Category: faith
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A reel popped up on my IG feed today that gave me a moment’s pause. I don’t like to link to social media here, plus I didn’t follow or save or anything; so, let me describe it for you. This twentysomething Catholic girl influencer, who’s trying to promote her content I guess, goes: “I was always a tomboy. This is how I always dressed,” and she shows us photo after photo of a girl in jeans and t-shirts. “Then,” she says, “I became Catholic. I saw in Mary how beautiful femininity is.” She tells us how she started trying to present as more feminine: first with just one dress, then gradually, “through the grace of God,” came to a point where she now wears dresses exclusively, all the time. She showed photos of herself gardening, driving a tractor, and doing yard work in pretty dresses.
Now, I have mixed feelings about the message that this is sending.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m very pro-modesty and pro-dress. Myself, I wear dresses and long skirts exclusively (except when I’m in my PJs, because I have been wearing the same pair of Eeyore PJ pants from Walmart since 2017 and it’s just my thing now, no other PJs are comfortable anymore, I will probably be wearing them on my deathbed). Modest attire like this is what is comfortable for me – although, tbh, that has more to do with my issues with my body appearance than with me being super “devout” or “feminine.” If I were skinny and toned, I might be more tempted to dress immodestly.
But all that is just to say, I myself am a believer that dresses are superior for women and girls. I wish it were the norm, instead of the weird and gross things that females are expected to wear these days. I am generally anti-pants (although in 2025 America, some allowances have to be made, because many women are required to wear pants at their jobs, which is too bad), and definitely anti-leggings as pants, anti-crop tops and booty shorts and all that. I do believe women ought to be charitable towards men and cover up decently. True, it’s a man’s fault if he looks at a woman with lust; but there’s truly no reason why women need to make it more difficult for him by going around showing it all off. (Even as a straight female, I find it super distracting when women go around in practically their underwear.) I know a lot of more feminist-leaning readers will disagree with me here – “it’s not my problem if men can’t control their urges!” – correct, but, as a Catholic I believe we have a duty to be charitable to our neighbor, and that certain parts of the body should only be seen by your spouse. To me, this includes legs, so I personally would not wear something that shows off the legs.
Thus, I am by no means mad at this influencer for preferring to present as feminine. She pointed out that “God has set women apart as something sacred and special,” so we ought to dress like it, not like a man. I think that’s generally true.
But I take issue with the suggestion that being a tomboy is bad and something to be overcome.
We need to stop saying shit like this. Assertions like this are what lead people to question their gender identity, these days. It’s okay to be a tomboy! You are still a female! Just because you don’t love doing stereotypically girly things, does not mean you are “actually a man!” If your biology is female, you are a woman.
A friend of mine who is an expert on systems of personality typology has recently gotten me interested in that topic. And I’ve found it very liberating to study, as someone who has always been insecure about my own personality.
God created us all with different personalities. In His creative genius, that’s how He made us: varied and diverse. Some personality types are more inclined to feminine traits (emotional, warm, caring, good housekeepers, good dressers); others, to traditionally masculine traits (logical, cold, reserved, uninterested in hosting parties or decorating or shopping). Are we going to tell all women with these latter types of traits that they are a failure? That they need to overcome or change the way God made them?
I can totally see how a traditionally feminine woman would be preferred by men as potential wife material. But that doesn’t mean that tomboys are broken or bad or need to fix themselves. And someone’s value as a human is not determined by their desirability as a spouse.
I’m what most would probably call a “rad trad” Catholic extremist, because of my beliefs and where I attend Mass. But one thing about Tradland that I’m not so sure about, that I sometimes take some issue with, is this obsession with femininity and masculinity.
Sure, masculine men are great, and I can see why a woman would prefer one as a husband. But that doesn’t mean that a man who is thin or small, who doesn’t care to lift weights or chop wood or fix cars, who perhaps prefers baking or painting or fashion design, is any less of a man. If he has male biology, he is still a man. His value as a person should not be determined by how traditionally masculine he is.
“But Mith, femininity is the essence of womanhood, and masculinity the essence of manhood! When a woman is feminine, she’s being the best version of what God made her to be!”
But not every woman is, or should be, the Platonic form of a woman. That’d be a pretty boring world, wouldn’t it! People are varied, and imperfect, and diverse. God designed us, as I said, with all different temperaments and natures. A person in perfect shape exemplifies the image of good health, and that is a good thing, and we should all strive to be healthy… but we should also honor the way that God made us. Some people have naturally bigger bone structure. Some people have physical handicaps. Should a person born with only one arm live their life in constant distress because they aren’t the image of an ideal human? I don’t think God wants that for them.
“But a handicap like that is not a choice. Behaving like a feminine woman is a choice!”
