While nursing yesterday I spoke with Jeramy on the phone while he was at work. Moriah and Lily were sitting on the floor opposite me waiting patiently for me to finish. When I hung up the phone Moriah asked me where Daddy was and I told her that he was at work. Then she said, "When I grow up I'm not going to work." I was a little curious at first and didn't respond immediately. Then she quickly said, "I'm going to stay home and breastfeed babies." Then Lily looked at me and said the same thing. The conversation then turned to how many babies they were each going to have - how many boys and how many girls.
This unprompted conversation really gave me a lot of encouragement. As you can imagine, it is very difficult to stay home and raise four children four years old and younger. I find it especially difficult because I was raised for a career, not motherhood. Christ has redeemed me from that misplaced priority and brought me home with my children. Feminism is antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the Gospel we find eternality and we raise the next generation with generations ahead in mind. Feminism and the post-modern worldview of our day tells us to look out only for ourselves in our own lifetime. The goals of personal peace and affluence die with you. But God calls us to raise the next generation to love and fear Him so that for generations, people might love and fear Him. Those expressed goals of my daughters let's me know that, although I fail often to exercise the fruits of the Spirit, there is something honorable and God-glorifying that I'm imparting to my children.
The driver and front passenger seats. All the seats, including the bench are leather.
From the rear, notice the two TV screens and cargo space.
Taken from the side door. Notice the two bucket seats in the middle, under the TV screens. The VHS player (with aux adapters) sits in between these two seats.
Many couples since the 1960's have decided that they would take certain measures to limit the number of children they would produce. These have bought into the feminist movement's provision of birth control and the worldview that bearing and raising several children is too much of a burden for the career woman. Many of these couples hold the view that they would rather have fewer children and lavish on them attention and material possessions.
As these parents age, they need more extensive care as health continues to deteriorate. Their one or two children are now grown adults with spouses, children and careers of their own. These two adult children are unable and unwilling to make the necessary adjustments to care for their aging parents. Just as the parents, the previous generation were unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices involved in having several children. But the adult children do have money and put them up in a Nursing Home. Now these aging parents sit in adult diapers, in a lonely smelly hospital-type bedroom, watching TV and waiting for any family member to remember to visit them.
Big government has embraced the feminist agenda through a lot of legislation and taxation and has set up a "Nanny State" in which we see in programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Welfare and Social Security. One hundred years ago these government handouts did not exist. Couples relied on their children to care for them. Bearing and raising many children was their social security, retirement and medicare plan. They made personal sacrifices to raise several children and once they got older, it was much easier for their children to share the load of aging, dying parents. If you don't want to be alone as your physical needs become more extensive, have more children. Your children will be able to care for your needs much more efficiently and intimately than any big government program.
"You've got your hands full!" "Are they twins?" "Are they triplets?" "You must be joking!" "Don't you need a break?!" "I don't know how you do it!" "Better you than me!" "You know, they make a pill for that." "Are you part of some cult?!" "You must be Catholic."
And other negative, presumptuous, pithy feminist comments.
I'm not going to lie. When Moriah was born, I had NEVER taken care of a newborn baby before. I didn't have any idea what I was doing and I struggled in my new role of mother just 9 months after committing to my new role as wife.
During Lily's pregnancy I was stressed out the whole time because our insurance company pinned us with the possibility of paying for all the prenatal, labor and delivery care out of pocket when we had no money. But the Lord answered our prayers and Lily came at the right time.
When Shiphrah was born, I was stressed and overwhelmed. I had two toddlers running around and a newborn that was obstinate against nursing and very gassy (colic). Quite literally I was about to lose my mind and thought often about doing just that. I prayed every time I fought Shiphrah to nurse that I wouldn't get pregnant again before she was 18 months old. I needed a break and I despaired at least 8 times a day. I cried all the time. Jeramy and I talked about taking a little break, but still in my conscience I considered that it was contrary to the decision I made before our wedding day - to give God control of our fertility - but for the sake of sanity, I would put that on hold.
As the months passed, I continued to pray in this way while struggling to decide whether or not to use contraception or let God answer in the way He wills. Month after month continued to go by and I became convinced that God was not going to answer this prayer and I had to be content getting pregnant again before Shiphrah turned 18 months. Then suddenly, one day Jeramy came home and changed his mind about contraception. It was like an answer to prayer.
However every time we came together, I felt the gnawing of the Holy Spirit that what we were doing was wrong. "This isn't what we decided to do 5 years ago. God says, "Children are a blessing . . . " not a burden. They are my life now. They are my vocation now. I pour myself into them, eternal souls, the next generation." Feminism teaches that children are burdens; they're too expensive; they impose on your freedoms and lots of other nonsense antithetical to the Gospel.
Also during this time, God did a significant work in sanctifying me more toward contentment. My role as wife and mother is difficult, but it is what God has called me to do and, by golly, I'll do it with all my might unto His glory. If I could spend hours in the practice room daily and on stage for the pursuit of some wooden box, then I could certainly use the last 10 years of my reproductive life to nurture the next generation of humanity.
What, specifically, lead to my decision? I considered that there are friends of mine who have not been blessed with children naturally. How selfish it was for me to prevent this blessing. Also I considered the many friends I have that prevented children from coming that now regret the children they didn't have. I also consider that the next 10 years of my reproductive life is brief compared to the 60 or 70 years total I might live. I further considered that I never know which pregnancy will be my last and menopause might come to me earlier than the average woman.
So now, I embrace however many children God will bless us with. Yes, it is hard. Yes, I pray for God's grace daily. Yes, I make mistakes. Yes, I get stressed out. No, my children are not a burden. No, I wouldn't trade them for anything. Yes, I know they're beautiful. No, you can't have any - not one. And when I'm old and dying in my bed, I'll look back over my life without regret in this area, knowing that I allowed God to do as He pleased with me, and I'll be satisfied.
I am an eternally foreordained, abundantly blessed child of God, redeemed from the dead by the blood of Christ Jesus, sealed and guided by the Holy Spirit of Truth, wife of my bold, hard-working Christian husband, Jeramy and a joy-fighting keeper at home raising our daughters, Moriah, Lily and Shiphrah.
