I took a course as a Ph.D. student called “Engendering Curriculum History.” I was 30-something, had three kids (ages 0, 3, and 6), and fancied myself a good feminist (although also Mormon, which is an oxymoron to many-myself included). An article we read listed a series of “important” women we were obviously supposed to know. I googled the only one I didn’t know so I wouldn’t look foolish when class rolled around: Margaret Sanger. I was ashamed of my own ignorance when I learned about the cause to which Sanger had dedicated her life.
In case you’re like me, Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) was an American birth control activist who fought doggedly for women’s reproductive rights for nearly fifty years. Sanger’s own mother endured 18 pregnancies-including 11 live births-before dying of tuberculosis and cervical cancer. Sanger had three children-one of whom was a boy named Stuart (Hello, soul sister!)-before she began treating poor women in New York City with repeated pregnancies and self-induced abortions. Those experiences helped her realize that women desperately needed to know how to prevent and plan a pregnancy-so that they could compete on an equal footing with men in the workplace, take control of their physical, emotional, and psychological health, and enjoy sexual intimacy without the specter of an unwanted pregnancy looming over them. Sanger worked tirelessly to get a birth control pill on the market and helped get FDA approval for the first oral contraceptive in 1960. She died just one year after seeing the Supreme Court rule (in Griswold v. Connecticut) that the private use of contraceptives was a constitutional right. In short, Sanger wore herself out so that people like me could make independent choices about whether and when to have children. To think I had never even heard of her!
Fast forward a couple years to a conversation I had with one of my sisters (an amazing mother of five). She asked me how I would go about deciding whether my three kids “completed” our family. This question puzzled me, although it shouldn’t because it’s very Mormon to want divine confirmation regarding family size. However, I just laughed my sister off and said: “Honey, I don’t need divine confirmation. I live my confirmation every day.” I told her that every day when I picked up my kids at 3:30 and then wanted to lock myself in my room by 4:00 because they had already driven me nuts, I was living my confirmation. And every night when 8:30 hit and my kids were still conscious and I started breaking out into (metaphorical) hives, I was living my confirmation. So now it’s an ongoing joke between us. We occasionally email each other and say “I’m living my confirmation today”-followed by a lengthy explanation of what had happened that day/week to help us know that we didn’t need any more kids.
But really-that’s all the confirmation I ever needed. I never prayed about whether I should have kids. (I already admitted here that I never even thought about that. I just assumed I would have children; the only question was when and how many.) Brent and I talked about it. Although he obviously wouldn’t have the onerous task of growing them, delivering them, and nursing them, they would be his kids, too, so I figured he should at least get to throw his opinion into the ring-even if it of course didn’t get as much weight as mine.
Ultimately, that decision was mine alone. I didn’t need confirmation from anyone-not Brent, not my church, and no, not even God. Maybe especially not God, who wouldn’t be there to help with dirty diapers, the misery that was breastfeeding (yes, I did this for a year and didn’t love it), the sleep deprivation, the cabin fever . . . In those moments, it was just gonna be me. I know, I know-Proverbs 3:5, D & C 1:19, 2 Nephi 4: 34, and probably others remind us that we should rely on the arm of the Lord rather than the flesh. But I relied on the flesh, all right-my very own flesh-to tell me what my body, mind and heart were capable of and when.
And my flesh didn’t let me down.
What say ye, Doves & Serpents muses? Anyone care to weigh in on how you decided whether to have kids, how many to have, and when? Did you want divine guidance? If so, did you get it? Or did you rely on something else? Did you let your husband have more say-so than I did? (Was that bad of me?)
[I write this whole post knowing that the fact that I was able to make those choices was due to biological luck and genuinely regret if it feels insensitive to anyone who has/had fertility problems. I hope you’ll share your experiences with us here if you feel so inclined.]
Credits:
Click here to listen to Mike Wallace (smoking on-screen and plugging for Philip Morris!) interview Margaret Sanger (held at the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin).
Picture of Margaret Sanger can be found here.
I laugh any time Bart even suggests more children. I tell him I have four boys, ages 33-almost 2 and that is more then enough for one mother.
Those who just birth and birth and birth because they feel they are “called” to be a mother, yet can’t take care of their children…well, I don’t pity them. Nor do I admire them.
