Thanks for your comments! If you don't mind, I'll keep posting according to my outline (which I found, yay) -- always taking your comments into account. When I'm done, we'll see what I didn't think to mention, and go from there.
I need to define "the Quiverfull mentality" so that everybody knows what I, at any rate, am talking about.
By "Quiverfull" I mean the teaching that it is Scriptural and God's will for all Christian families to have as many children "as God gives them." This means not using the Pill or any artificial contraception (condoms, diaphragm, etc.). But it also means you don't take steps AT ALL to prevent pregnancy -- including tracking your cycle and abstaining during fertile times.
I'm not talking about couples who have large families. Not even couples who have large families and don't use birth control and are persuaded it's what God has called them to do. I'm talking about teachers and families who put pressure on others to have many children, without any attempt to control it, because "that's what God wants."
In all the years that I sat under Quiverfull teaching, including an entire week-long class on pregnancy and birth, we girls were never once taught how to track our cycles. The conclusion, both stated and implicit, was that a Godly couple wouldn't be trying for or against a pregnancy, so why bother to know your fertile times?
Although I shed a lot of that thinking as I got older (and married and pregnant and a mother), it's still hard to come right out and say that, God and my body cooperating, I don't want to have any more children.
Does that statement look as stark, selfish, and worldy to you as it does to me? If so, you understand what I'm working through here.
Obviously I'm writing from my own point of view: how this mindset has affected me as I've realized that my body works all too well in the fertility department. I'd love to hear from others of you on the other side: how Quiverfull thinking says that a woman's highest earthly calling is to have children... so where does that leave you if you can't have them?
And, finally, something I will repeat many times. I love my children and am grateful for each one of them. I mourn the one pregnancy I lost four years ago. If I do get pregnant again, I'll welcome the new child with joy. I love YOUR children, even the ones you haven't had yet. Children are a blessing.
-- SJ
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Sara- You have 4 beautiful children.
ReplyDeleteYou are enttiled not to want more, and to take precautions to have more. This is 2010, you are allowed not to procreate if you don't want too. While I can see it being a religious part of ones family, I have a friend who is way more religious, and she had their tubes tied knowing that 5 was more than enough. She always says, the more kids you have, the more problems you deal with, and the more you need to be there for them.
Four is a good number, stick with it.
Mollie
Yeah... knowing how to track your cycle is definitely a valuable resource even if you ARE from the Quiverfull movement. It is helpful if you are trying to get pregnant as well as trying to avoid it!
ReplyDeleteWhich reminds me of one question I have: is it okay to try to have children, but not okay to try not to? Isn't taking extra steps in order to conceive another way of not "letting God control the womb"? Personally, I say whatever you attempt, God is ultimately in control, so there is always a certain amount of trusting Him involved.
p.s. I meant to put this comment on your last post, but I too am thankful for parents and parents-in-law who do not pressure us one way or the other on this subject!
This definition of terms is very important--to people who didn't grow up (or deliberately buy into as an adult) QF teaching, this whole discussion probably makes no sense. It's hard to express how much anguish you can feel over a decision that seems like a "no, duh" to most of the world.
ReplyDeleteAnd I also think the full understanding of a woman's cycle is invaluable, and plan to teach it to my daughters as soon as they hit puberty. How can it not be good to understand what your body is doing and be able to tell when it is out of whack?
"Isn't taking extra steps in order to conceive another way of not 'letting God control the womb'?"
ReplyDeleteI have heard QF adherents answer that in the affirmative. Yes it is, they say. God opens and closes the womb.
What I've always wanted to ask . . . but never have . . . is, isn't having sex human interference? If you're really leaving it up to God--what are you doing sleeping together?
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