I honestly hope this is the last thing I ever write about contraception for the rest of my life.
[Ed. note: if you have communicated with me and believe I have you in mind with this commentary, you are mistaken. My discussions with other bloggers and commenters and emailers have been civil and decent. Many of them are married with kids. One young woman might think I mean her, but I am perfectly aware that I invited her commentary, and she is very far from my mind as I write.]
There are few things more disagreeable than being lectured about my station in life by someone who has not yet reached and will not reach that station himself. The staff officer who visits the infantryman in the hospital, who tells him what a blessing the prosthetic leg will turn out to be, is the sort of person I have in mind. The fact that the staff officer may be perfectly in the right does not by itself make it any easier to take; rather the opposite in fact. The staff officer, possessing a kind of truth, may have a duty to share it, however unhappy the recipient may be to receive it, but he also ought to think carefully about the manner in which he does so.
This, I think, is at the root of so much of the discussion about contraception and NFP. To be lectured—and that is the tone I mean, lecturing—by a single celibate person about my “contraceptive mentality” and about the blessings of children is intolerable. Badgering and cajoling do not serve the cause of truth, even when the teller is armed with it.
I love my son more than my own life. I love the child growing in my wife every bit as much, and feel a different love as well for the problems that have surrounded the pregnancy thus far. If God sends me six more I will love each one as much, however much I hope He doesn’t. And I will punch in the nose any person who dares to stand before me and suggest otherwise, honestly I will.
But children are not an unending series of happy moment piled upon happy moment. They shit and piss and puke. They talk back. They get scary high fevers at 3am (never at noon). They break bones and ruin carpets. They set fires and ruin weddings. They say hateful, hurtful things. They choose friends unwisely and they put their own lives in jeopardy without a moment’s thought. American society is downright hostile to the raising of them, from rampant abortion to a tax structure that often eats up the second salary merely paying taxes on the first. Public schools treat them as cattle and private ones cost twice the median income.
Documents written in Latin by men without children that tell me what is alleged to be in my heart are less than devoid of meaning for me; they are harmful to the truths they contain. “God will provide” is perfectly true and singularly unhelpful when coming from a person for whom that provision is entirely hypothetical. God at some times provides enough money to pay the rent and at others enough fortitude to bear being evicted.
However much truth there is in the Church’s teachings about contraception, about abortion, about divorce, the messengers really ought to be people who have looked the devil in the eye and stared him down. You want to tell me contraception is sinful, fine. But when I tell you we’re expecting, don’t tell me children you’ll never have to feed are a blessing. Tell me you’ll establish a day care center in the parish hall that only charges direct costs of insurance and food, and is staffed by at home volunteers. Tell me you’ll arrange a clothing swap every couple of months, so that my little apartment won’t be stacked with boxes of clothes that don’t fit with no money to buy new ones that do. Tell me that you’ve asked some of the nurse practitioners and gynecologists in the parish to hold a free clinic once in a while, so the health insurance I can’t afford matters not quite as much. Tell me you’ve got a list of midwives and Catholic doctors who understand that I am not a theologian and can help me make good, wise, faithful choices about my tubal pregnancy. Tell me, in short, that my Church will not just utter the truth and condemn those who fail to see it, but will make it possible for me to practice the truth. Tell me you’ve been scared too.
Just don’t mouth platitudes and generalizations and tell me children are such a blessing. That’s the one thing you don’t need to tell me, for I know that, I am wired that way, I was born with that in my heart and screaming in my head. The feeling that a glance at my little boy asleep causes overwhelms me sometimes. My knees weaken and my eyes well up and I am consumed by love, immolated by it. What I need you for is not to tell me what is self-evident, but to tell me the truth, and how you are going to help me realize it.
[Ed. note: if you have communicated with me and believe I have you in mind with this commentary, you are mistaken. My discussions with other bloggers and commenters and emailers have been civil and decent. Many of them are married with kids. One young woman might think I mean her, but I am perfectly aware that I invited her commentary, and she is very far from my mind as I write.]
There are few things more disagreeable than being lectured about my station in life by someone who has not yet reached and will not reach that station himself. The staff officer who visits the infantryman in the hospital, who tells him what a blessing the prosthetic leg will turn out to be, is the sort of person I have in mind. The fact that the staff officer may be perfectly in the right does not by itself make it any easier to take; rather the opposite in fact. The staff officer, possessing a kind of truth, may have a duty to share it, however unhappy the recipient may be to receive it, but he also ought to think carefully about the manner in which he does so.
This, I think, is at the root of so much of the discussion about contraception and NFP. To be lectured—and that is the tone I mean, lecturing—by a single celibate person about my “contraceptive mentality” and about the blessings of children is intolerable. Badgering and cajoling do not serve the cause of truth, even when the teller is armed with it.
I love my son more than my own life. I love the child growing in my wife every bit as much, and feel a different love as well for the problems that have surrounded the pregnancy thus far. If God sends me six more I will love each one as much, however much I hope He doesn’t. And I will punch in the nose any person who dares to stand before me and suggest otherwise, honestly I will.
But children are not an unending series of happy moment piled upon happy moment. They shit and piss and puke. They talk back. They get scary high fevers at 3am (never at noon). They break bones and ruin carpets. They set fires and ruin weddings. They say hateful, hurtful things. They choose friends unwisely and they put their own lives in jeopardy without a moment’s thought. American society is downright hostile to the raising of them, from rampant abortion to a tax structure that often eats up the second salary merely paying taxes on the first. Public schools treat them as cattle and private ones cost twice the median income.
Documents written in Latin by men without children that tell me what is alleged to be in my heart are less than devoid of meaning for me; they are harmful to the truths they contain. “God will provide” is perfectly true and singularly unhelpful when coming from a person for whom that provision is entirely hypothetical. God at some times provides enough money to pay the rent and at others enough fortitude to bear being evicted.
However much truth there is in the Church’s teachings about contraception, about abortion, about divorce, the messengers really ought to be people who have looked the devil in the eye and stared him down. You want to tell me contraception is sinful, fine. But when I tell you we’re expecting, don’t tell me children you’ll never have to feed are a blessing. Tell me you’ll establish a day care center in the parish hall that only charges direct costs of insurance and food, and is staffed by at home volunteers. Tell me you’ll arrange a clothing swap every couple of months, so that my little apartment won’t be stacked with boxes of clothes that don’t fit with no money to buy new ones that do. Tell me that you’ve asked some of the nurse practitioners and gynecologists in the parish to hold a free clinic once in a while, so the health insurance I can’t afford matters not quite as much. Tell me you’ve got a list of midwives and Catholic doctors who understand that I am not a theologian and can help me make good, wise, faithful choices about my tubal pregnancy. Tell me, in short, that my Church will not just utter the truth and condemn those who fail to see it, but will make it possible for me to practice the truth. Tell me you’ve been scared too.
Just don’t mouth platitudes and generalizations and tell me children are such a blessing. That’s the one thing you don’t need to tell me, for I know that, I am wired that way, I was born with that in my heart and screaming in my head. The feeling that a glance at my little boy asleep causes overwhelms me sometimes. My knees weaken and my eyes well up and I am consumed by love, immolated by it. What I need you for is not to tell me what is self-evident, but to tell me the truth, and how you are going to help me realize it.
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