M. Sanger is now my hero. :D
I married with the expectation of having 8 children.I like even numbers and the Church pressure for large families was really intense at that time with “think of how bad you’ll feel to meet a spirit in heaven who could have been your child if you hadn’t been so selfish” kind of rhetoric prached from the pulpit.
We had 5 children for which I’m really grateful–and I’m especially grateful we didn’t have more–5 stretched the limit of our ability to provide and care for. No, we didn’t need a divine message–although never even thinking of another child once #5 arrived may have been the stupor of thought sent by the HG.
@Course Correction–you’re right. Maybe it is a stupor of thought.
I’ve also been asked how I’ll feel if I meet spirits in heaven who were counting on coming down to earth to be in my family, which gets a major eyeroll/head scratch out of me. Hello, people–“My Turn on Earth” isn’t REAL. ;)
I was talking to my kids once about that whole idea and one of them said: “But Mom, I like the idea that we picked you to be our mom.” And I told them that it was a beautiful idea indeed.
Yes, yes and yes. Being a convert, it never occurred to me to “ask God” for confirmation about family. It was “don’t get pregnant as a teenager and then you can decide any if at all kids you want when you’re married” in my house growing up. I compromised my “no kids” desire for Troy by having one then felt that I should at least have another because I lived the only child life and it was hard. And the asking if you’re finished seems preposterous to me considering the fact that we’re told to do our homework and THEN pray for confirmation of the answer. I know I’m done so I don’t feel the need to pray about the answer. I think it’s imperative that we listen to ourselves- just as when we’re asked about accepting callings in church, it’s ultimately our choice if we accept the responsibility. Having more children because you feel guilted into it or feel that it’s part of your “divine nature” does no one any good if you’re frazzled all the time and are hating life.
Yeah, I don’t really think it’s part of my divine nature. Nothing about it feels natural, anyway.
I think Brent wanted to have a fourth, but I just told him “Too bad, so sad.” ;) And he knew better than to push it. My SIL had a baby this summer and Brent was asking when he was going to get to smell his head. He loves newborn baby smells.
Our kids also want me to have another baby, but I keep telling them that the next person on this planet to have some combination of Olson+Beal DNA will be one of theirs.
i realize my experience is not the norm–five pregnancies, three live births, two miscarriages, death of child #1 and 3 born with severe genetic skin condition–but I didn’t pray when i decided to have my tubes tied. i was in my early 30’s and this was about 6 years after my daughter–#3 had died and I’d been on the pill for 7 years with several late periods and agonizingly waiting for it to start. i was a wreck and so was my marriage. A member of the 70 had counseled DH and I “not to do anything that would interfere with the fountains of life.” He posited than one of us might die–gee thanks for the thought–and what if the other remarried and wanted to have more kids. It really didn’t make much sense to consider a future marriage that might never happen while the current, supposedly eternal one, was falling apart due to stress brought on by fear of pregnancy. So, I decided to have my tubes tied, announced it to DH, told him we were not going to discuss it, and never had one bit of doubt about it. Never prayed about it either.
So, I’ve raised an only child. Sure he used to ask about having–living–brothers and sisters but he got over it. Our family is complete now with a DDIl and 1 1/2 granddaughters.
I also no longer believe I’ll raise the other two during the Millenium–why would i want to do that?– and I’m very happy about it.
I get annoyed with people who feel there is “one more spirit’ who needs to come to their family.
I wanted another baby. I got pregnant and miscarried. When I wanted to try again, we did pray about it together and go to the temple. My answer was to “listen to my husband” and his answer was “no baby.” I needed that strong answer because I still wish I could have added another baby to our family.
tbn, thanks for sharing. I haven’t had any experiences like that, so I can’t relate. And I fear that if I did pray and the answer I felt like I received was “listen to your husband,” that would be a hard (impossible?) pill for me to swallow.
But I’m glad that it was what you needed. I guess rather than eschewing those kinds of “divine fingerpoints” (which is what my original post might imply), I’d like to think that they come in all sorts of different ways–a stupor of thought, eggs cracked all over the floor (seen on a friend’s FB page today), a strong spiritual impression . . . it is a huge decision so it’s important to feel confident about your path.
Anyone care to weigh in on how you decided whether to have kids, how many to have, and when?