Is it? I mean, sure, I guess a woman with no interest in baking or hostessing or sewing could force herself to learn these skills, if they’re necessary for her or would make her life easier. She could try to change her personality, to act more sweet and sensitive, if she feels called to or if it would benefit her existing relationships. But should she force this just for the sake of being feminine? Couldn’t she better spend that time doing what she’s actually naturally inclined to do, like read, write, exercise, analyze data, ride horses, whatever it may be? What if her gifts go to waste because she’s so busy trying to be someone she’s not? Maybe she’s called to be a researcher, or to be the perfect partner for a more emotional and sensitive husband. God might be calling her to something great, who knows. What if St. Joan of Arc had dismissed God’s call to go to war because, well, that wasn’t a very feminine thing to do, so surely it couldn’t be God’s will?
“If a woman is inclined to be tomboyish, she should work to overcome that. Our natures are bad, and we must not submit to them, but conquer them!”
Our nature is bad insofar as it leads us to sin. If, by nature, someone prefers chocolate ice cream to vanilla – that is a natural preference, not a sin. Similarly, tomboyishness is not a sin, nor is it a sin for a man to have feminine traits; and it’s absurd to think that it is.
Honestly, some members of the online trad community have an obsession with masculinity/femininity that feels kinda fetishy and gross to me at times. Like, you just know these people who post this stuff are sitting there at their computers, salivating and squirming in their seat while they type out some rant describing in detail their fantasy sexual partner – creating and sharing those idiotic AI images of huge, burly bearded men chopping wood while their delicate, doe-eyed, pregnant wife looks on in adoration, five or six small children at her feet. It’s cringe AF. Sure, that type of femininity/masculinity is an attractive ideal, and we can probably all benefit from borrowing some things from that ideal; but, most people in the world do not fit that stereotype perfectly and never will. So please, let’s stop shaming people for not being TradCath Barbie & Ken.
Plus, I mean, you can be a tomboy in modest dresses. Dresses come in all different styles and colors. You don’t have to be pink and frilly and made-up.
“By the grace of God I exclusively wear dresses now.” That feels slightly weird to me, and smacks of ego-driven perfectionism, puritanism, and privilege, doesn’t it? Not everyone can afford those “workout skirts” or swim dresses, which are only to be found at cute little specialty modest boutiques online, while sweatpants are like $9 a pair at Walmart. I can’t imagine that God is disappointed in a woman for wearing a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants to the gym or in the garden if that’s all she has or if she can’t afford to buy a special “workout skirt” right now, right? What do you think?
(In all conversations about modesty, societal norms must be taken into consideration. Modesty is, to an extent, conditional on the society we live in. Certain native cultures wear less clothing because of their lifestyle and traditions and the climate they live in. For a woman in one of these cultures, it’s obviously not a sin to show her belly or legs. In fact, it would be weird, and call undue attention to herself, to dress in a long skirt like an Amish lady. Similarly, in certain Middle Eastern countries, it’s expected to cover all the way up, and attire that would be considered modest in the West could be scandalous there. We have to consider these things. Given that we live in the West, I really don’t see how it would possibly be a sin for a woman to wear a pair of sweatpants in the garden or to the gym. Maybe an imperfection at the worst, but, I’d have to get a priest’s opinion here.)
“I want my daughters to have a good woman to look up to.” This was another thing this influencer said that kinda irritated me. So you’re only a good woman if you wear a dress 24/7? Are we sure about that? One of my most beloved friends IRL is a good Christian lady who’s a tomboy, almost never made-up, usually in casual attire like t-shirts and modest shorts, because she’s outdoorsy and practical. And she is a wonderful woman, with many feminine gifts, who would be an amazing mom if she had kids. Does this mean I think t-shirts and shorts are good? No, but nor do I think I’m a “better woman” than her because I only wear dresses!
I want my daughters to not feel forced into some mold that’s not them. I want them to have parents who are authentically answering God’s call in their lives – who don’t think living the faith can be boiled down to these external habits like sewing or chopping wood. It’s much deeper than that. I want them to know that there is a place for them in God’s kingdom, no matter what their personality or taste or foibles; they don’t have to change the morally-neutral things about their nature in order to have value.
But do femininity and masculinity carry moral weight? That, I think, is the core of the question.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think they do? Because I’ve never seen an Examination of Conscience anywhere that asks, “have I been sufficiently masculine/feminine?”
Maybe those are a good thing to strive for, just as good health and fitness are good things to strive for… but are they? Are they an objective good, like health? Let’s think about it. Health is something that’s always good for everyone. But, being very stereotypically feminine might not be good for every woman. As I said, she might have different gifts, a different calling. And she shouldn’t try to be something she’s not called to be. A nun shouldn’t spend her time stressing about not having a vocation to marriage, just as a wife shouldn’t worry that she’s inferior for not being called to the religious life.
For exhibit B, there’s this other content creator I follow who comes to mind. She’s a health and fitness influencer, and a very masculine lesbian (at a glance you could mistake her for a man), and also very conservative and outspoken against the transgender movement. Occasionally she posts pics of herself as she was in her “before” era; she used to present as feminine, with long hair and a softer body. Now she’s really buff. And you can just see in the before and afters that she’s so much more confident and happy and thriving now. And, I kind of can’t help but love that for her?! Because there’s nothing sinful about simply looking more masculine, is there? Sure, she dresses in pants and menswear, which is not something I think women should do, but in theory, there’s nothing wrong with just having masculine traits, with being a tomboy.
