A child, not a choice… but still a choice?
On my way to work this morning I followed a very slow car with a bumper sticker proclaiming “she’s a child, not a choice.”
And I gradually got more and more upset. The speed of the car did not bother me, it only gave me plenty of time to contemplate the stupidity of so-called “pro-lifers.” They say that a child is not a choice when it is a cute or catchy slogan, but everything else screams that we too see children as choices.
Really, who can say that they honestly do not think of children as choices? If you can, then please comment. I’d love to see a bit of hope in the world and would be happy to bite my tongue.
More likely you know where I am going with this. You know that you see children as choices, no matter how pro-life you may be.
Or you don’t see?
Well then, let’s start with an easy example. When was the last time you talked with friends about someone “trying to conceive”? Did anyone find that distasteful as anti-life? Is it not glaringly pro-choice, now that you think of it? It is one thing to use euphemisms for longing for a child with no pregnancy in sight. But that is not the world I live in. I live in one where people announce that they have decided to stop contracepting and start seeking pregnancy, i.e. chosen to have a child.
The only way to imagine that one can choose a child, but not choose not to have a child, is if one is so caught up in rhetoric that one forgets the way we humans work. We understand things in wholes, even when we only admit to parts. And we admit that children are choices when we talk about choosing to have them. That is really painfully obvious, right?
So why do we not get it? Why do we not either stop talking about children vs. choices, or else stop viewing children as choices?
Perhaps the rhetoric remains for more than it’s catchiness. Perhaps there is a part of us which knows all too well that children cannot merely be chosen. Maybe every child could be a “wanted child” but could every woman have a baby merely by wanting enough?
And we all see those women who we know simply had children. There was no real choice for them, was there?
So what does this mean?
I do not know.
All I know was that when I wrote up my 101 in 1001 list I had to stop myself from writing something about children. Oh, it is still there if you read between the lines (CPR anyone?) and probably not a problem for others making such lists. But I knew that I could not allow myself to put anything in a list of goals because I am already far too inclined to see children as something which can be planned. And they can’t. Or can they? Maybe what bothers me is that children can be planned, but they should not be.
Oh dear, not like that. Of course all parents (and would-be parents) should be responsible. Love requires that one provide for all children an not make stupid choices.
But why must we reduce it all to choice? Do you mind if I wince just a little when I hear people talking about “trying to conceive” as if it is a project like re-decorating the living room, or a goal like a promotion?
Yes conception can be a project… in the same way that all of life is a project. And conception can be a goal… in the same way that getting to heaven is a goal.
But children… what are they? Little people, to be sure, but what else? Choices? Miracles? A hint of hope in darkness? Painful reminders that we are still so very far from a healthy understanding of our world?
The “pro choice” and “pro life” titles always make me mad. By default, it makes the other side look like they are “anti choice” or as you point out, “anti life.” None of the people or the choices are that cut and dry, really. But somewhere, somehow, it becomes a heated battle over what other people choose to do with their bodies and their own lives. I often think that if the people who are arguing would stop hiding behind titles, and stop siting extreme cases of the other side, they’d see that in the middle, we all agree on quite a bit. And it makes me mad when either side wants to get up on a religious soap box and try to proclaim that they understand what is best.
A great entry here
You’re really getting to the heart of the matter, and I like that you’re being straight forward and honest.
An example that came to mind on this very topic was a statement released by Sarah Palin when she announced that her daughter was pregnant. The quote said something about her being really proud of her daughter for making a difficult choice to live up to her responsibilities and have the baby.
And she said it right there — her daughter made a CHOICE. Even though her stance is that pregancny isn’t a choice, she said in her own statement that it is a choice.
Intercourse definitely is a choice. And the amazing consequence can be a baby. Unfortunately somewhere along the line somebody thought people should be able to chose if they want to allow that baby to live or die. Why is it legal that a woman can abort her unborn child but illegal for a woman to kill her born child?
I can’t say it any better than Mother Theresa:
“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
“Intercourse definitely is a choice. And the amazing consequence can be a baby. ”
Perfect.
I think that “somewhere along the line” happened at the point we began to think that intercourse could be completely disconnected from babies. I just don’t see how it can be done in a genuinely life affirming way.
Now I feel a little guilty for putting “get pregnant” on my list of 101 goals. But in my mind it’s more of a wish, not something I just want to check off a list. I have never been on birth control since I’ve been married, so hopefully my husband and I will have that amazing consequence.
I really didn’t intend to make anyone feel guilty. I certainly don’t think that it is a bad thing for you to put “get pregnant” on your list since it is good in your mind. It is just that *I* am still far too inclined to think/act as if children are choices– things that can be checked off a to-do list.
And it seems entirely inappropriate to wish you “good luck” in this situation, so I’ll simply hope that you are soon enjoying one of God’s greatest blessings.
Rae, you’re hitting the nail on the head with this one! I think the underlying thought that you’re uncovering here is the reason I started long ago to let NFP get under my skin, sotospeak, i.e., isn’t that making the choice to say no to children when they’re not a choice at all?
