Of course children are indeed blessings from God. I definitely believe married people ought to be "open to life" as the Church teaches. Still, I question the Protestant "quiverfull" movement since it seems like it can be pretty misogynistic at times. Mary Pride was quoted in a Newsweek article bashing Natural Family Planning as unnaturally denying sex to the husband. That kind of attitude is pretty degrading towards women IMHO. It isn't all about the husband's lust without regard for the best interests of the wife and the family as a whole. The whole point of NFP is for the husband AND the wife to prayerfully consider TOGETHER whether to try to conceive, try to avoid pregnancy, or something in between.
Women are more than just a womb and responsible parenthood can mean there are sometimes very legitimate reasons to postpone pregnancy. God made women only fertile for 1/3 of their cycle and to have recognizable fertility signals to predict with 98-99% accuracy when that is. Why would He do that if it were never morally permissible to use NFP for any reason whatsoever?
Large families are wonderful if personal circumstances allow for it. Too many people in our society limit family size for purely selfish reasons. However, having a "welcoming heart" towards children does not automatically mean "have as many babies as you physically can".
UPDATE: Jennifer Danielle was born on August 2, 2007 at 10:01 A.M.
1 comment:
I've got an answer for you on your Cafe Mom question about centering your banner photo (hope you don't mind me posting it here). What you need to do is re-size your photo. The left-hand side is pre-set by the margin settings (which are changeable, but a little tricky and rather hard to explain). If you make your photo a little smaller it will have a more centered appearance.
Post a Comment