In her videos, this influencer often makes the very point that I’ve been trying to make: being a tomboy does not make you a man. Your biology is what makes you male or female. Let’s stop telling girls they can’t be girls if they don’t like girly stuff! As a Catholic I do of course believe in chastity, sacramental marriage and all that, but at the same time, I honestly love non-traditional gender expressions. God made us all so different! We don’t have to be ultra-feminine to be great and awesome women!
And I guess the same applies to men — to an extent. I don’t think it could ever be considered modest for a man to wear a dress or noticeable make-up, because it violates societal norms in a way that would call undue attention to himself. But, if he wants to do certain traditionally feminine things like wear long hair, buff his nails, have a skincare regimen, get his brows waxed, or talk in a ladylike voice, then those are all morally neutral, aren’t they? Maybe weird and quirky, and probably not going to make him the most eligible bachelor at church, but not a sin, right? He’s still a man, and as long as he’s modest and living chastely and not claiming that he’s actually a woman, then I assume it’s not a sin.
The exclusively dress-wearing Catholic influencer says that she wants to imitate our Blessed Mother. As we should! We should all strive to imitate Our Lady’s humility, charity, love of God, modesty, and purity. But I don’t believe that we women are all required to embody the epitome of femininity. Femininity is good, but it’s not the only way for a woman to be good.
“But Mith,” you may be arguing, “you said in your other post that we have a moral obligation to look good! Now you’re saying t-shirts and pants are okay?”
No, I’m not saying t-shirts and pants are okay. I do think women should cover their legs. As I said, you can be a tomboy in modest and simple dresses or skirts/skorts. She doesn’t have to wear make-up or style her hair or try to look very “pretty,” but she does need to be well-kempt and modest.
In short: I kind of feel like some of these “mad trads” out here need to stop shaming tomboys and effeminate men. I think this tendency is perhaps a defensive reaction against the rise of “Pride” and transgenderism and gender confusion and all that, which is totally fair. But, let’s not let the pendulum swing so hard to the other side that we become as narrow-minded and shallow as the liberals accuse us of being.
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The other day, I saw an excellent little video from one of my favorite pro-life content creators (“secularprolife” on IG: although I’m not “secular” myself, and don’t agree with every word she says, I love how she proves that abortion is wrong not just from a religious POV, but for everyone, even if you don’t believe in God at all). In this video, she pointed out something very helpful to consider, for anyone who wishes to engage in meaningful debate about this topic: namely, pro-life people believe that abortion ends a life, whereas pro-choice people tend to believe that abortion prevents a life from beginning at all.
I’m not here to delve into all of the reasons why it’s idiotic to believe that a baby in utero is not already alive (why would you need to abort it if it wasn’t alive?!). A quick biology lesson, or googling even the most rudimentary, basic info on the science of human reproduction, will fill you in on that, if you’re interested.
No, I am actually here to point out something else that I believe is a fundamental difference between the pro-life and pro-choice philosophies. Possibly an even more fundamental one than the one just named, because there are plenty of pro-choicers who are fully aware that abortion ends a life, but they simply don’t think it matters (or matters enough).
And that is because of this fundamental difference: pro-life folks believe that life is good, and pro-choice folks do not. To be more precise, the pro-life belief is that life is an objectively good and worthwhile thing, always, whereas pro-choice folks believe that life is only good under certain conditions.
A pro-choicer might say that, if a child is going to be born seriously ill or disabled, it is better off not living. Or if a child is going to be born to a very young mom, or a very old mom, or a mom who is poor, or a mom who is herself sick or disabled, then that child is better off not living. Or if the parents aren’t ready to be parents. Or if the child simply isn’t enthusiastically wanted by both parents. They claim that a child is better off being killed than being born into a life of any kind of sadness or hardship.
It is actually really very sad, when you think about it, to believe that life is only good in certain circumstances. Even if you don’t believe in God and His goodness, surely it’s evident merely from observing life, that life is an objective good. Why else would all living things strive to remain alive, to reproduce and create more life? I think it takes some real bizarre mental gymnastics to believe that life is not a good thing. It’s like finding some reason to believe that 1 + 1 does not equal 2.
But, I guess not too many people believe in any objective truth anymore. In a society where all belief systems are supposed to be seen as equally good (except, ironically, the one that teaches that objective good exists), nothing is really true anymore, is it.
