Comment (25)
Email
Print
del.icio.us
TechnoratiShock troops in the culture wars
When you have children you find yourself at the frontlines in the culture war. In stark contrast to "a child’s a blessing", there’s open hostility out there.
You know the Western world is hostile to children when you have them. Couples know this from the looks they get, the comments, the smirks. It’s as if it were illegal, like smoking cigarettes in a public building. Maria Lopez and her husband, Alex, get more smiles than frowns, more praise than put downs when they head to the grocery store in Canada’s capital, Ottawa, with their four young children. But they are amazed that they also hear from the critics. In a world in which most of us learn that if you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all, it’s revealing that people will openly denounce families for choosing to have a child because, apparently, you shouldn’t have more than two.
"You can stop now," was the most common comment down at the mall after strangers learned that Lopez had one boy and one girl.
"I’d like to have more children," her husband replied
"Ya, right," said a stranger. "What does your wife say?"
Lopez visited her former workplace when a colleague, who learned she was pregnant for the fourth time, quipped: "Come over here so I can give you a slap." On another occasion, a woman referring to a man with five children told Lopez: "Hasn’t he heard of birth control?" Replied Lopez as sweetly as she could: "I thought you were pro-choice? That’s his choice."
When asked, who has time to love so many? Garcia-Prats replies: "Love is multiplied. They each have nine brothers who love and adore them."
In an era of sound bites in the battle of ideas, moms and dads are on the frontlines in defending the family in about 15 words or less. I am also a father of four and was among a small group of Canadian families, when talk turned to the hostility. Our conversation became an impromptu strategy session on how to reply in a meaningful way. We agreed that after the insult, you had better be quick. The smiling or smirking attackers don’t really want to discuss the philosophy of the unwritten two-child policy while the insulted parents want to offer a pearl of wisdom to ponder later. "I think the best gift you can give a child is siblings," was a favourite response.
Now, imagine if you had, say, 10 kids. A Texas couple of 10 sons say people they meet are mostly in awe. In restaurants the waitress asks what camp or tour group they’re from. But they were once told: "You consider yourself responsible with 10 kids?" Replied the mother, Catherine Musco Garcia-Prats: "We don’t define responsible by the number of kids we have but by what we do with the children. " You can tell she’s had practice in answering the critics. When asked, who has time to love so many? Garcia-Prats replies: "Love is multiplied. They each have nine brothers who love and adore them."
I’ve stopped saying that having children means I have someone to visit me when I am old. Ultimately, it’s a selfish answer. I prefer to say that children evoke sacrifice and encourage people to kindness. Children make the world a better place because they force their parents to grow up by thinking about the needs of others.
Want to scare people into not having children? Tell them how much it will cost. There are enough advocacy groups, which under the guise of promoting families, are quick to point out that it will cost you about US $184,000 to raise a child to the age of 18. Add a second child, education expenses and what if they don’t leave until they’re 25? We’re talking close to half-a-million dollars. With four kids you have to be a millionaire!
"The only people I know with more than three children are white trash," I heard a neighbour say, which is odd because the stats say they have to be millionaires. So, let’s be honest. An American mother of eight was aghast at the so-called official costs (it included daycare and a US $2,900 monthly mortgage payment for a big house). So she did her own calculations and found she would pay US $51,588 per child. Her house is not so big and she’s a stay-at-home mother.
"Having children is not about money but about our priorities," says my wife, Alba. "Is our priority getting rich or raising a family?"
Blow away the smoke and birth rates show how anti-child today's society is. A nation needs a replacement rate of 2.1 births per women – as in the United States -- just to survive. A society that wants children doesn’t have a replacement rate of a mere 1.5 births per women, as in Canada, or 1.3 in Spain, Italy and Greece. In fact, all of Europe has imploding populations based on replacement rates.
Until recently, when many Western countries discovered the baby shortage, they offered absolutely no tax breaks to families generating their most valuable resource: the next generation. In almost any Western country, after a woman has had a baby, a nurse gives her a pep talk about contraception. The United Nations gives funding to Planned Parenthood, which spends more money on ending pregnancies than anything else. And when couples have children, they hide them. Kids are sent to daycare. But no adult ever puts up a hand when the question is: Who would have preferred daycare to your mother when you were a child?
In some non-Western countries, being anti-children is more obvious. China recently made the absurd announcement that its one-child policy is responsible for reducing global warming. India’s minister of state for women and child development once advocated that women and men with more than two children be banned from voting.
The Western world has more of a split personality: a blessing to some, burden to others. When the two sides meet, events can take a strange turn. An acquaintance took her five children shopping. When the clerk at the checkout counter learned that all the kids were hers, the clerk observed: "Aren’t we greedy." How odd.
But the derogatory remarks that mothers get are often not about them. They are about the person who said them. They are words of justification for the woman who chose not to have kids and now regrets it or waited too long.