Prior to learning about Mormonism, I was NEVER getting married and NEVER having kids. My parents had had 6 children and had gotten divorced. We had limited income and my mom always said that if she had it to do all over again she would have only had 2 children.
I was a convert at age 16. I read and read and read and listened carefully. I served a mission with much zeal. My mission President spoke firmly about the fact that because of members limiting the size of their families there were less missionaries that were needed. He had 12 children. He was my hero. When I got married I had changed my mind to then believing that I would have 18 children. During my mission it was noticed that I did NOT like children at all. So, I did not like children but because of the beliefs that I should have as many as I could(patriarchal blessing said that MANY spirits awaited coming to my home to be loved and taught the gospel-I thought that was divine guidance) and I was fairly confident that I could bear TONS of kids.
Or did you rely on something else?
I now have 11 children. They are all wonderful AND I would NOT recommend it to anyone. I NEVER prayed about any of them. When I got pregnant with the 11th I started having depression and insanity AGAIN a few months into it. I at that point said NEVER NEVER NEVER again would I have sex with anyone who could get me pregnant and if my husband would NOT take care to make pregnancy impossible then I would have my tubes tied.
Did you let your husband have more say-so than I did? I only let my husband say whether he would take care of it or not. I was DONE DONE DONE!!!! He had no say as to whether I would bear more children. I would NOT!! I also was very very very convinced that it should be him that had his body messed with since I had had 11 children and had nursed them all-which I hated physically. I was convinced that nursing was the “right” thing nutritionally so I did it willingly but NOT cheerfully.
Hope that answered your questions. I LIVE my confirmation EVERY DAY!!!
I LOVE this. I am definitely living my confirmation! And we’re taking that all the way to urologist’s office for my husband’s V. At one point I would have said we were taking it all the way to the sperm bank, because I was slightly unsure of never having another baby, and I don’t do HBC, so reliability led us to sterilization. But the last few months have confirmed that I am not a good candidate for more children. I love babies, but my patience wanes quickly as they age. And I considered praying about it as an act of faith and to show some form of solidarity with God (my “partner” in creation?) but it now seems to unnecessary. I don’t need permission, and I have my answer.
Like Course Correction, I always thought I’d have more. I said it would either be 4 or 6 because I’m an even number fan as well, but the 6 was really just to feel “more righteous” in my early years. What hogwash. The only thing that scares me is having an “oops” down the road. Aside from not wanting to go through it all again once getting myself back to “normal”, I don’t know if I could handle the number 5 ;) So I’d either be hoping for twins or convince myself to illogically shoot for that 6th. Crazy OCD. I really hope the vasectomy is effective.
“Living my confirmation every day” — Love this!
We waited five years to start our family because my husband didn’t feel ready and then it took us a year of trying before I got pregnant. We had always agreed on wanting three or four. When I was pregnant for my third child, I just knew I was done. I don’t know that I would say I had some kind of spiritual confirmation, but I did feel very peaceful about it. My husband would like another a baby and sometimes he begs me to give in. I always tell him to enjoy his fourth baby with his next wife.;) I have to say it has never even occurred to me to give in to him or give him the final say. My body, I get the final say.
Margaret Sanger. If I had heard of her before, I sadly had forgotten her. She deserves to be heroed.
I really lobbied Kris to only have 3 or 4 children. But she said I was selfish for wanting so few. And while we love all 5 of our children very much, she has since reconsidered her previous position many times. I hope that I did a good job of leaving the final decision up to her.
I like this post, Heather. Its refreshing to talk about this so openly, when the topic of birth control in Mormon circles usually is surrounded by taboo.
Like several other commenters, I, too, was a convert to the LDS church, in my case from Catholicism. Like Gail, before I became Mormon I wasn’t planning on getting married and certainly wasn’t planning on having kids. I got married much earlier than I had ever expected to (at 25, in my middle of my PhD). My BIC husband was fine with us using any and all forms of birth control, and very supportive of my finishing my degree and working a few years before we had any children. The problem was me. I very much took to heart the “Saturday’s Warrior” rhetoric about giving bodies to the spirit babies. As a result of my religious upbringing, I also had a severe aversion to being on the Pill (Catholics are so much stricter about birth control than Mormons are). I didn’t really get a clear answer on what to do about birth control. We ended up using barrier methods b/c of my Catholic hangups, where everything is considered an abortifactant. I was afraid of killing babies by being on the Pill.