I used to be an atheist, and I remember the moment when I began to finally see the flaw in this belief system. I was a junior in college, taking an upper-level philosophy course (because I guess I wanted to get as deeply and hopelessly into debt as I possibly could, lol) called Meta-Ethics. Early in the semester, our professor was asking us to think about what moral values actually are. Do they exist in the world, and if so what actually are they, and how can we identify them? I thought for a while, and took a look at my own idea of moral values: obviously they existed, because some things, like murder, were objectively wrong; but how did I know, really? Because it just felt wrong? I guess I had some vague concept of like an internal sensor that people must be equipped with; but to detect what? And if that were the case, why did people’s moralities differ so drastically? This philosophy, I began to realize, with a slight chill, did not hold water. (A couple years later I began converting to Catholicism.)
In our modern world, everyone has their own truth. Which, btw, brings me to one of my pet peeves: the phrase “my truth.” As in, “speak your truth” or “I’m telling you my truth.” There is no such thing as “your” truth! There is only the truth. What you’re referring to is your experience, your feelings, your side of the story – what you, an imperfect and non-omniscient creature, believe to be true. All of which are valid and important, sure, but they’re not necessarily any kind of truth. Let’s stop saying “my truth” and start saying “my side of the story.” Ugh, every time I hear the phrase “my truth” I throw up a little in my mouth. But anyway, that was a tangent.
People don’t believe in objective truth, nor do they believe in objective good. (Do we believe in objective beauty? I’m not sure if we do or not, that’s a different blog post.) Things are only “good” for a specific individual if that’s what that individual believes is good for them.
Which is a super dangerous way to think about goodness. An underweight anorexic person might believe it is “good” for them to not eat today, or that they need to lose more weight; are we going to honor their beliefs and respect their personal values, or are we going to do what’s actually good for them and encourage them to seek help, because they are simply wrong? An alcoholic really believes it’s for the best if they get drunk (even if they fully acknowledge that it’s damaging their health, to them, the apparent “good” that is pleasure and relief outweighs the health risk); should we tolerate diversity of opinion here? Or would the more loving response be to intervene, to let them know that they are wrong?
And if you admit that objective good exists in these situations, then you must follow that to its logical conclusion: so objective good does exist.
Health, for example, is good. But why?
Because, life is good.
So yeah, subjective morality is a very slippery slope. Pro-choicers do not believe that life is a good thing, and that is deeply sad.
I think you will generally find that people who are pro-choice tend to be less happy than people who are pro-life. And by “happy” I mean not “college educated, wealthy, healthy, successful” but rather “convinced that their life has an actual meaning and value regardless of their circumstances.”
Realizing that most pro-choicers are really sad, helps perhaps to see them in a more compassionate light. For example, some individuals I know who are pro-choice were never taught about the value of their own body or the tragedies of sexual immorality, and had to learn about sex in public school or from TV or their peers – either that, or they had morality violently shoved down their throats at a young age, and their “liberated” philosophy is a retaliation against that violence. Some of them are SA victims who are still healing from trauma. And a lot of it is just exposure to our depraved culture; we’ve “normalized” way too much, and to be “not normal” is a terrible social sin. So people will try to be normal so that they’ll be seen as valid and worthy. It’s all really very sad.
I wouldn’t call myself a “happy person.” I’ve always been gloomy, pessimistic, melancholic, negative, prone to bad moods and discontentment and periods of depression, and, as you know, I have diagnosed AvPD, which is chronic, and hardly a picnic in the park. But, in the grander sense of the word, I am deeply happy, because I know that there is hope of salvation.
At some point, subjective morality becomes impossible to live with, if you really look it in the face. If there is no objective meaning to anything, and life is not objectively good, then, sure, absolutely, abortion is as good as anything else! Why not get an abortion! Why not kill anyone! When you arrive at that point, in all seriousness, suicide is the only option. It’s pretty much necessary. I am not trying to be dramatic, this is a simple fact. What pleasure you can milk out of life is just that, just a blip, just a few moments of sensory pleasure in an expanse of suffering, with an eternity of blackness stretching out on either side of it, if you don’t believe that pleasure means anything more than just pleasure. We are not built to live with the knowledge that life is that meaningless. So, what’s more likely, that this universe is all some kind of random, material, evolutionary accident, or that we are built this way because there actually is a greater meaning we’re supposed to find?
But, ahem, that’s just my take, and I’m not here to try to prove the existence of God, lolol. I got way off track there! My point is, objective good exists, and life, more than anything else on earth, is absolutely objectively good. It’s kind of a no brainer, tbh. But I guess not for everyone, sadly.
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Please keep in mind that I’m not an expert of any kind! I’m literally just some random layperson who overthinks everything!
Revised April 2025
Is NFP birth control? I’ve already touched on this question in another post, but am feeling a need to delve into it more specifically.
You’ll see a lot of folks, especially the more modern-leaning, Christopher West-informed Catholics, who believe that using NFP to avoid counts as being open to life. It’s perfectly fine to avoid pregnancy for serious reasons, they say, as long as you use NFP. Because that way you’re still having sex the appropriate way (i.e. no birth control or “pull-out” or anything like that).
But are you really being open to life?
Some of the “rad trad” types believe that controlling your fertility at all — that trying to avoid (TTA) ever — is always wrong. Because approaching sex in such a way that you are trying to avoid conception, is, in fact, having a contraceptive mindset. It is corrupting the true purpose of marriage, not to mention, it shows a lack of faith in God.
