Helpful Marriage: Birth Control

The Public Square
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My wife and I, for the first time, have been arguing for several months about “whether to have more children.” I say this as a confession. We believe that it is good to have children. But…

One of us is mostly worried about physical provision. The other is worried about spiritual provision. One worried about how we’ll house them. One worried if their sin will wreck them.

I talked to Pastor Curell a month ago about our arguing. It is not that either of us believes children bad, but we are tempted to believe the lies that lead to thinking that.

This past week I listened to the Out of Our Minds podcast The Slaughter of the Innocents. Lucas touches on the same lies.

The good news in my own recent struggles - one of us exhorted the other for faith in finances and the other exhorted for faith in fatherhood and God’s grace. We are now back on the Biblical footing of desiring God’s blessing.

I say this because even when we have Biblical commitments, they are often tested to see how deep our faith goes. When Samuel’s sons were ungodly - did that make God a liar that children are a blessing? All of us are tempted to think it and we must constantly warn one another not to believe anything short of God’s full truth.

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22

I’d like to resurrect this topic and raise an issue that I think was not sufficiently addressed in either of the podcasts. If the phrase “have only as many children as you can educate” is taken to mean “have only as many children as you can provide a school education befitting a rising member of the professional class,” then the issue is simple. But what if the phrase is instead taken to mean “have only as many children as you can raise in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”? Then I think the issue is not so simple. As has been pointed out in the podcast, the availability of government assistance means that it is possible to put food on the table, a roof over the heads, basic medical care, and public schooling for every child no matter how large the family, but there’s more to parenting than meeting physical needs. After all, an orphanage can provide for physical needs, but no one thinks children are as spiritually well off in an orphanage.

My oldest of five just graduated high school, so now I’ve seen the whole scope of growth to adulthood, and I’m convinced that older children require just as much parental time and attention as younger children. My wife says this perception is colored by the fact that I was not involved much in the care of little ones, but even so, I find that discipling and disciplining teenagers is ten times more time consuming than discipling and disciplining toddlers. For the latter, it is all external, and therefore short and simple, but for the former, it is a matter of the heart, and therefore lengthy and involved. There’s no way to scale this, and no way for older siblings to assist, so each additional child is an additional burden on parental time and focus, especially if there are “special needs” children in the family.

But haven’t parents always faced this challenge? I would argue that there is now something new under the sun in the recent (from the perspective of history) social innovation of separating children from their parents for most of the day. In earlier times, children spent the whole day working with their parents on the family farm or in the family shop. Now children are in daycare or school most of the day and spend time with parents only in the evening and on weekends. And although it is true that children went to school centuries ago, it wasn’t for so many hours of the day, so many days of the year, and so many years of life, as is the case now. Parents these days have less time to interact with their children, and the more children there are, the less time each one gets.

I think a rejection of the view that parents should have only as many children as they can educate necessarily implies the adoption of the view that the indoctrination and peer influence that accompanies full-day public schooling can be overcome by the much smaller time that parents have available to be divided among all of their children. Perhaps it is the case that people should just trust God and have as many children as He grants, even if their children will be largely raised by unbelievers. But if so, I think it still is an issue that must be pastorally addressed.

Postscript.
Overregulation is causing our society to become more and more hostile to everyday life, thus magnifying the burdens on large families. Car seats have been mentioned in some other thread, but here’s an example from my only family today. I asked my 16-year-old daughter to go to the DMV website and figure out what needed to be done to get an ID card (not a drivers license) and to start the process. She already hates to do this sort of thing because government-related websites invariably are difficult to understand, complex to navigate, and often don’t function properly. Plus my daughter hates reading through the lengthy Terms Of Service that one is inevitably required to agree with to get started with the process (I haven’t had the heart yet to tell her to break the 9th Commandment and just click “agree” without reading because it’s pretty much all b******t anyway). Back in my day, one would just show up at the DMV with a few documents, fill out a paper form, and be done with it, but the Real ID requirements imposed by the federal government combined with the state trying to do as much as possible online (including verification of identity) make getting an ID card a multi-hour exercise of frustration online followed by a multi-hour exercise of frustration at the DMV. I went through the process myself recently and am now walking my daughter through it to help prepare her for adult life in our society. And the more children one has, the more one has to deal with useless but onerous bureaucratic requirements.

