation on which to raise children. The family is an extremely important part of society, and the demise of the family is one of the greatest reasons for the breakdown of society.

 

[dontknow]

For me the point of getting married is because I love my husband. To me it is the ultimate commitment that showed I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him. To me chosing not to get married to him would basically be like saying I donlt really love you and donlt want to spend the rest of my life with you because I donlt think your the one.

This…

And we have a child…

 

[TedDC]

I suppose you think Catholics are bound by subjective truths then? If so, you are wrong. It wouldn’t matter if everyone on earth was an atheist, the truth would still exist because it is not based on opinions or feelings.

The reason it seems logical that a couple capable of having children could choose to not have any, is that marriage from a modern secular perspective is for the satisfaction of the two people involved. This is not the case. One of the most important reasons why a couple must be married to engage in the marital act, is that it creates a sacramental and legal foundation on which to raise children. The family is an extremely important part of society, and the demise of the family is one of the greatest reasons for the breakdown of society.

Sounds like an opinion to me. Not a bad one, but an opinion nevertheless.

 

[EasterJoy]

For me the point of getting married is because I love my husband. To me it is the ultimate commitment that showed I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him. To me chosing not to get married to him would basically be like saying I donlt really love you and donlt want to spend the rest of my life with you because I donlt think your the one.

OK, but you two happen to agree about how much of everything you want from each other. If he happened to want to raise children with you and you didn’t want to do that, could you see where your commitment might not seem to him to be the “ultimate” in terms of the normal logical consequences of your on-going exclusive sexual relationship? Do you see that you would be withholding some of yourself in asking him to give that up?

Contrast this, for instance, with the situation if you had entered a convent. You would have a relationship with the other sisters, one in which you cared for each other and had affection for each other, but not one that would ever lead to your bearing children, not in a million years. That would be foreign to the nature of your relationship to the rest of the sisters. That is because you would be taking care of each other in order for each of you to give your ultimate commitment to God. Even that, though, would ask you for everything.

The world has many philosophies that tell us we are here for our own sakes, that our lives are ultimately about each of us individually. Catholicism doesn’t teach that. By baptism, we are buried in Christ. Our lives are not about us. Our lives are about love of God and neighbor. That does call forth an “ultimate” response, but it truly is ultimate. We believe God has claim on our everything. The only difference with a married couple is that they share one “everything”, which they can expect will probably result in children. If it does not, though, their energies are not theirs to spend between the two of them. That way of thinking is contrary to our baptismal promises.

To a Catholic, a childless married couple is not called to fewer sacrifices for the sake of love than one with children, only different ones. Their one shared life still belongs entirely to God.