Is NFP birth control? As far as I can see, yes, it definitely is.
Because it seems pretty obvious that you’re not being “open to life” if you’re intentionally avoiding using fertile days. To say that TTA using NFP constitutes being open to life, is literally the same as saying that using condoms or any other birth control method is “being open to life,” because these methods are also never 100% guaranteed!
In fact, NFP instructors trying to sell their method will boast of its effectiveness: “more effective than birth control when done correctly!” And this is true. Personally, if I were really seriously TTA for some extreme, life or death reason, I’d absolutely prefer to use NFP rather than contraceptives, because it’s more reliable! It is more effective! If you use a condom on a fertile day and it breaks, you’re at risk, vs., if you simply avoid the days when there is any possibility of conceiving, you literally cannot get pregnant. People really struggle to understand that, that biology works that way. People tend to think that, because ejaculation occurs inside of a vagina, there is always a chance of pregnancy. (This stupid misinformation is drilled into our heads in public school health class, as well as by most healthcare providers.) But, literally, that is only the case 5 or 6 days out of the month. NFP is extremely reliable when done correctly.
But that’s the catch: correctly.
You hear that NFP babies are super common, and that scares some avoiders off of NFP. People will always say “oh but I got pregnant using NFP” or “my sister got pregnant twice using NFP” – well, that is because you were doing it wrong. You either made a mistake somewhere, or you are not being honest with yourself about how thorough you were. No shame in this. I’ve been there. Doing NFP correctly is hard. It is a cross to bear. People mess it up either because they don’t have the patience to track accurately, or they don’t have the willpower to abstain during fertile days. Or, they are not being entirely honest with themselves (I like to think I’m pretty honest with myself, but, the temptation to be like “oh, surely this isn’t really a fertile day” is real, sometimes). NFP is also highly unnatural. Everything about it is contrary to a healthy, happy marriage. That’s why it’s so easy to mess up.
People who claim to be “open to life” while using NFP probably say that because what they mean is, if a slip-up were to happen, they would still keep that baby no matter what. But, if they’re really working hard to prevent slip-ups… I don’t know if they can properly call themselves “open to life,” at least not to the extent that someone who does not practice NFP is open.
What level of openness are we required to practice? Are we required to be radically open? Or are we allowed to plan, but required to accept God’s “veto” of our plans, if He chooses to do that? I’m honestly not sure about this one, which is why I’m writing this post.
All of that being a tangent to say that NFP is extremely effective, so much so that I think it actually is birth control.
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NFP is birth control. That much is pretty plain. But, on to part two of this post. Is use of NFP ever justified? Some say yes, it’s absolutely fine. Others say no, never.
“Grave reasons” or “serious reasons” is typically what you hear. If you have a “grave” or “serious” reason to avoid, then use NFP. But, IMO, the instructions from Rome are really, really vague regarding what a grave or serious reason actually is. They allude to financial or health reasons (although some other sources say financial reasons are actually not valid), but, they don’t really elaborate. I guess, to be fair, it would be hard to do that, since each family is so unique. I will do my best to thoroughly consider potential financial and health-related reasons below.
Financial reasons
In a perfect world, all married couples would be able to freely trust God with their fertility. But let’s be real. Life in this part of the world today is simply not what it was pre-industrial revolution. Lifestyle, for most people, is very different than it was two hundred years ago. We don’t live in synch with nature like we used to (and many of us simply don’t have that option). We have things like student debt, cars, car payments, mortgages, credit scores. The whole health care and insurance situation is fucked. Self-sufficiency is not the norm, it’s a luxury for those who can afford land and livestock. Living by today’s standards (with electricity and running water and climate control) costs a lot. It would probably be different if you lived like the Amish, but in our world, for most of us, it seems pretty unrealistic, and even unwise, to throw caution completely to the winds w/r/t conceiving children.
And society expects us to provide certain things for our kids, beyond just education, food, and shelter. We are also expected to provide them with material comfort, security, opportunities, and enrichment. People will go so far as to accuse you of child abuse if you cannot afford such things as family vacations, a college savings fund, or one whole bedroom per child.
Is there any weight to these accusations? Is it actually unethical to have kids if they’re going to have to share a bedroom, or never go on vacation, or have to work a job to save for college?
Personally, I’m a minimalist about these kinds of things. Vacations, to me, are fun but unnecessary. I don’t really feel I need a lot, materially – I did not grow up financially comfortable by any means, but my childhood was happy and not lacking. I always think it is so bizarre and alien when someone feels a college savings account is a life or death necessity. Yes, it would be awfully nice to have, sure – but, is my life worthless because I have student debt? Would I be better off never having been born? I don’t think any good Catholic will agree with that take!
Perhaps it’s not fair to generalize from my own experience. Just because I don’t require nice things, doesn’t mean all kids don’t… or don’t they? Does anyone really require those kinds of things?