The hostility from men is usually just plain old self-centredness. I encountered this for the first time when my first son was six months old and I brought him to a restaurant where I met acquaintances. The young couple next to me had no plans for a family because of the consequences for her figure, their sex life, his hockey nights and their travel plans. The boyfriend leaned over to make his point. He put two fingers together from each hand to form a cross, held them up to my son’s face as if to ward off evil and announced defiantly that in their lives children were absolutely out of the question. The girlfriend said nothing. In hindsight this scene was probably a message for her, not for me.
But there is an encouraging flipside to this. Families in the culture war have their undercover allies. When strangers suddenly appear from nowhere and say, "you have beautiful children" or "you’re courageous" or "good for you", the spirit of the weary parent soars, like a soldier in the trenches upon hearing that supplies and replacements are on the way. I now go out of my way to compliment mothers and fathers with young children or help them open a door or struggle with a stroller. A knowing smile that says "parenting is not for wimps" is sometimes the elixir a parent needs to get past a child’s meltdown.
Due to complicated circumstances my wife ended up going to church alone with our infant daughter recently. By the time Mass ended, little Catalina was shrieking so loudly many heads turned. My wife’s face went red and she couldn’t get out the door fast enough. But the punch line in this anecdote was that a stranger walked up to her, congratulated her for coming and said he knew her job was a difficult one. Despite the mortifying ordeal, in retelling the story to me later, my wife was beaming.
Encouragement is never lost. In today’s world, parents need it more than ever.
Patrick Meagher is MercatorNet's contributing editor in Canada.
My mother of five daughter’s response to the veiled insults from others is “Oh, don’t you two love each other?”, said with a sympathetic and concerned expression.
The sad fact is that this is not a new development. When my wife and I were having our family of five back in the sixties and seventies even our Catholic family were disapproving with not so subtle suggestions that I was wearing my poor wife out.
Eventually we started to ask them which one of our splendid five children they now wished had never been born.
We are expecting our sixth (6th) child next week. We have five living children and two in heaven. My wife and I are part of a homeschool group at our parish where there are several familes with eight (8) children. I have friends with eleven (11). I am a convert to Protestantism who continued to convert and entered the Church.
The war on terror (I work in that arena) is nothing compared to the culture war between the culture of life and the culture of death. In fact I predict that any victory over Islam ( we are at war with Islam if you did not know - all the law enforcement I work with see it even though many are secular) will be the result of those “shock troops” who accept children. The liberals in Canada and the US are a greater threat to our future than suicide bombers. That is how heinous the culture of death is.
If God does not punish the West for its selfishness and perverse behavior He owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology. Pray and repent personally (me too) and accept the vocation God calls you to. Mine is husband and father. And I think these to be the greatest honor on earth. 12, 10, 8, 6, 3, and due next week. We are truly blessed. Pray for men and women to be less selfish and accept God’s gifts life-long marriage and children.
Hi!!
I have 10 kids myself and I also homeschool which is soo much fun I love my children and I get commenys all the time like aren’t you tired?and you must not have alife?My children get things like..don’t you get tired of so many brothers? My dughter repliesI love my brothers!People are so surprised by these sort of thing!!Thanks and keep it up!!
Debbie
I never fail to thank God for my parents. Through them God gave me life. I’m alive and have brothers and sisters with whom my “joys are multiplied, and sorrows are divided.”
I’ve always believed in the pro-life maxim that “Everyone deserves a birthday!”, especially the unborn.
I am a father of 3. A son of a little over 4 years, a girl of close to three years, and a 6 week old. The ages are all according to conception, not birth. I find it fun to say I have a 6 week old. Some people are like, “I didn’t know you had another child.” I respond that they couldn’t know b/c the 6 week old is in utero and a little small to see, although is growing by leaps and bounds.
A good argument in the culture of the USA is to speak with business owners. Businesses need consumers, consumers must be conceived, a family of multiple consumers need a father and mother. One caveat, this argument may lead to a materialistic view of a child. It always strikes me as to why medical staff tends to reject more children, when they are the profession that needs more children. Why on earth an OB/GYN would be pro-contraception is beyond me from an economic point of view. More pregnancies means more patients. Think of the refferal bonuses of a pro-life OBGYN.
If I was a materialistic OBGYN, I would be trying my hardest to convince young married mothers to have more than 2 children. As this OBGYN, I would not have to “sell” my service to different mothers because the repeat business would eventually consume my practice. Common sense is not a very popular practice these days.
Father of 9. We used to respond with a smart retaliation. We’ve found it much more effective to respond positively : “It’s work, but it’s a great life. The kids love it. Do you have any siblings?” It’s interesting to watch the adversary crumble and then open themselves up for discussion. Most initial comments are not authentic.
I am the father of 11 children. Long ago - when we had 4 or more children - I often considered having ready the perfect response for comments such as those you reference. However, over the past few years, I have found it more persuasive to simply allow their negative comments to float in the air like stale cigarette smoke while I simply smile and say nothing. I am convinced that over the next several days after their encounter with me (which awkward moments often engender), the poison of their comments lingers in their minds as well as in the minds of others who might overhear them - including my children. I am also convinced that as they replay that moment in their own minds they will realize they were out of line and perhaps even dead wrong. The important thing for me to do in that moment is to be generous in my interaction with the critic and to allow my children to see how happy I am to be raising them.
