bearing blog

"Old age or a pool of blood," we will sometimes say to one another.

Good post at DarwinCatholic about the problem of trying for "equality" in a marriage.

I'm not an absolutist about "traditional roles", although MrsDarwin and I have always felt strongly about maintaining a single income family with a full time parent at home, but the one thing I think is probably almost never healthy is a strong emphasis on doing everything equally in a marriage rather than having some sort of roles. If you both work full time careers, and both strive to do equal amounts of housework, parenting, cooking, etc., it seems to me that comparisons will almost invariably spring up. 

"I do the dishes every night, but she hasn't swept the floor in three days."
"I end up having to help the kids out with homework while she just takes them out to fun activities which cost lots of money."
"I make more money, but he's always going out to lunch as if money were no object."

And on, and on. Perhaps I'm an unusually unpleasant person, but in a work environment I can't help constantly measuring myself against the other people who are "doing the same thing I'm doing". This can be pretty harmless at work so long as one keeps a lid on it. After all, it's just work, and we get to walk away at the end of the day. But when you bring this same tendency towards competition into a marriage, I can see nothing but trouble coming of it. There it seems to me that it's very important to have complementary but different roles -- not do everything together as "co-parents". This doesn't have to be some kind of radical partitioning. But if one of your major goals is, "We'll make equal money, do equal work, and have equal fun," I think conflict will almost invariably result. Marriage is meant to be based on complementarity, not measured equality.

This is all very well said.  I think where many folks go wrong is in the mis-application of the truth that men and women have equal dignity, worth, and importance.  It is good to say, and to believe, that "men and women should be equal," and it's also correct to say "Husband and wife are equal partners in a marriage," all as ways of communicating the truth of equal dignity, worth, and importance.  Equality of persons.

The error is in understanding that to mean "Husband and wife must expend equal effort and/or receive equal benefit."  That's the fallacy of interpreting equality to mean sameness or consistency.  It's an easy one to make because in many non-marital contexts, ensuring "sameness" and consistency is a handy way, or even the only practical way to ensure equality -- children sharing a cake "equally" should get pieces about the "same" size, judges should try to apply laws in a consistent way to all the people before them, etc. 

But equality of persons is not dependent on equal effort expended and equal benefit received.  It has more to do with equally valuing the different efforts of both:  the classic example is to value the work that helps the family without bringing in money equally with work that helps the family primarily by bringing in money, but there are many other examples.   It has more to do with trying to equally meet the needs of everyone in the family -- which almost surely means that some members receive "more" of something or other, because of needs specific to that person.  Trying to treat all your children equally is impossible.  Trying to meet all your children's real needs is worthy.  

Really, the essence of the "equality = sameness" error?  It ultimately assumes that someone who doesn't produce the same as another isn't worth the same as another.  It ultimately measures people against a standard of sameness.  A (the?) fundamental truth about persons is that persons are unique.  Which means unique needs, unique abilities, unique desires.

(I always find that a good mental test for any sort of philosophy of marriage and family is this:  "Would this idea hold up if one of us became permanently and severely disabled?"  Hard cases may make bad law, but hard cases also make obvious hash of bad principles.) 

Finally, I'm reminded of something one of my Indian co-workers said when someone asked her how it was that she'd remained happily married for 20+ years to a man she only met ten minutes before her wedding. "You just tell yourself you don't have any other options," she said. "If you really believe that, it helps you avoid starting problems that will make you want out." At this point in modern America's divorce culture, it's very hard to tell yourself that there are not other options, but I think that rebuilding that mentality -- not just as in "I'd better put up with this, because there's no way out" but rather "I had better make sure that I'm easy to live with, because if I cause problems there is no way out of them" -- is probably the only real path back towards marital stability and sanity in the wider culture.

I find that the "choice to have no choice" is an extremely powerful one, the purest act of free will, the best way to do what you really know is right or even just to achieve an optional, but dearly desired, goal.    That's true whether applied in matters that are small (I want to resist eating them, so I choose to consider these potato chips completely off limits), medium (I want a natural birth, so I choose to think of the epidural as Not An Option), or vastly, eternally important (this marriage isn't over until one of us is dead).  

The more firmly you believe in the Not-An-Option option, the easier it is to figure out what your useful options are.

Good discussion about NFP.

MrsDarwin put up a post on Friday, in response to a debate about whether NFP is "misogynous," that attracted many interesting comments.  Worth reading through, and I daresay the discussion may not be over yet.

Wedding night blues.

I should have pointed to this post by MrsDarwin when it was fresh, but better late than never.  Here's the opening paragraph:

When I was a newly-wed, I worked at a theater. One afternoon, as I was working on tech with two other girls, the subject of sex came up, and both were surprised to hear that I had been a virgin when I got married. That set them off reminiscing about their first times. For all our cultural and moral and experiential disparity, we could all agree on one thing: the first time had been awkward, painful, and kind of alarming. This was a bit surprising to me -- surely the heat of the moment ought to be more conducive to getting it on than after a long and stressful wedding day? Not so much, it seems.