Our modern society thinks life is meaningless if it’s not comfortable. That you’re better off dead if you don’t have nice things, if you have to struggle. A pretty twisted and sick mindset, IMO.
So, in general, I personally really don’t think finances are a pressing enough reason to avoid having a baby. In general.
But, when it comes to finances: I think there actually is a really pressing reason why use of NFP might be not only justified, but necessary. And that is: debt. If the parents have debts that they’re truly unable to pay, that’s a serious problem. Not debts that they are making timely payments on— I think it’s totally fine to go ahead and be open to life, if you’re able to manage your debts responsibly — but if you’re drowning in debt and have no way to start paying those debts off, then probably don’t have another kid.
It’s pretty simple, after all, isn’t it? We have an ethical duty to pay our debts. It is a sin not to do that. Having children in this day and age, unfortunately, costs a lot of money: you have to pay the hospital or midwife, you have to pay the pediatrician, and you have to feed them and educate them, all of which cost money if you’re doing it right. Intentionally having another child when you know full well that it would make you unable to pay your debts, might even be a sin — right? (Even if those debts are stupid; because it should not cost this much to have a kid, or to get basic health care: unfortunately, those are the circumstances that we’re in, and stamping our feet and wishful thinking will not change that.)
And we know that in Catholic moral philosophy, the ends do not justify the means. Even such a very good end as having a child does not justify the means of committing a sin. We’re looking for “grave reasons” to avoid here, and nothing is more grave than sin, right? Not financial insecurity, not even physical health. I’d have to check with a priest about this, but this seems to make sense to me.
Living in hardship is not an ethical failing. Your kids sharing a bedroom is not an ethical failing. Not being able to afford vacations, horseback riding lessons, a college savings plan — none of those are reasons not to have kids, IMO. But failing to pay debts is a sin, and sin is a pressing matter. (Now, if someone conceived on accident, and it was an honest mistake, that’s a different story, and the life of that child is obviously more important than any financial debt. I’m talking about intentionally conceiving, or being irresponsible and allowing it to happen when you know you ought not to.)
Health reasons
And so but what about health reasons? Are those serious? Obviously, if someone has life-or-death physical health reasons, such as cancer treatments or whatever, that is a good time to TTA using NFP. I think that goes without saying. Yes, there are cases of healthy babies being born in such situations, but it’s risky, and I think we have a responsibility to protect our own health.
Or, if a mom has a c-section for one baby, and wants to allow her body the recommended eighteen months-two years to heal so that she can plan for a natural birth for subsequent pregnancies (because, after all, if she can have natural births, her body will be better able to handle many pregnancies and births!) — isn’t that a valid reason? Or, should that mom just accept that, if she has another baby in the near future, she’s going to be a c-section mom forever?
What about if pregnancy is really hard on a mom, physically? Maybe she has hyperemesis gravidarum, or some other nasty symptom that makes pregnancy really hard on her, and takes away from her ability to care for her existing children or accomplish her daily tasks. Is she still required to keep being open?
I know that, personally, I used to feel like NFP was never, ever justifiable. Now, being pregnant with my fourth at 35, while I have a 5, 3, and 2 year old to take care of, as well as a house, and my nausea and fatigue have been harder this time around — I really begin to see why some feel the need to TTA. I was basically incapacitated for three months, and my kids suffered because of it. I don’t have a “village” around me to really help out, so it’s all on me. I admit, for months, my kids watched TV literally morning to night, ate no home-cooked meals, only processed snacks, and only had a bath every three or four days, while the house around us went to absolute shit and we had to wade through clutter everywhere we went. I did what I could, but I had no help. Pregnancy sickness is real.
Should I keep on doing this again and again, forcing my kids to miss out on months of their life? Does the good of having another sibling outweigh the bad of that lost time? Which responsibility is more pressing, my responsibility to take care of my kids and home (beyond just the bare basics, that is), or my responsibility to trust God and “be fruitful and multiply”? I really, honestly don’t know.
It’s hard.
Which brings me to mental health reasons. What about mental health? God made people with different personalities, different energy levels, different capacities for expending vs. conserving energy. Someone who is an introvert and requires a certain amount of quiet and “conservation” time, simply would not thrive with more than five or six kids!
Or, could they? Wouldn’t God grant them the grace to make it work, if they trusted Him? After all, kids get older and more self-sufficient. Not that they don’t still require attention, but, as they grow up it does get easier on Mom, strictly physically speaking. She will have more opportunities for “me time” when her kids grow up, no matter how many of them she has, right? It’s just a brief period of her life, when her kids are little; shouldn’t she sacrifice her peace, for the good of bringing kids into the world? Maybe some would say yes. After all, worldly happiness isn’t everything, right?
