Something I don't understand about criticism of big families
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Anonymous
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I grew up in an area where there was a religious sect that believed in having as many children as possible as the goal was to birth the next 'perfect' person. I have no idea what faith they actually were - it had something to do wit Poland..or Sweden..or Europe somewhere!! There were about 7 or 8 families that I went to school with, each having having 12-22 kids.
I spent some time at their houses and they were super organized and chaotic at the same time. There were definitely lots of chores and family responsibility. I do think some of the older girls grumbled at the amount of childcare they did and the boys at the amount of farm work they did. Interestingly while the sect seems to have disintegrated, the families have stayed close. It can't have been that bad as many have gone on to have large families of their own - but more in the6-8 kid range. Probably feels small to them. If facebook is any judge, they seem very happy, have fun filled get together and are no worse for wear having grown up in huge families. |
Anonymous
The catholics are not "better" than anyone else. They just believe in more fairy tales. |
Anonymous
So by the same "logic" and "evidence" do you refuse to ingest artificial sweeteners, because it's morally wrong to separate the gustatory and nutritive aspects of eating? And if it was really morally wrong to separate the "unitive and procreative aspects of sex" then why would it be morally ok to use the rhythm method? Rates of unanticipated pregnancy while using condoms properly aren't really all that different from the rates using rhythm method properly, so why is one method of trying to avoid pregnancy better than another? |
Anonymous
| OP you didn't answer my question: do you whip yourself (self-flaggellation) or not? |
Anonymous
That is somewhat creepy. I read an article about a woman who wore a small wire ring similar to barbed wire around her thigh every day. Let me see if I can find it. It was disturbing. |
Anonymous
Anonymous
You raise very good questions. I am not able to give the best answers in this limited forum, but I will do two things: I will try to answer briefly, and I will point you to a better answer: http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/sexuality/se0002.html It is a talk often given at RCIA and pre-Cana classes about contraception. It has some corny Catholic humor and such, but if you can look past that, it answers every single question raised on this thread, in a clear and accessible way. I'll give you my answers momentarily. |
Anonymous
The logic is based on natural law theory. In order for something to function properly, it must be treated according to its nature. So if you plant a garden, you water it, rather than pour gasoline on it. What is the nature of sex? What is its purpose and meaning? Two things: unity and procreation, or bonding and babies. Modern culture says those purposes and meanings are completely and totally separate. Natural law says otherwise. And modern culture screams one other objection: WHAT ABOUT PLEASURE?? Bonding OR MAYBE babies AND ALWAYS pleasure are the separate purposes of sex. But that is mistaken. Pleasure is the motive and the consequence, but not the purpose. Pleasure is the motive and the consequence of many activities, but not their purpose: eating, sleeping, exercising, etc. God cleverly made the things that are good for us to also be pleasurable. But that's not the reason they are good. They are good because they are necessary for survival. They are good because they keep us well. And, curiously, they are good only when their purpose is respected. There are limits to how we should eat, how much we should sleep, how we should exercise...and how we should have sex. Think of the difference between these two statements: "I want to have sex with you." "I want to have a baby with you." The former sounds casual, the latter sounds...heavy. Profound. The fact is, we are not obsessed with sex--we are afraid of sex. The full, true meaning of sex is INTENSE. Because if you want to have a baby with someone, you want to give all of yourself to them, and you want them to give all of themselves to you. You want them to be with you, intimately a part of your life, forever and ever. You want your love to take physical form. The consequences are enormous, permanent. Whatever happens after conception, you can never ever go back to never having been pregnant. That is what sex really means: bonding and babies. God designed sex. He authored it. He did a great job. And when we try to treat it out of accordance with its nature, it's like slipping some poison in our orange juice. We may not notice anything amiss. But we're destroying the good by disrespecting the purpose. As to the artificial sweetener...God did not choose to bring forth new human life by the act of eating. Now, eating has its own rules, of course, but again, pleasure is not the purpose of eating, though it is attached to eating. But the moral significance of the human act of sex is that it is how humans participate in the creation of new humans. That is where the evidence begins. Humanae Vitae made four predictions, all of which directly contradicted the great hopes (better marriages! fewer unwanted pregnancies!) for birth control at the time: #1 a moral coarsening of society, #2 increased disregard for the physical, emotional, and psychological health of women by men, #3 coercive measures by authorities, and #4 disrespect for human life, or dehumanization, treating humans like machines. Each of these predictions could be its own post, but they have all been fulfilled, probably more dramatically than anyone could have imagined. There is further evidence, which is the inherent contradictions of contraceptive sex: fertility rendered infertile; the gift of life actually a burden; self-giving yet withholding; health disturbed, rejected, destroyed; unity with a (literal) barrier. The final evidence is the direct contradiction for the expectations we as a society had for birth control. Better marriages? The divorce rate doubled in the ten years after the introduction of the Pill, and no one denies that marriage as an institution is in crisis. Fewer unwanted babies? Look at the rate of babies born to single mothers, the steady number of abortions. Decrease the "need" for abortion? Even the Supreme Court affirmed the link between contraception and abortion. In Planned Parenthood v Casey, which affirmed Roe v Wade, the argument was that women have ordered their sex lives on the availability of contraception, and on the availability of abortion if contraception should fail. Natural law cannot be thwarted. Just as we can firmly believe our arms were meant for flight, but a jump off a cliff will end badly, we can believe our sexuality was made for pleasure, recreation, and, at its best moments, for bonding, but this disrespects the true nature of sex, and it cannot end well. Now for your other question... |