It's a good post, but particularly because of the comments -- she got a little flak for being, in the eyes of some readers, insufficiently reverent toward marital intimacy.  Others (including yours truly) disagreed.  I'm glad she didn't take the post down.

Occasionally I will hear someone defend premarital sexual activity as a positive good, even necessary, as a way of making sure that the couple is "sexually compatible" with each other before making a long-term commitment.  Pragmatically, I suppose that argument has its own logic, but even pragmatically it falls flat.  There are no guarantees that the superficially sexually compatible will remain so.  The one guarantee is that you're both going to get older, and things are going to change, some for better and some for worse.   So why be so fixated on whether you're "sexually compatible" at this one particular moment in time?  The inexperienced will gain experience; the interesting will become mundane.  Libido will wax and wane in response to all the myriad influences of rest and exhaustion and presence and absence, in the cycles of childbearing and childrearing.  Medical problems may intervene.  So why not just accept one another where you are, and learn together how to be together as you go?  It's the philosophy of the young, foolish, and naive, and yet... it has served many people very well, including Mark and me.  

Pragmatically, I suppose it requires patience, generosity, honesty, and a sense of humor.  But then, maybe it can help develop those things too.

To use the church nursery, or not? What it means to be fed.

Melanie has a rambly, thoughtful post with a lot of things to chew on, about "getting fed" spiritually as a mother. 

 I was rather surprised when two mothers of my acquaintance were in favor putting their children in the nursery when they are between the ages of 18 months and three and a half because, they argued, that's when they are at their worst behavior and because when you have three or more children it becomes impossible to control them all and even if you do control them you spend the entire mass distracted. Six days a week I give give give, said one mother, on Sundays I need to be fed.

... What I want to focus on is the question raised by our friend: What does it mean to be "fed" at Mass?

...The way I have come to see it is that this is a sacrifice that I will make for only a brief period of my life and I'm making it for the very best cause: so that my children can be in the presence of God and come to know Him and love Him and serve Him. I have confidence that in this area of life as with my personal prayer time, the act of showing up faithfully to Mass and the attempt to give as much of my attention as I have to Him is what he will reward. He is my Father and He will feed me what I need to be fed.

There is a lot more there - read the whole thing.

Fingers.

Since the weight loss, my wedding band keeps falling off.  I don't want to get it resized for a few months, though, because my rings are always looser in the winter and I'm afraid it'll be too tight in the summer.  

It finally occurred to me to move the band temporarily to another finger.  It fits on my right index finger pretty well, so that's where it is for now. 

Orthodox-Jewish style!

...the groom steadies his trembling hands enough to slide the ring on his bride’s finger. Like the Torah that was figuratively given “from His right hand” (Deuteronomy 33:2), the groom presents the ring with his right hand. 

A thoughtful bride will extend her right index finger to guide the overwhelmed groom. One reason a ring is placed here is because it is easier for the witnesses to see the ring when it is placed on the index finger. 

Counting from the pinky on the left hand, the right index finger is the seventh, like the seventh day of creation. Rabbeinu Bachya adds each finger is linked to one of the five senses: pinky for hearing, ring finger for sight, middle finger for touch, index finger for smell, thumb for taste. The sense of smell is associated with sexuality, which finds its holiest expression in marriage. 

I'll see if this helps me smell better.  Um, you know.

Wait a minute, this is the "neon" anniversary, right? He's sixteen years early for Fe.

This morning I came downstairs to find a little card taped to the handle of the oven.

Inside was printed, "This is the kind of love I have for you."

I smiled and opened up the oven to find a big new heavy green enameled cast iron Dutch oven.   Just like the one Margaret got for her birthday?!?  The Le Creuset one?!?!

Actually, no.  (It's the Tramontina 6.5-Qt. Cast Iron Dutch Oven, named by Cook's Illustrated as the "best value" of the Dutch ovens they reviewed in January 2007.)  This is why I smiled when I read the card, because I knew exactly what Mark meant by "the kind of love he has for me."

As he said when he came down the stairs:  "Not extravagant, but well-researched!"  

That's us.

                                                                        * * *

So:  ten years.  And on this lovely feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, too; I'm so fond of the date, in part for that reason.  Mark says 12/12 is good for him, because it's easy to remember; easy for me, too, so who am I to argue?

I'd write more, but honestly?  I'm lost for graceful words and only have blunt ones.  You know, you only get one life to live, and some stuff--if you screw it up--you don't get a do-over; so I wake up grateful every morning  (and maybe even a little bit relieved!) to realize that this one thing, the most important thing each of us ever agreed to do, has turned out so unbelievably-freaking-right. 

 

"God wants us to do this. Because He thinks it's funny."