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23

Back in February, I asked:

On a sort-of related question to people here, how many couples without children do we have in our ranks, and do we know why?

I would like to raise this question again, and would welcome people’s views. Partly from my academic training, and definitely from my profession, I work from the premise that, “what you can’t measure, you can’t change”. My thesis on this matter, in a British context, is:

  • Deliberate long-term childlessness is rare, couples delaying having families is much more common; and,
  • Large families (>3 children) are uncommon.

On a not-unrelated note, the proportion of long-term singles (30-plus) is higher than one might think.

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Dear Joel, what man knows in the marriage bed the amount of future time and money it will take to “properly” educate, counsel, nurture, rebuke, clothe, feed, catechize, etc. the potential fruit of knowing his wife? Also, what man knows how many of his children’s days God will allow him to see and serve as father (even if he does know his capacity)? And, if we did know the future, would that be sufficient cause to deny life? It may be that an orphan finds greater spiritual care outside of his birth parents.

Pastorally speaking, teaching our children to be thankful for what God gives, and working as diligently as needed to fulfil our fatherly duty to the best of our ability is better than living in fear of the future.

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This reminds me of what I often tell people about the multiplication of love in a family with many children. I’ve heard it said that the more children you have, the more thinly your love is spread between them. But we’ve found that each additional child we have comes into the world with more people already adoring her (in our most recent case) than the child before! Sure, there might be less opportunity for one-on-one time with each child, but that doesn’t say anything about our capacity for love. Love is not an exhaustible resource.

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And children with more individual attentions and fewer siblings are less able to adjust to being part of a group, pulling their own weight and getting along with others. More narcissistic and selfish…the post-Pill generations have not been better adjusted than those who came before.

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Thank you, brothers, for the 2-part conversation on birth control. You took a risk in venturing into this arena. I have always wanted to be more educated on this subject (from within the Protestant perspective).

Some other aspects to this subject that I think about (dipping my toe in these waters with some trepidation):

  1. How old is too old to prudently aim to conceive? I think of the woman in our neighborhood who naturally (and unexpectedly) conceived and birthed twins at nearly age 50.

I am 39 and my wife is 34. We have 5 children and hope to continue growing our family. But we each wrestle with what is the age for her at which we would stop aiming to conceive.

I imagine some Christians think we are crazy to consider the risk too great at age 40 for a woman to conceive, whereas others might think we are crazy to even consider having another baby nearing or at age 40 for the mother.

  1. Healthcare - we have been on Samaritan Ministries (Christian healthcare sharing). This system works well. We save a huge amount of money compared to traditional health insurance. I could be wrong, but it seems many Christians are not too familiar with this model. Folks tend to dismiss it out-of-hand, saying “it’s too risky” or “what if my child needs drug/alcohol rehab?”.

If a family is worried about healthcare expenses for a growing family, I imagine their household income is such that some level of taxpayer subsidy comes their way to reduce their out-of-pocket spending. I am not supporting those subsidies, but I’m saying the “healthcare” hurdle to having more babies is [arguably] overblown. That said, I’m impacted here by being a Minnesota resident, with our Scandinavian-inspired Welfare State.

  1. Education - if a family is worried about funding Christian education (or Johnny’s college degree), there are likely to be plenty of colleges offering need-based financial aid…particularly if Johnny is a bright kid. That is, if the family is worried about their finances, their household income and asset profile is such that aid is more freely given to them. This assumes Johnny is willing to attend a second-tier state school.

  2. I am tempted by the sinful pride of having a [relatively] large brood. I hope there is some amount of God-given desire for dominion that is tied up in this, but there is also the vanity of me being proud of how different we look. Is it still God-honoring to continue growing our family, even if my motives are mixed?

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What a blessing! You are about the same ages as my youngest daughter (last of four daughters) and her husband. She gave birth to son No. 3 to join his brothers and two sisters. They will continue growing their family as our Lord directs.

In my case, my wife was 30 and I 34 when we married. We had four daughters in my wife’s thirties. At the end of that period we had four small daughters and two aged, infirm, and challenging to care for parents - all of us under one roof. We decided not to have more children, and today we regret that decision. There was room for one more.