Our plan at marriage was to have 4-6 kids, starting a few years after I had finished my PhD program. I pushed the issue to have kids early, and about 3 years into our marriage we had a son. After a horrific labor and delivery, a whole lot of prayers, confusing and conflicting answers, and terrible post-partum insanity, I made the decision to get an IUD. My husband was really pushing for me to get one, since clearly I was very unhappy. After about 10 months, I realized that an IUD was probably was the best way to go, and I haven’t regretted it once.
Our son will be 4 years old in January, and we have no plans on having more children in the foreseeable future. I did pray about whether and when to have kids, and got conflicting answers. My “confirmation” that I made the right choice for me is played out every day in how happy I am with the decisions I have made – decisions that were absolutely inconceivable to me a mere 5 years ago. For me, the key has been to aim for quality, not quantity, when it comes to childbearing and rearing. At some point, I may want another child. But that isn’t what I am focusing on now – I am focused on being content with my life in the present, and being a good mom to the one I have.
Kate, so you’re living your confirmation every day, too. ;)
I just wanted to clarify the reason why I didn’t initially say that I was “living my confirmation”. I thought the premise of the initial post was that living one’s confirmation is in opposition to praying for comfirmation. The fact is, I really did think that I had to pray for confirmation of my family size. It was only after I didn’t get a clear answer to repeated prayers that I went with my gut. It was much harder than simply knowing what was best for me and my body, and doing it. I questioned myself repeatedly before I was able to accept that I was “living my confirmation”.
I respect you, Heather, for being self-confident enough to trust in yourself to get the right answer through the act of living. It took me several years to reach that level of self-acceptance.
Kate, that is what my original post implied–that I didn’t need to pray because I was able to know what I needed (and more importantly, what I didn’t!) on my own–just by listening to and trusting myself. But I do feel kinda bad if that sends the message that I am denigrating those who seek spiritual confirmation on this issue. That’s not what I meant–just that for me, personally, I neither wanted or needed it.
This is interesting after our message conversation. :) Living my confirmation
Before I get to the family planning question, I have to note that you’ve received and presented a very whitewashed (heh – pun in this case?) version of Sanger’s history. She, like many of her day, was a flaming racist whose “I know best” inner-city agenda had much more to do with limiting the reproduction of society’s “undesirables” and contributing to the creation of a race of super-citizens, than allowing women to enjoy their sexuality. Any appreciation I could feel for how gutsy and effective she was, is dwarfed by my disgust, because of her disregard for humanity.
Concerning birth control, I’m not sure that messing with female hormones has been a blessing. Education is VITAL, but the method she advocated has set women up for myriad hormonal issues, including permanent(-ish) infertility.
Again, it’s about *education*. It’s not that there were no birth control methods available (however unsophisticated); it’s that women (speaking generally) were uneducated as to the basic (and really very cool) functionality of their bodies.
(Have I used enough parentheses yet?) :)
That said, (whew!), yes, I’ve struggled with infertility, but as my son is now four, I get the “we are SO done” mentality, too.) I’m sure not condemning anyone for wanting to be done! ;)
We’ve made our decision as we go, pretty much. The course we’ve taken is not one I would say is right for everyone – or even *anyone* else. I don’t even think I’d repeat the beginning if I could go back, LOL. But here’s the key to my approach on this issue: Because of the things I’ve felt and experienced, I don’t feel that our own analysis and inspiration is necessarily *separate* from the inspiration of the Spirit, nor that answers to prayer only come after formally-worded supplication.
In our case, we had *no* idea we’d struggle to have kiddos, but when we’ve intentionally waited, we’ve felt good about it; on the other hand, when we’ve pursued having a child, we’ve felt good about that, too – “successful” or heartbreaking. I’ve been surprised at how rapidly – and how seldom – my inclination to either path has changed. The inclinations I’m talking about are much deeper than, “we’ve had a rash of babies in our ward! We should totally get one of those!” or “Gosh, this has been such a horrendous day, we should never have another one…”
It’s a very personal thing, and I think the Lord speaks to us very, VERY individually, and in ways that we might not even realize for what they are.
