Slowly Joining the Weird

Ha.

 Birth control: these words provoke instant controversy. With yesterday's news about the Duggar family's twentieth pregnancy swimming around in my head, and with Baby Three's birth fast approaching, this CSPP throwback caught my attention:


Concordian Sisters of Perpetual Parturition: Probing the Sulvan brain


{I know: the blog is linked to the right and you could always browse its awesome archives yourselves. But sometimes its little gems are so very timely (recent news, conversation, thoughts, etcetera) that I just can't resist posting them here. So, to those who have the time to read about the weirdness that has to do with birth control, here you go.}


Rebekah provides some background about her own pre-marital thoughts about birth control which I found interesting, not least because so much of her thinking reflected how I thought and behaved pre- and early-marriage. We've learned so much even in the last years about what birth control does, specifically what it can do to early conceived children. In fact, it's not so recent: I remember a relative telling me she stopped taking birth control in the early 80s because she found out that birth control pills are abortifacents; that is, they can potentially cause early, early after-conception abortions.

Even knowing this, I used birth control in the form of the Patch the first months after our marriage. For, like Rebekah, I wanted to go to school forever and have some kind of career and just enjoy marriage for "awhile" before kids. But both Papa and I realized pretty quickly that artificially preventing the possibility of children--especially when side affects such as those mentioned above were involved--wasn't what marriage was intended for. I can't even say that we had this realization due to some great theological or intellectual break-through. I truly think God blessed us with the mutual knowledge, over time, that "be fruitful and multiply" is a blessing, not something to be avoided like the mumps. 

And even now, I want to emphasize that we're not Quiverfull followers, believing unequivocally that "the more, the better" should be every family's philosophy when it comes to children. There's far too many people we know who can't conceive and who also have been blessed with overwhelming numbers to make us fall into that ditch. Plus, we're just too Lutheran: Papa always says that if someone tells you you HAVE to do something to please God, do the opposite. He says it much more lovingly and better-theologically worded than that, but it applies here. We're not Mormons, believing that we've got some heavenly obligation to procreate (and, honestly, I wouldn't want my own planet after death that's populated with just my family. Love all you folks dearly, but... :)). Nor are we Pietists, believing that by our works--even begetting children--we are saved. And frankly, it just seems stupid to me that any of us--and that includes me and Papa at times, still--make the mistake so frequently, as Rebekah so aptly put it, of thinking that "wanting is the only language of reproduction." People say, "Do you want more kids?" like they're talking about buying apples. But that's our culture and how we think. Children are consumer-friendly objects, not gifts. And people can't help talking and thinking that way, because we've been surrounded with this kind of objectification of sex and choices and, thus, family size for at least fifty years.

So that's my long way of saying that we're slowly embracing the weirdness. I won't--and honestly can't--say what our family will look like in five years, because (see above!) ultimately only God decides whether or not to gift people with children. We're just eternally thankful that whether or not He does, He's already given all of us--the many-peopled families, the barren couples, the singles--Himself. And that gift is the weirdest one of all.