From Simcha.

Discernment.

I have been thinking some more about the how-close-to-space-kids question.  Regular readers know that this is an area that feels unsettled in my life.   My three children are spaced three years apart, and it works great for our family, and all the unsettledness in my heart is -- ought I to challenge myself more?   Or ought I to go with what I know "works" for our family?  What is God calling me to do? 

* * *

I wrote that paragraph very carefully.  Did you notice what's missing?

Did you notice who is missing?

* * *

Lately I've been reading a lot of discussion about child-spacing.  Lots of excellent, in-depth, personal, deep, from-the-heart discussion, from deep within the archives of various Catholic mom-blogs.   This thread at Danielle Bean's blog is a good sample.

And I noticed something about the discourse at the same time I noticed something about my own family.

I don't write about my husband's point of view in this area.  I have a good reason not to.  I am trying to protect his privacy, and our marital privacy. 

We do talk about our fertility and our next child a great deal.  We talk about how to space the children in our family.  When to have another child.  How many children we think we are likely to have.  What principles guide us.   Where we differ in our philosophy about child spacing.  Where we differ in decision-making.  In concepts of risk and safety and comfort.  Whether we are open "enough."  Whether we are on the right path or not.  We talk about how one of us is inclined to be more conservative in chart-interpretation (and execution) and one less so; and that's not always the same person.  My husband's voice, his perception of a "calling," or a "not-calling," is as important as mine.  It is not my fertility, it is ours.

But you wouldn't know it from a lot of what I write.  It might seem that I only think about myself, my spiritual situation, my calling, what God leads me to, what I can and can't handle.  Because I only write about myself.  But that's because I can't write about my husband's experience without putting words in his mouth or violating his privacy.  I can't even really write honestly about "our" experience, even though (when it comes to fertility) there is nothing but "our" and "us," there really is no "me" that stands alone here.  And so -- I am stuck writing about a shadow, not a reality.  My shadow.  The reality is much greater than the shadow I can write about.  It is two become one. 

But when I write, I am just "one."  I don't think I can write truthfully about family-size decisions.  The Church is very clear that such decisions are between husband, wife, and God.  If I'm only writing about my own spiritual struggles with respect to child-spacing, with respect to any aspect of marital sexuality in fact, you're missing 2/3 of the discourse.  I cannot write well and truthfully about the rest.  I ought not try.

So as I was reading over and over the testimony of many thoughtful individuals, it occurred to me that all of them have the same limitation.  They can't, they ought not, truthfully explain their callings, their decisions, because none belong to an individual; all are rightfully made by a couple working with the Lord.  There is a privacy and an intimacy that mustn't be betrayed.  In an effort to maintain that intimacy, I know that I unconsciously write as if only the individual and God matters.  I see this kind of "me"-ization in other women's comments.  For instance, one commenter writes,

In prayer I really seem to hear God saying that my fertility was given to us by Him and given back to Him by spiritually by me.

And another:

With regard to NFP… I feel called to dismiss it for now...

It's not that women don't choose to write some about their husband's feelings.  In the thread I linked above you can read one mother writing that she and her husband are "of one heart and mind... with respect to having more children." Another writes, "both my husband and I want a baby but we are concerned for my health too."   I believe them.  But these words, the words chosen by these women to represent their husbands, are only representations.  Shadows of something much greater.

I'm not saying this is a problem, that we can't really write about our spouses' hearts.  Thank goodness we can't.

The problem is when we forget that we can't.  The problem is when we (mostly women) read and read and read and read these threads and we start to think that they adequately represent reality.  We start to internalize the idea that it's about me.  We run the risk of the heartfelt discussion, the interpersonal discourse about child-spacing, being between me and these other mothers rather than between me and my husband.  We feel inadequate sometimes.  Inspired other times.  But even being inspired, encouraged, can be a problem, because it's still leaving our spouses out!  My husband is not reading these threads, after all.  Shouldn't our own marriages be the source of the inspiration and the courage?  If we think we aren't getting enough inspiration and courage from our spouse, maybe we're making it worse by seeking it elsewhere?  Especially when what we read is necessarily so limited?

I'm not saying we should stop reading and discussing among ourselves.  Just that we have to be aware of the missing voices, and especially aware because for each of us one of those voices is the voice that we need to listen to most.  And there is another ear that needs most to hear what is coming from our own hearts.

Death, in the family.

It's changing, because "family" is changing.  A powerful article from Elizabeth Marquardt, author of Between Two Worlds.  Much of what she writes about is very familiar to me, and this is an example.

What amused me yesterday.

Simcha cracked me up yesterday with her number six answer to this book meme:

6. One book that you wish had been written: Addendum to the NFP Manual: Vatican Okays You-know-what.

I got the joke the way she intended it, but apparently not everyone else did, necessitating a post entitled "About #6."    Also worth reading...