IMO, family size is a matter where – between husband and wife and the Lord – we kind of *know* what’s right for us, whether they currently correspond to our former, grand, adolescent schemes or not. It’s not for us to condemn others *or ourselves* for their/our choices. The “living [your] confirmation” phrase you use is GREAT. :)
[Just to pre-empt the inevitable question/suggestion, yes, we’ve also considered adoption, but haven’t felt like that’s expedient yet… it’s been a “not right now” time.]
Krista, I totally get where you are coming from on Sanger’s approach to the working class. Anyone who has read her 1917 pamphlet “Family Limitations” (which can be found here: http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/AmRad/familylimitations.pdf) can get a sense of that sort of no-nonsense, “2 children per woman approach”.
By the same token, reading that pamphlet and other works written about that time gives you a sense of what birth control “options” were for my grandmothers and great-grandmothers – Oral quinine? Douching with Lysol? Vaginal suppositories of boric acid? Useless in some instances, and physically dangerous in others.
I think our options have been widely expanded in part due to the willingness of women to push for birth control to be recognized as a legal “right” for a woman to decide the fate of when and how many children to have.
What I mean to say is, I agree that Sanger’s methods and motivations may have been crass or questionable, the same way I would agree that Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s racism is unacceptable and crass by today’s cultural understandings. But I still appreciate the end result of both Sanger’s and Stanton’s work – I wouldn’t give up the right to vote any more than I would my choice over reproductive issues.
Kate – thanks for your reply! :) The issues you bring up overlap with the questions Heather asks below, so I kind of responded to them together.
For my part, and to the example you brought up specifically, I don’t honestly know enough about Stanton to decide whether I should celebrate her or not. On the surface, equitably extending individuals the right to vote seems a lot more noble to me than lobbying for birth control, but I don’t know a lot about her, otherwise… I’ll have to do some reading! :)
Hey, Krista. Thanks for your thought-provoking response. I only knew a bit about what you are referring to re: Sanger. So yes, you are right that I presented an oversimplified, acritical portrait of her. But you’ve piqued my interest now, so I’ll have to read up. I confess that I thought it would be an interesting hook and decided not to get into the nitty gritty. Poor choice, perhaps.
Having said that, your criticism raises an important issue, doesn’t it? Kate alluded to it as well. Can we not admire people–whether historical or currently living–who fight for a cause we believe in, even if there are other aspects of their lives/positions that we disagree with? Kate mentioned Stanton. Jane Addams was another person who did a lot of amazing work for women and children and immigrants at Hull House . . . but racism was something of an issue there. Or what about the way that some of the suffragettes eschewed the Mormon suffragettes because they were plural wives? I remember reading about one Mormon woman (can’t remember her name) who was invited to speak at a big rally in New York, but then when some of the big names back east “found out” that she was Mormon, she was un-invited.
One of my students (an African American) approached me this summer to ask how much I knew about Black History. I told her not as much as I should, but probably more than your average schmo. She had just had someone tell her that MLK was a womanizer and she was very upset–distraught even. She was wondering how to fit this new information into her previous idea of MLK as a hero. She was trying, but things just weren’t adding up for her.
Or what about when people find out that Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner? Or that the history of the (Mormon) church that we get in Sunday School is, well, a bit oversimplified? Does this mean that we can’t admire these people?
I’m not being argumentative. Your criticism is spot-on. But I think it’s worth discussing.
Yeah, I’ve had that same thought myself, LOL… why is it that I can accept – or at least reconcile with their humanity – some people’s (HUGE) flaws, and not others? (For the record, Sanger: no; MLK: still reconciling; Jefferson: yes; Columbus: still reconciling; Hitler: um, no.)
Maybe it has to do with proximity to the damage. For example, I’ve had negative effects from hormonal birth control, as have many other women I know, so I’m physically and chronologically close to the damage. I’m also really, REALLY not a supporter of her legacy organization, Planned Parenthood, and the leaving-living-babies-to-die-in-closets and/or still-racist stuff they pull; I’m emotionally close to that damage, since I value life so highly (and not just infant life).