Fr. Bill

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Thank you for sharing, Fr. Bill. I have heard mature Christian mothers say you will never regret having one more, but you may regret not having one more.

It saddens me to hear Christian fathers slam the door on more children, while their wives are saddened by this.

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Ours was a joint decision. Frankly, with four small daughters, a larger share of the overall domestic management fell to her, even with me pitching in with things like cooking (I was a cook in the Marine Corps).

No, our rationale for stopping had to do with our view of rearing four small children and caring for two health-challenged parents under one roof. We learned from that to guide my parents when they moved to our town to build/purchase their own roof. It made caring for them easier, though this sounds counterintuitive.

The actual reason for our decision (viewed in hindsight) was that we had so little faith in our Lord’s willingness to provide for our entire family dynamics. We were, of course, tired and fearful of adding another babe to the familial complex. Hindsight is what shows us how foolish those fears were.

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31

I also did a bit of math on Pastor Tim’s comment about all the families on earth fitting in Texas with 1/2 acre plots. I know this was meant in principle, not as precision. But it got me curious.

Texas is about 171,000,000 acres.
Average household size on earth is 4.9 people.
That means about 1.632 billion families on earth.

Each household could have one-tenth of an acre in Texas.
Each household on earth could have 1.4 acres in USA.

I hope my math is right…

Regardless, his point is spot-on: we have plenty of land to go around! Not to mention, advances coming in nuclear energy…

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There is always room for one more. I can attest to the sting of this reality.
I do have a question though, pertaining to the issue of fruitfulness. Please forgive me if it’s already been addressed.
In another thread I read about a husband who cut off the potential for fruitfulness being compared to a farmer who planted seeds not expecting any growth. A farmer planting seeds expecting no growth seems silly.
My question is, if the ground was inhospitable, not suitable for growing the seed, the wrong season, predators lurked, or other factors existed which would hinder fruitfulness, would a farmer not not be considered wise who delayed the planting of said seeds? Wouldn’t that be good stewardship?

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By definition that man would nonlonger be a farmer would he not? I think the bottom line is either a lack of faith that God will provide or a lack of grit in the farmer to take care of his soil given to him by God.

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What is the soil?
Does a farmer plant in contaminated soil, believing a good, fruitful yield possible?
We must have faith, but it seems that zeal in planting seeds, void of application of wisdom, ie, knowing the condition of the soil, and the other factors I previously mentioned, would be foolish.

This does not mean the farmer, the husband, throws up his hands and says “never will I plant”. That would disqualify him from being a farmer.
What I am suggesting, asking, is, are God’s commands to be fruitful and multiply to be robotically obeyed without knowing the condition of the soil, and addressing those issues?
I BELIEVE the answer is no. So I suppose what I’m really asking is, what are reasons a farmer (husband) may delay planting, which honors God’s commands, and simultaneously uses the wisdom of a husband in planting crops which will bear good fruit God willing?

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The soil would be his household namely his wife. If the soil is damged is he not responsible? Is the man not the head of the woman? I think the allegory would be out of hand at this point. It’s certainly not a one for one i.e. hiring another to plow his field. Looking for reasons to delay is the same as me looking for scripture as justification to leave an unbelieving spouse. The core issue is denying God’s word and his Sovereignty.

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I believe your analysis to be too simplistic. It seems to pit the application of faith, wisdom and obedience, against faith and wooden obedience… Of course the husband is the head of his wife, and bears that responsibility, and before God has nowhere to run in terms of the damage he may have caused to his wife through sin, except to Jesus seeking forgiveness.
Obviously having another to come in and plough his field is not optional.
(For the record this should in no way be construed as an endorsement of birth control).

However, if I have driven my wife to the brink of destruction, do I not have an obligation to nurture, water, feed, turn, till, and care for the ground before I can expect that a fruitful seed shall come of it, rather than more thistles and thorns? Doing all that with faith in God of course, that he can heal the wounds. “In faith” is the key component, I believe.