Coming from a family of nine I understand exactly what sort of pressure you are talking about. The sneers, the looks, etc. Are horrible!
This is the most positive forum I’ve ever been on...I am recovering from a bad bout of the flue.. I’ve been on antibiotics for a long time because of an infected wisdom tooth which I hope to have removed sometime this week. This made me vulnerable to the flue… but three of my adult children and five of my grandchildren were over...and even though I kept them at a distance… it was wonderful that they were there. It only gets better at the grandchildren come along… I have 16 so far. My daughter and her husband are Bradley Childbirth Educators and all but one of my children practice N.F.P God is good.
Granny and all the others,
Thank you so much for all the encouragement. I am pregnant with my 5th child, and you have lightened my heart tonight. It is hard knowing how anti-culture our family is, the looks, the comments. I try to keep a smile on my face and not look too frazzled, and I keep a stash of come-backs in my mind.
“You’re just jealous because I have a better sex life than you.”
“Don’t worry they’ll be paying for your social security.”
“More? If God sends them, we’ll keep them.”
“Your children may be causing all those problems, but my children are learning from an early age how to share, take care of our environment and each other, to work, to think for themselves, to have self control and self worth. They will be the ones caring for the older generations, solving and rising up to our future challenges. So don’t project your problems onto me.”
“Blessed am I, for the Lord has relieved me of all fear. I am not afraid of children.”
“Where there is room in the heart, there is room at the table, and yes every child has come with a loaf of bread under his arm.”
My children, even with all the pregnancy hormones raging, anticipate this new arrival with such JOY! They speak to my belly with love and affection. One would think that if one more child was too much, they would be complaining...in stead they wonder why no one else wants to have (more) children ...they are sad for them.
Pray for me and rejoice with me, my child is due Thanksgiving Day!
It always amazes me how insensitive even seemingly bright and intelligent people can be when it comes to the size of your family. We have eight children and although it has not been easy we have had so many wonderful blessings from each and every one of them. Even good friends will say things that are hurtful because of the pervasive contraceptive mentality that is our society today. They can’t understand how or why we wanted so many children. We just accepted each new life as it came along and because we practiced Natural Family Planning and have been open about that of course the snide comments are always about “How that didn’t work”. It made us very accepting of whatever came along and our lives have been greatly enriched because of it.
There is a group called “One More Soul”.. http://www.OMSoul.com I think we should start a group called ONE MORE CHILD… If you have two, you can have three...if three you can have four, etc.
Except of course for those who have medical reasons...or financial reasons or some other serious reason....but wouldn’t it be GREAT to help ENGAGE THE CULTURE and promote the JOY AND WONDER OF CHILDREN!!! Many governments are worried about the low population among natives, and high population among Moslems
Rather than become ANTI Moslem, couldn’t we just become PRO-CHILD? If anyone wants to start this...let me know..
I am a single 30something with several friends who have large or growing families. Every time someone makes a comment like “This is their -nth child!” I make it a point to grin broadly and say, “Yes, isn’t that wonderful?!” This usually silences the other person and gives me a chance to talk about how terrific it is to be part of a large family. I am the oldest of five and some people assume it must have been hard on me to be responsible for two brothers and two sisters, but I love every single one of my siblings. I feel like I am their second mother and my only regret is that my parents weren’t blessed with more!
Wow ... and I thought I’d heard everything. My Mom was one of 11, my Dad one of 4. My husband and I are “onlies”, and IMO it would have been great to have siblings. I was never told the reason that my folks didn’t have any other kids, but we ourselves have 2 fine sons, and the way things worked out, that was it. (Maybe that makes me a bad Catholic, LOL!) Anyhow, yesterday I chatted with a woman at the local pharmacy who had a really cute baby boy (very fretful with a cold, unfortunately). She mentioned this was her 5th child, and I congratulated her. She seemed a little harried, so I didn’t talk more—she had her hands full with her unhappy camper! I admire anyone with a large family today—they’re counter cultural where it matters. God bless them, and strengthen them in their resolve.
Thanks for the well-worded article. I’m 55 and a father of four (and am myself the youngest of five children.) I know how much those of my generation and younger have been intimidated by the secular culture’s threats (due to the much-exaggerated expense, the over-accentuated danger of “botching the job”, and the environmentalist doomsayer “population bomb” scenario) into not having children.
However, I think these ideas, in one form or another, have existed almost as long as humankind - but only recently in the modern Western-oriented world have almost all the social and many of the religious authorities embraced them.
God’s people have been struggling against the anti-life forces in the world from the beginning, and they were always portrayed in the past (I’d say before World War One) by the predominant social and religious authorities as anti-social and anti-religious. But, today in “the West”, we can see that the words of Pogo have come true: ‘we have met the enemy, and he is us.”
Page 1 of 2 : 1 2 >