In the comments to my post on Saturday, one of my friends’ daughters left her heartfelt insight and opinion.
I always love receiving heartfelt insight and opinion, whether I agree with it or not. If I agree with it I think “yeah! I’m not alone and may not be crazy after all.” If I don’t agree I get to spend time comparing, contrasting, discerning and honing my own opinion.
More than once in this life I’ve altered my opinions slightly based on disagreements with other people. In spite of what some would accuse me, that alteration is not because I want to be a people-pleaser but because sometimes the other fellow just has a very good point that needs to be considered.
In the vast number of cases where I have disagreed with others and NOT altered my opinion I have more and more found myself tempering the way in which I present that opinion to other people. No matter how much I disagree with anyone, be they Aunt B., NM, my brothers or Fred Phelps I think every person on this earth is entitled to be treated as I wish to be treated. Kindness is never a bad thing. And it is not kind to insult or degrade another person for her views. I try to remember that, even in the specific cases of one or two people who always make me want to smack them when they open their mouths.
As troubled as I was by the way Piper framed her position (we’ll get to that in a minute) I was equally troubled by someone else telling her she was a “messed up” person. Granted, since I opened that very post by calling someone a “twit”, I can hardly claim the moral high ground. But both of those comments served well to remind me of why I so very much prize courtesy in debate.
As for the comment that
The Pill liberates men to indulge themselves without the God ordained consequences of children.
I can only shake my head. I come from a culture similar to Piper’s, and so I know this language. It’s a sort of English flavoured by a type of religiousity. I completely understood “men” to mean “all people” and “consequences” to be of the more arcane meaning of “natural outcome” as opposed to the automatic negative we now assume the word to have. There ARE happy consequences, but modern speakers of English seem to no longer associate those two words. What Piper is saying is standard for the teachings of The Quiverfull Movement.
I myself have numerous places where I depart with the QF philosophy, but as far as I’m concerned it’s no skin off my nose for folks to practice those beliefs. As long as they extend the same courtesy to others. I begin to have more trouble with Quiverfull when they accuse the barren of being cursed by God, and when they seek to limit the access of others to birth control.
There are a lot of consequences in this lifetime. Some good, some bad. But in my book a child is not only a consequence but an individual entity with potential and purpose. I have no doubt that the Quiverfull folk I number among my friends and family are happy with the life they’ve chosen. Yet I do prefer that they consider that they were able to make those choices without interference and respect that others would like to enjoy the same basic courtesy. That’s pretty much how I feel about everybody, to tell the truth.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
Hey, speaking of Piper, I remember him saying, about the Babies Everywhere (not using that awkward real name) people, that it’s can be a good thing that takes away from other good things, and we have to rely on our inclinations, situations, and God’s prodding to find out what “good thing” we should pursue. To see Babies Everywhere as an open-handed “doctrine” is okay, but as a universal it would be disastrous. Not every part of the body should be a finger.
This might have something to do with western child worship, too, but that seems too recent for this.
I think it has to do with a lot of things…I could write a book on the matter.
The one thing I will say is that the QF/BE people I know are not always as bad with child worship thing as I would have assumed. In fact many of the QF/BE people I know are far better about discipline than a lot of smaller families.
But I do see a lot of subliminal religious transferrence in the practice, with childbirth (blood, pain, new life) being raised to a false equivalence with Christ’s sacrifcial atonement (blood, pain, new life).
The child worship thing was a first impression, but what you say makes more sense. I would think that larger, evangelical, Midwest families are more structured and disciplined than their opposites. I’m only going on stereotypes so who knows.
I like the marriage/childbirth vs. church/believer archetype, but yes the symbolism may be taken too far.
I just used stereotype and archetype in the same comment.
Jay, I hope you understand that there are different structures for families in different communities. The idea that midwesterners (of whom I am one) have more structure in their family life than, say, southerners, easterners, or westerners is unfounded — similarly, the idea that evangelical families are by definition going to have better discipline than, say, Catholics, mainline Protestants, or Jews. If you’re not recognizing other families’ structure because it isn’t what you’re used to, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
As the poster of that particular comment I’ll own up to it. I should have said the idea she was voicing was messed up rather than equating appling it to her as a whole but I don’t feel my overall reaction was inappropriate.
Yhe comment as I interpreted it was made pretty appalling and since I was days late to the post it seemed a like a waste to elaborate on why so I reacted viscerally.
I completely understand, especially since my first reaction and the reactions of others was exactly the same as yours.
My husband was irate at the thought that men–masculine people–were some batch of craven entities who needed to be kept in line with children so they wouldn’t go around sexing up the place.
I had to take a few deep breaths and remember that the statement was written with a specific sociolinguistic impetus and to apply that lens before I calmed down a bit.
Apologies for the typos. Should have proofread before hitting comment.
Whoa… Never heard of the QF movement with all these eerie undertones and associations. but I agree children are not accessories or some sort of “abundant life” gauge you need to redline.
Had a strange thought the other day” I imagined an ancient Hebrew coming into the promised land (where everyone is a shepherd or farmer) and discovering your allotted inheritance/property was a mountainous cliff. All your neighbors looking sideways at you because you weren’t like them. You’d feel forsaken, like God was playing a joke on you, or you’d been dealt a bad hand.
You could shake your fist and say “WTF!” Or you could start digging for the silver, or iron, or clay, God put there. You could build a watchtower or a city of refuge on those lonely heights.
Some people get one gift, some get another. End of the day, people know exactly jack, but God knows what He’s doing.
You and I share the same philosophy! 🙂
This is one of those “I am not alone and maybe not crazy” moments. 🙂
Years ago I felt wrong-footed when I ended up on the side of this mountain, but I have quite begun to like it here.
Quiverfull people have run afoul with me–not because of their beliefs, but because of their arrogance. I’m certain they aren’t all like this, but the tendency for women w/ a lot of children is to be smug about how God has blessed them and/or how physically superior they are for being able to bear so many offspring–especially male offspring. I got to the point where I was calling them matriarchs from hell, and I know my attitude needed–maybe still needs–adjustment. The Bible says nothing about birth control, even though condoms have been around since at least Roman times. The Bible says that children are blessings, yet there’s no quantity attached to that, nor does the Bible say that childless women are cursed. W/o the use of birth control, women vary quite a bit as to how many offspring they have–anywhere from 0-20. At what point in those numbers does a woman become good enough?? Blessed enough??
I agree that consequences are not necessarily bad–they are, rather, the effect of the cause. Oh, and just in case men or women do think they can avoid responsibility w/ birth control (because children aren’t punishments, but responsibilities), I laugh at you. I have two birth-control-buster children. Oh, and I love them very much, right along w/ the other two that we “planned” to have.
While I’ve not had that experience with my friend who is the mother of the young woman who left the comment–they’ve not been arrogant toward me–I have had it with many other QF folks. During a lot of my infertility treatment years I was assured that my lack of produce could be equated with sin, a hard heart, listening to rock music, wearing pants, associating with homosexuals, associating with women who had had abortions, reading mystery novels, etc.
It kind of got to be weird after awhile.
W/o the use of birth control, women vary quite a bit as to how many offspring they have–anywhere from 0-20. At what point in those numbers does a woman become good enough?? Blessed enough??
That is a wonderful point.