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Brother Mike, I think you and I are probably in total agreement as to the necessity of obeying God’s commands, and fearing to do likewise. I don’t believe God’s command to be fruitful and multiply is an exception to this.
Where I pendulum swing, is in the application of this, as I see the result of obedience/disobedience to this command play out differently in different peoples lives.
Multiplication but little to no fruitfulness.
Fruitfulness, but little to no multiplication.
Multiplication and fruitfulness.
And then I watch everyone’s definition, or opinion, about what fruitfulness and multiplication are, drive most discussions (not this thread), and hear little hard numbers regarding the question “how many children equal multiplication”, because, in my view, Scripture doesn’t seem to say, other than alluding to quivers, which would seem to indicate both faith and wisdom as necessary ingredients in the mix.
Fruitfulness in marriage can be defined, and is clearly defined, in a host of ways in Scripture.
Again, I am totally against birth control, particularly the abortifacient variety, and am in favor of people obeying God’s commands, in faith. I just believe this discussion is often driven by what we think fruitfulness and multiplication ought to look like. Love you brother

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A new (I think) thought on the principle of limiting the number of children you have to only as many as you can train up in the Lord (ie provide a good Christian education to):

The Christian Roman woman whose non-Christian husband would send sons off to a pagan tutor, or just apprentice him to somebody, would understand that instruction to mean she must not have children.

But the Apostle Paul says that her children are holy, not only having import for the covenant and our children, but also for the question of having children in the first place, and under what circumstances we should have them.

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First, welcome Mike! Great to have you. Thanks for starting this good discussion!

Let’s go back to population. It must be absolutely killed in every discussion of fecundity and childbearing, pagan or Christian. Fact is, when you fly across the US, what you see is nature—not man. It’s all farms and wilderness, and it’s not even Western Texas or Utah or North Dakota, let alone Alaska. The same is true everywhere around the world. If we decide to say Texas can give an average family a tenth of an acre, and not half an acre, that change is insignificant. Have you men seen what every family around the world does with a few hundred square feet of land behind their house? Ride European trains and look out your window. Backyard gardens abut RR tracks everywhere. Or just go to any Asian’s apartment or house which has no more than fifty square feet of backyard, like over in Orchard Glen near Trinity Reformed in Bloomington. It’s incredible what Asians do with 100 square feet of soil! Everything grows vertically.

Specifically, a family of four needs at most an 800 square foot garden to sustain itself year-round. This is less than two-tenths of an acre.

But let’s say everyone doesn’t actually want to live in Texas, but would prefer Manhattan. If so, Manhattan’s population density is around 60,000 p/square mile, so everyone could fit in Ukraine—at a population density of Manhattan Island.

The point is all the talk of population crisis has always (since Thomas Malthus) been abt rich moralistic people trying to stave off poor people who breed, feeling the threat they pose just as Pharaoh felt the threat of the Hebrews. It’s my observation that couples arguing over whether or not to have more children (although they would never lower themselves to say they “argue” over it) usually have one selfish person wanting to stop working so hard and another who takes joy in new life. This is the reason I don’t believe in approaching the issues of euthanasia (follow me here), infanticide, abortion, or childbearing (birth control) from the calculations attached to the concept of stewardship.

I too regret we didn’t have more children, although we didn’t make any actual decision to stop, but almost anyone who is making that decision would be godly and wise to stop making that decision. If we can’t imagine God’s people from any prior generation in history thinking the thoughts we think, particularly about sexuality, it’s extremely unlikely our thoughts are godly or wise.

I know this stuff is hard while you’re still of childbearing age, and I most certainly don’t take the feeding and care and instruction and discipline of children lightly, but many things Christians today think they need to think carefully about or decide would be incomprehensible to our mothers and fathers in the Faith of all previous generations, so likely they aren’t the stupid ones.

BTW, spent time on the Bernina Express yesterday with Mary Lee discussing what education is, what is needed and by which children preparing for which callings in life, what Scripture says about it, what sort of intellectual training and discipline pastors need, etc. Love,

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As I think about it, I’m sorry I neglected to warn you concerning this language. Part of our decadence is our not seeing it, and a man making love to his wife should never find thoughts or words in his head concerning their lovemaking that sound like “aiming to conceive.” What we should always be aiming at is God blessing us with fruit of our love, and generally our body does this naturally.

Leave it to our bodies to aim to conceive. Their aim is true. Smile. Love,

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