I would love to have children, it’s just not happening, and I don’t know if it ever will for me. That is probably why I’m so inclined to fall into the “God’s will, not mine in any way” which means leaning against NFP, because I can’t choose to have children when I used to think that I could. I had to change my thinking to the correct point of view. I was bitter for a short time, but then I gave it over. And now it can make me angry when people treat children as possessions or their own personal creations to hang on their arm and show off to everyone they meet and not people destined to live for eternity.
Thanks for stopping over to my blog. I love to meet people who take their faith seriously and who can challenge me in my own, encourage me to do better every day.
So I’m way late in this conversation, but this article really spoke to me. I worry a lot that even though we practice NFP, we still have the contraceptive mentality – thinking that children are choices. Are our reasons really just and serious? It’s tough stuff!
I completely understand your dilemma, Elizabeth. I’ve wondered the same thing. After 12 (yes, 12) children, my husband and I wanted to avoid having more. We reasoned that we had been far from contraceptive and closed to God’s gifts of children for 20 years now, and children are expensive (they want to eat EVERY day–more than once, even!)
Unfortunately, (or not, perhaps) we are VERY bad at practicing abstinence. (Surprise!) Each phase 2, we would argue that a married couple is not supposed to deliberately avoid being intimate during such a fertile time. Ultimately, we would throw our arms around each other and say “God’s will be done in our lives!”
It should come as no surprise to anyone that our 13th baby is due next Spring.
Dear Rae, Elizabeth and Anonymous,
My husband and I have also been using NFP since the return of my fertility after our 9th child. Previously we had left everything blindly, blissfully in the hands of Our Lord, with no fear or choosing. If we conceived, good, if we didn’t, good. There was no choosing, merely openness to the possibility. It has come, after medical problems, a hard pregnancy, NICU stay, and on and on, that we have sadly, yet seriously discerned that we should avoid pregnancy. We do nothing to actively contracept, and never would, but we do avoid intimacy during the most fertile days. If we are finding that difficult, we offer up to the Lord our difficulty, my husband finds it more difficult than I, but we are still very much head over heels for one another. I think worrying about using NFP will give you a contraceptive mentality is somewhat not to be worried about. God gave us these natural cues – He designed us so perfectly. I think it is right and good to use these natural cues when there is serious reason to avoid pregnancy. Those reasons are for each couple to prayerfully discern. If, even in using these cues to the best of our ability, we should still become pregnant, which is of course possible, then we know how much the Lord wants us to have the child!
Blessings to all you ladies who are working so hard to prepare your children and spouses as well as you can for the kingdom of Heaven!
Rae,
Having an attitude favorable to the blessing of children and supporting life is positive.
“Have a child” for the sake of checking off items on a “things to do before I’m 40″ checklist may require the reexamination of motives.
Part of NFP is understanding that pregnancy is a natural consequence of intercourse, and that God is ultimately in control. Sometimes you can do everything in your power to get pregnant and nothing happens, and sometimes you can do everything to avoid pregnancy and you mysteriously ovulate on a random date and find yourself with twins.
For some struggling with infertility, NFP can help to narrow down windows more favorable for conception. Pregnancy for couples with medical issues may require a little more planning and attention than for those couples who get pregnant when the wife merely walks by their husband’s boxers hanging from the laundry line
It is important not to minimize the desire of those to have children merely because their attempts are more uphill and obvious than for others.
Pregnancy “achievement” concerns have been around since the beginning of time. In scripture, we see couples, recorded for posterity’s sake, desiring and praying for children — as well as botched attempts to remedy the situation by taking matters into their own hands (Hagar comes to mind).
Thanks for encouraging women to recognize God’s sovereignty and to be aware of their motivation.
Much love,
SJA
Well said!
I think it’s easy to conflate two things which are related, but not the same: respect for the personhood of the unborn child (what we think of as “pro-life” in political terms, which is what that bumper sticker slogan attempts to address); and openness to life, which really amounts to one more way of saying, “Surrender the self. ”
I’ve thought about this constantly from the time I began my conversion from a sort of functionally-unbelieving churchgoing Anglicanism to Catholicism, a conversion which began when I was very unexpectedly pregnant with my fourth child. My third child was seven months old, my husband was finishing a Ph.d, we were living abroad but our visas were running out, and we had no job prospects, no insurance, and no money (so much for “prudential”). In our Anglican parish we prayed the Angelus at noon every Sunday, and the prayer took hold of me, forcing me to say, “Be it done unto me according to your word.” That was the beginning of my conversion (that, and praying the Chorister’s Prayer before singing settings of texts like “O Sacrum Convivium”), and what it was was having to accept all of it, not just the baby but all the extenuating circumstances, and my utter lack of control over them, as a gift.
I used to joke, in those Anglican days, that I’d convert to Catholicism when I hit menopause. Beware: even when you don’t think you’re praying, you really are. For several long years in my earlier forties, as a new convert, praying the Angelus daily was again a kind of hammer-and-anvil experience, during which I came to realize that openness to life, which I’d come to embrace so late, really meant openness to *life,* as in the life I had been given to live, and not necessarily just openness to more children, which was a desire I had to surrender.
Anyway, I agree that “life” and “choice” can be reductive terms, reductively used. And it’s true that much of the language surrounding the pursuit of conception does have the effect of commodifying the idea of the child.