Anonymous
I've just tried to explain why contraception is wrong. It denies God His creative design for human life. It takes a good (fertility) and says it is not good. It makes the mutual self-giving of man and woman a lie (I love you, I embrace all of you...except for your fertility?). It has negative consequences for society. Say you have two couples, and neither want babies. One uses condoms, the other NFP, to achieve this goal. What's the difference? Well, what if you asked the couples to switch methods. Violent objections would probably come from the condom couple. There would be two fears. First, what about effectiveness? No need to fear--modern methods of NFP are extremely effective. The second fear would be far more significant: periodic ABSTINENCE?!?! Why is that so frightening to people? What does a week without sex really mean? What does it say about your relationship? What does it say about sex? What does it say about your intimacy? What does it say about a man's respect for a woman, and her fertility? What is her value to him? How crazy is it, that both the man and the woman are mutually responsible for avoiding pregnancy? How much communication is required to commit to this method? How close do two people need to be, to be able to be chaste within marriage? But that brings us back to the objective of contraception and NFP: avoiding pregnancy. Why are they not morally interchangeable? NFP respects the full meaning of sex. Contraception does not. Just like an excellent diet can have all in due time, contrasted to bulimia, which engages in the act of eating, then violates it--indulges in the pleasure, negates the consequences. And destroys the health of the person engaging in that violation of the nature of eating. NFP treats a woman's fertility as sacred ground. Contraception attacks fertility. The end does not justify the means. When utilizing the natural cycle of fertility and infertility as a way to time sex, every act of sex is "open to life." That is why Catholics speak of being "open to children." They may be using NFP, but in so doing, they leave God as the author of sex and life, and respect His design and His will. I'd like to end on a slightly different note: being "open to children" is not a free pass, as many PPs seem to have indicated. Respecting the unitive and procreative aspects of the nature of sex every. single. time. a couple makes love is just the beginning. Living God's design for sex requires virtue from every angle. From self-control to selflessness to tenderness to respect to kindness to generosity to patience to self-giving to forbearance to wisdom to prudence to LOVE...love for your spouse, love for the children you have, love for the children you might yet have, and love for your Creator. Any failure of virtue on the part of either spouse will need to be answered for, the consequences suffered. The families who are trying their best to live this teaching of the Church are way too busy with the responsibilities of their lives to have any time left over to judge other families' hearts. And when a couple indulges in that kind of judgment, they are hurting themselves more than anyone else, because that sin drags them down. There was a recent article in Crisis Magazine that sparked a lot of conversation in my family, because it was about this kind of judgmental behavior. It states the differences between NFP and contraception very well: http://www.crisismagazine.com/2011/nfp-the-myth-of-the-%E2%80%9Ccontraceptive-mentality%E2%80%9D |
Anonymous
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18:28 to 19:17, it makes me sad to see you posting so earnestly. I don't necessarily agree with everything, but you're certainly allowed to your beliefs.
What makes me sad is, the joker you're responding to isn't even going to bother reading your posts. She has no desire, NONE, to read anybody else's opinion. And certainly no desire to stop to give thoughtful reasons why she disagrees with you. S/he's going to read the 1st and last paras and hit her keyboard with more mindless snark that requires zero effort on her part. Probably more drivel about fairy tales and self-flagellation that only she thinks is incredibly witty. Short version: she's winding you up, and could care less about the issues. |
Anonymous
You know I'm the PP the poster is responding to, and I'm not the person with the odd inquiries about self-flagellation. As it happens I did read the response carefully and I clicked through to one of the links and read that too. I was not going to respond at this time because I don't have time to spend on a careful, extended response that I think her posts deserve but I do have time to point out that your post is condescending uninformed drivel. |
Anonymous
| Not everything is about you, honey. I referred specifically to the flagellation poster. |
Anonymous
Well then your reading comprehension seems to be low because you also specifically said "the joker you're responding to" and it's pretty clear the poster was not responding to anything about self-flagellation. |
Anonymous
Yikes, you seem like a real charmer. FWIW, I'm willing to bet my reading comprehension is way, way higher than yours. Thanks for asking, though! * backs out of the room slowly * |
Anonymous
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Personaly, I hated having my summer vacations from school taken away because my sisters were such sluts. I remember being about 9 caring for newborns because my sisters were "so in love" yet didn't have a job and couldn't pay for daycare. By the time I was in 5th grade, I was caring for 3 kids at once- a 5 year old and two 2 year olds. This went on until I was about 14 and demanded to be paid. I never got paid; they just found some other patsy to babysit for free.
This situation has made me very resentful of them and their children. It is one thing to babysit OCCASIONALLY, but it is another being FORCED to babysit. When my sister closest in age to me (she's 6 years older than me), became pergnant at 16, she didn't work and couldn't graduate high school. She had to drop out. I remember one of her friends came over and I happened to be the only one at the house. She just left her two babies there, (15months apart), without even asking, to go somewhere with her friend. Then got pissed when I hadn't changed them when she got back. I was 10. To me she left them there alone. I don't think it was even legal for them to have me babysit such young children at that age, with no adult supervision. For a long time, I hated kids because of them. But eventually I got married and had one of my own. I don't ask anyone to babysit. My son goes with me everywhere with me because I don't want to be a huge pain in the ass burden to somebody. |