I'd always known that it was a good idea to have your children young, if you were able. That didn't work out for me because I wasn't even married. Other people have trouble conceiving even at a young age. These issues are nothing if not difficult. But another problem is that we lie to women about their chances of getting pregnant later in life.
The lie is, of course, that it costs you nothing to delay marriage, focus on career and other things, and then decide it is time to have a family. We have always known this was a lie but it was a lie that suited the purposes of those who sought to liberate women from the prison of childbearing and childraising, that fit in with the zero population growth goals, and that fit our ideas of what were the real important things in life.
Kudos to Mollie for exposing the lie...
HT to Estegology for pointing me to the great cartoon from Catholic Health
7 comments:
"it was a lie that suited the purposes of those who sought to liberate women from the prison of childbearing and childraising,"
Most women don't have exciting high earning careers. Most work in the pink ghetto which is less fulfilling and rewarding than homemaking. Women in the workforce depress wages making their participation even more necessary to the family budget. It is not a good deal for most women, or their families. But the women's movement was never about the average woman, it was about the dissatisfied and bored upper class women. The privileged few got the gold and the glory, while the average woman just got more obligations and was spent far more time away from those she loves.
There are many women in the work
force who have college degrees,
whether bachelor of arts or a masters. Take a look at your local
high school faculty, they usually
must have a masters degree to remain
teaching. God gave these women
talent and they are using it to
serve their communities and their
parishes. They still have a window
of opportunity to bare children
between the age of 38 and 42.
Between the ages of 38-42 conception is not easy. I know. I bought into that lie. I spent thousands on fertility treatments and got right up to the point of a test tube baby and decided I had made a choice, one that I regretted and now had to live with it. Kudos to Mollie for her honesty. Now I have my regrets and my career and an empty home where a child's laughter might have been.
"God gave these women
talent and they are using it to
serve their communities and their
parishes."
God gave women talents to serve their families. Secularists sell us the idea that women's first obligation is to her community rather than first to God and then to her family and later to the community. This extremely recent and prevalent view is not only unbiblical, it doesn't even meet utilitarian criteria for useful innovation. Pressuring young women into careers isn't good for them or ultimately for the "community" either.
But even for men, delaying marriage and children in this horrible economy for the sake of establishing a career can hurt. Try becoming a first-time father at age 41, and then have the second child at age 43. Add 18 years to the age of the youngest child. 43 + 18 = 61 years. How would you like to be a "mere" 61 years of age when the youngest is graduating high school. Would my wife and I want a third child? Of course. We can afford to do so. But since I do not want to risk walking with a cane to the college graduation of child #3, we have decided to stop with two children. Would anyone think it would be fair to child #3 or #4 if I were already a senior citizen before either one graduates from college? Would that be fair to my children to have less time on earth to spend with them. Sadly, many young people have little appreciation for starting a career and a family as early as possible.
My wife and I married 50+ years ago. The Bride was 18 and the Groom was 26, we now have 3 daughters, 4 granddaughters, and [so far] 1 lovely great-grand-daughter. This would not have been possible if we had waited for another 20 years to start a family. We love to have all these descendants. Yes we were as poor as the proverbial church rat, but who can pay for 52 years of love?
If you love your woman, do not play marriage, make her a wife and a mother.
Christian P.J. Bahnerth
The Bride was 18 and the Groom was 26
Sounds like the kind of healthy happy match which is these days most strenuously discouraged.
These days, the family and community would use every element of emotional blackmail at their disposal to prevent such a happy marriage. They would insinuate that the woman was a ne'er do well for not first seeking a career as well as impugn the motives of the man for being a near pedophile for choosing an appropriately aged wife.
It used to be having illegitimate children or getting divorced was considered depraved and trashy.
Now getting married at reasonable ages and clinging to one another is the most denigrated and despised.
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