Maybe it comes down to how noxious I consider what I’ve learned of her entire worldview, as opposed to so many others’. Or in different terms, maybe it’s because I’m unconvinced that the “good” she accomplished was genuinely good on her part. I mean, it’s not like I have to like everyone, much less agree with them, you know? But I hated Jefferson before I understood more of his extremely-odd character… it’s just that after I studied more about *and from* him, I became convinced of his earnest intent to do something good, both as the surface action and as the motivator underneath. I could be wrong, LOL…
Sanger, OTOH, was part of a socio-political movement that preached that people were, in essence, mindless lumps to be molded, minded, and managed by their superiors, of worth only as they could be used to aggrandize those superiors. (Of course, the ones advocating this view considered themselves to *be* those superiors.) Her approach to human life is only one facet of this movement, which I consider offensive in all of the worst ways.
Maybe it’s my shifting worldview, too, as I’m becoming “crunchier” all the time, LOL… I don’t see a whole lot of starry-eyed innocents working behind the scenes when it comes to estrogen and estrogenic products in our environment. Just being totally honest here. That leaves me with a new, integrated way to read history. It seems … not quite “suspicious” yet, but definitely “interesting,” to me that the increasing ubiquity of these hormonally-effective substances has coincided with the increasing popularity (or at least lobbying power) of a population-limiting political agenda. (Heh… the *popularity* of limiting the *population* – interesting existential contradiction, isn’t it? :) )
I’ve been debating this in my head since I commented yesterday, and these are the words that kind of represent my thoughts. I can’t reconcile her behavior with any angelic agenda, and therefore have little to no appreciation for her as an individual or as a figure; virtually everything she did is despicable to me.
To the broader question, on whether we can or should admire people who are seriously flawed, it comes down to the rest of their behavior, for me. I can handle and – at least contextually – appreciate an otherwise-good person with a racist/sexist/whatever-ist streak, or a bad temper, or hubris, or who made one (or a few) REALLY. BAD. decision(s). It’s not an eternal judgment, since I don’t actually know another’s heart – or even my own, LOL; but I haven’t yet managed any genuine appreciation for some people.
Does that make sense, verbally or ideologically? I’m not sure… but like the Golem article here communicates so hauntingly and beautifully, we’ve all got a little angel and a little demon in us… I just haven’t found the angelic part of Sanger yet. I am, however, glad for her and for myself, that she doesn’t have to answer to me. :)
Great stuff, Krista. Would you mind sharing what you’ve read about Sanger? Or how you learned more about her? I’m genuinely curious now. Yes, I can go on http://www.amazon.com, but I’m a sucker for recommendations.
More on your other stuff later . . . I’m supposed to be eating with my family right now. ;)
Thanks for coming back!
Hmm… well, honestly, I’m not (and don’t claim to be) an in-depth expert on Sanger; sorry if my tone seemed that way. What I know, I’ve absorbed from various news articles (admittedly, most pro-life) over the last decade or so, not any formal study or focused biographical research. (I know it’s the Big Failing of the cyber-world… “where did I see that again?” *blush* ) I wish I knew more, because maybe I wouldn’t think she was so horrible, LOL… but it seems that the more I find, the more I find revolting. Failing that information at the ready, though, here are a couple more of her writings: The Pivot of Civilization and Birth Control and the Negro, which are just… wow. I mean, it takes a special kind of gutsy to do, say, and stand behind the stuff she did.
I can see how the situations she came across prompted her to want to do something radical, but WOW, I just can’t wrap my mind around how her manipulating people into implementing her anti-minority (and anti-human) agenda could be cast in a truly positive light.
Oh, hey, I just learned something that makes her at least nicer than some, in my estimation, LOL: according to Wikipedia, with several sources listed, she was actually *against* euthanasia, (contrary to some sources I’ve found), and vocally condemned the Nazi campaigns and death camps. Yay! :) That’s a step in the right direction… starting by only segregating and sterilizing, instead of murdering, the “weeds,” even if they *were* temporarily spoiling her little “white” (which is only a self-justifying cultural construct, anyway) Utopia. :)
The broader political issue (and one that speaks volumes to me) is that she aligned herself with the formal Progressive movement, which didn’t (and still doesn’t) exactly respect everyone’s individual worth. This article, reproduced from a WSJ article a few years ago, discusses her politics, as well. Without threadjacking into a political discussion, that’s a Big Bad Decision. Internment camps, segregation, the US eugenics movement, and other atrocities in our history are the fruits of that movement’s “government knows best, and the collective has decided you should do/be X” doctrine. But as I pointed out above, I’ve learned that at least she didn’t want to kill people who’d already been born – maybe that makes her a relatively moderate member of that movement, LOL.