Personally, I’m a slow-moving type of person who requires a lot of time with my own thoughts. I can’t just rush around accomplishing tasks all the time nonstop. If you’re not of this personality type, you might just say I’m “lazy,” but that’s not it, because I’m actually pretty disciplined and productive. I simply need to plan for periods of time during the day when I can sit still and read or write or whatever, like I’m doing right now. My mental health suffers if I never get to pause. My mood suffers, and I become unpleasant and eventually snap. Is this a valid reason to stop having kids? I honestly don’t know. If I were holier and more saintly, I guess I wouldn’t require “me time.” But, I’m not that advanced.
Or what about those women who suffer from debilitating postpartum depression? Or, God forbid, postpartum psychosis? For some women this is incredibly real and even dangerous. I can’t see how God would be offended if such a mom avoided or at least postponed pregnancy — right?
Or maybe there are family reasons. Maybe one spouse wants to keep having kids, but the other doesn’t. We can’t just disregard the feelings of our spouse, even if we think they are wrong. Sometimes, in marriage, we have to sacrifice our vision of the picture-perfect, most morally-unimpeachable family life, to accommodate our spouse’s feelings (because it’s not really a perfect or ethical family life if you disregard your spouse’s feelings, is it).
Maybe some couples are more spiritually advanced to the point where they truly aren’t bothered by any worldly concerns at all. They don’t care if they don’t have free time; they get all the mental health support they need from the Sacraments. They are basically saints already. That’s awesome! God has been generous to them, and they should absolutely return that generosity by having lots of kids.
But, not everyone is that spiritually advanced. Some of us are just doing our best. We shouldn’t pretend to be further along than we are. We have to accept and be at peace with the degree of sanctity that God has permitted us to reach. If we simply don’t have the emotional/spiritual/mental capacity to be good parents to lots and lots of kids, then, isn’t it prudent and responsible to avoid having more of them?
I’m inclined to think that yes, in such cases, it is actually good and necessary to TTA. I’m not sure about this, but it seems to make the most sense to me.
I am sure of at least one thing: no couple who has the privilege of financial abundance, freedom from debt, great physical and mental health, and a “village” around them to make family life easier, should ever look down their nose at NFP users who are doing their earnest best. You are in that position because you are lucky. (True, maybe you worked hard to get to this point, but, Who gave you the grace to be able to work that hard? Nothing that we have comes from us, after all. We’re not all built the same, and you truly don’t know what it’s like inside someone else’s head, or to have their life.) Being lucky and blessed does not make you morally superior to anyone else.
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So, as you can see, I’m still conflicted, but I do believe that there are sometimes pressing reasons to use NFP. Even though it’s birth control and not “open to life,” NFP is definitely superior to other methods of birth control, because, like I said earlier, it doesn’t corrupt the sexual act itself in any way. You’re not mutilating your body or messing with your hormones or placing a barrier between you and your spouse. It still sucks (it really sucks), but, you can see why the Church does OK its usage in certain scenarios.
But I’m definitely open to having my mind changed on this (believe me, I’d love to have more kids!), so if you have a strong argument to the contrary, please, send it my way!
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Warning: this post contains what I’d consider “spoilers” for the plot of the movie The Whale (2022). If you haven’t seen the movie already, definitely go watch it ASAP, then come back and read this if you want.
I’m late, I know. I’m always slow to see new movies. Even before I had children, I pretty much only ever went to a movie theater if someone else invited me. The last time I set foot in a movie theater was a rare occasion in September of 2022, when my husband and I went to see Nope for our birthday (we have the same birthday, four years apart, and we’re both big fans of Key & Peele, and loved Get Out, so we were pretty stoked about Nope; IMO the chimpanzee scenes were better than the alien ones, and creepy as heck).
But so anyway, true to form, I only just watched Darren Aronofsky’s highly-acclaimed film adaptation of the play The Whale a couple of nights ago, even though it’s apparently been out since 2022?!
What finally inspired me to watch it was: well, for one, my husband recently decided to delete Netflix because they keep hiking their ridiculous prices up (guess we’ll have to temporarily resubscribe in the fall for GBBO), so, since we canceled our subscription but still had the service for a few days, and we didn’t have a show to watch that night, we decided to just scroll Netflix like “well, let’s see if we can get anything out of this while we still have it.”
And, for two, I love Brendan Fraser as much as any other millennial, and had read that this movie was like his big comeback after Hollywood did him dirty and tried to ruin him. And, for three, as we were scrolling Netflix and I saw that they had this Brendan Fraser movie that I’d read a bit about, I noticed in the description that it was directed by Darren Aronofsky, of whom I’ve been a huge fan since I first saw Pi in like 2009 or ‘10 (it was shown to my class one day during an elective I was taking called “Magic, Science, and Religion”). Black Swan was huge for me, as I’m sure it was for anyone with an ED. In fact, that was one movie that I did go out to the theater alone to see (one day when I was desperately trying to find some reason to get the hell out of my house because it was a really bad ED day, so it was perfect). So already when I saw that name I was sold.