Anyway, like I said, I’m not an expert on the woman herself. I am becoming increasingly familiar with the nasty roots of what we commonly accept/admire in our society, though, and I feel like I need to speak up and share what I’ve learned so that we don’t end up furthering what were (and arguably still are) hardly angelic agendas. Thanks a ton for welcoming such a challenging discussion; I really appreciate your willingness to chat!!! :)
How do I feel about admitting that we never sat down and gave it that much focused thought/conversation?? We have 2 daughters, 5 and 20 months, and the baby is here by dumb luck. Our family doc, the greatest doctor ever, is Catholic which never occurred to me before my husband and I went to talk to him about a vasectomy. Dead end. So it got postponed just long enough for baby #2 (it finally happened about 6 months after she was born). I’m grateful for her now, but my husband and I are WAY too selfish (and aware of said-selfishness) to have more kids than that. One time I was sitting in the Celestial Room, before I had any children but after I was married, and had a random flash of what I thought were my children – a girl (about 6 or 7 years-old), and 2 boys (maybe 4 and 2). When I got pregnant with our first, and it was a girl, I thought for sure this must have been a vision of my future children. When we had the ultrasound for the second, and the tech said it was a girl, I honestly didn’t believe her. I don’t think I believed it until she was born and I could see the proof myself. So I have no idea who those children were – I am not a person prone to this kind of thinking, truly a 1-in-a-lifetime experience – but thankfully it only threw me into a temporary tailspin. We are very complete, and to echo what some of you have already said, it is such a personal decision based on personal characteristics, personality, and priorities, that I can’t give much weight to external pressures/recommendations/teachings/traditions which try to dictate my decision.
Heather, I’ll just come-out and say it: you are a prophetess — in the most useful tradition.
I’m the oldest of seven kids and recall my parents telling us that they’d received confirmation that another child was waiting. Only later did I realize that this was a Mormon way of saying, “another baby is coming and there’s nothing you can do about it so get right with God.” We have three kids and I’d not want to live without any of them. I definitely had a reaction to the experience of growing-up in a large family, as the eldest. But the most important thing was life practicalities.
We no longer live in a time when children contribute to the family economic engine. To be fair to each child and to self, we must consider the reality of our current world. We invest more in fewer children and this has its advantages too.
I have no children of my own. I married two men who should not reproduce at any time. I wanted children but strongly felt that since the men I had married were mean and selfish and violent – it wasn’t good. I didn’t pray because common sense told me regardless of how Mormon we were . . . some people shouldn’t be in charge of other people as parents. It would have been irresponsible for me to bring a child into a situation was abusive to me already.
I’ve spend my life working in schools and loving other people’s kids. Children have been the center of my life.
I think the church tells single Mormon women to do this – help others raise their kids. But I will always wonder . . . if I had been willing to date and marry outside of my religion when I was in my 20s or 30s if I would met someone who would have been a good parent for my own children. It is a regret because they people who appreciate me the most are not Mormon. My family culture was so strong that it never occurred to me that I could think outside the box to get the thing I wanted the most – until it was too late.
I never prayed about having kids. I knew I loved kids, was good with them and liked all ages. When I was 25 my third baby was born and nearly cost me my life and his (abrutio placenta). My husband had to face losing his wife and raising our kids alone and he was not prepared to face that again. I was folding clothes on my bed one afternoon when I got a major nudge to pray. I did and I felt very strongly that we should have another baby. I talked to DH and he said no but he would pray about it too. He did and at age 27 our 4th baby was born. Two months later we lost him to SIDS. What??? This was so confusing and so unbearable. I buried this baby I had felt was divinely sent to our family. Now 25 years later I can say.he was supposed to come into my life to teach me. To turn everything upside down in my belief system. He came to show me how fragile life is, how little we control what happens in our lives and how much grace we need and should give. So here I am a person who could have raised 10 who has raised many other people’s children including my own siblings and to this day most of my work as a teaching artist is with kids. There it is. Make of it what you like.
Wow, Janae. I don’t know what to say other than to thank you for sharing your experiences with us.