But also, for four, I saw that, obviously, the movie deals with the issue of weight/fatness, which, as you know, is an endlessly fascinating topic to me. And it was about a writer – a writing professor, actually, and I have a fair bit of experience with those (believe it or not). Plus, it sounded like one of those quiet, character-driven stories that I’m such a simp for. So, seeing all of this in the Netflix description, I told my husband to hit play immediately.
What I did not realize before watching The Whale was that it takes place in northern Idaho, as do pretty much all of this playwright’s works. I haven’t read the play – I’m not huge on reading plays, tbh, and have never really enjoyed reading one – but I looked up Samuel D. Hunter, and I guess he lives in and writes pretty much exclusively about the Idaho Panhandle. Which, if you know me, you know I absolutely flipped out about, because a certain fictional character of mine also hails from the Idaho Panhandle (his hometown even got a mention in the movie!). In fact, some years ago, I was so intent on learning about this character’s backstory in this location, that I once flew out there solo (a long flight, from where I live) and spent two weeks just hanging around the town, exploring, sleeping at a motel, getting a feel for the place – which was super weird, objectively, because it’s not really a tourist town, and I was just a lone 25 year old woman who didn’t know a single (real) person in that town, and it was just seriously super weird, but super interesting for me. I was delighted to find that the place was exactly the way I’d seen it in my imagination – even more so, if that makes sense. The whole time I was there I kept looking around at the most mundane things and going “but of course!!”
So, yeah, I kind of have a weird passion for that whole area, and one thing I loved very much about The Whale is that it manages to capture a very strong sense of northern Idaho without once leaving that little apartment. In college, one of my most memorable courses was one called “Writing About Place,” and the professor (whom I idolized, and whom I’ve mentioned on this blog before) once said something along the lines of – I paraphrase roughly – every story is irrevocably tied to a place. It must always be true that that story could only happen in that place. You really feel that, about The Whale and northern Idaho.
The other thing I did not realize before watching this movie, but that pleasantly surprised me, was that it is very much about God and religion, as well as the ethics of sexuality and marriage: both favorite topics of mine. However: this brings me (finally) to the actual point of this blog post.
This movie was perfect, IMO. I could not stop watching it. My husband and I always watch something on TV at night after the kids are in bed, and always, if it’s a movie or a longer episode of TV, anything longer than like an hour, I need to pause it halfway through and go to bed, because I am old and tired and a mom of young kids. But this one, I could not pause. I stayed up stupidly late to finish it, and felt it the next day, but had no regrets. It was riveting and wildly entertaining and also brilliant, and forced me to experience Emotions, which I simultaneously love and hate. To say nothing of the obviously-stellar acting. All in all, flawless.
But actually there was, for me, just one flaw. And it’s not even so much a flaw of the movie itself, so much as perhaps a flaw in the understanding of the individual(s) who created it.
It’s in that scene right near the end, when Thomas shows back up to the apartment all excited because he believes he’s finally figured out why God brought him to Charlie’s place. Thomas explains to Charlie that he (Charlie) is suffering because he’s living according to the flesh (accurate), and that God wants him (Charlie) to turn to Him and allow Him to help him. And Charlie calmly debates him on this, and the conversation turns to Charlie’s deceased lover Alan, who died tragically, and it ends up reaching a point where Charlie asks Thomas: do you really think God turned His back on Alan because they (Alan and Charlie) were in love? And Thomas, with whom I’ve pretty much loosely/tentatively/conditionally agreed this whole time, thinks about it, and admits: Yes.
That’s the flaw!! I feel like the filmmaker was hereby trying to represent the POV of religious folks in general, and failed. Well, maybe certain sadly misguided Protestants out there think this, that God turns His back on sinners – but well-formed Christians know that’s not true. God never turns His back on us. As we see in the story of the Prodigal Son, God is a loving father, always waiting for us with open arms! In His mercy He has given us free will, so that we can choose to love Him. He could have just created us to be robots with no choice but to love Him, but that wouldn’t be meaningful, would it – it’d be dumb and sad, the same way it’d just be depressing and sad to be married to a robot you’d built yourself for the express purpose of loving you. I don’t know about you, but I want my spouse to freely choose me with his whole heart and mind, just as we are free to choose, or not choose, God. God does not turn His back on us. If we go to hell, it’s because we chose hell, and God in His mercy is honoring our free will, even though it saddens Him greatly when we turn away from Him. I’m clearly no catechist or apologist here, but I think this more or less sums up the correct, Catholic POV of God’s attitude toward sinners.
It’s unfortunate that the filmmaker(s) seem to think we Christians believe in a God who would abandon us for making mistakes. No wonder they resent us so much! I find myself wishing that Charlie had been approached by a Catholic, instead of whatever weird sect Thomas was supposed to belong to (in the play, he was actually Mormon, apparently, and was called Elder Thomas. How weird is that, a nineteen year old “Elder!”).
I feel like the creators have perhaps not been exposed to any real Christians. Which is sad, but unsurprising, considering that I’m pretty sure the SSPX presence in the Idaho panhandle is approximately zero. 😀
But, perhaps I misunderstood what they were doing here. Maybe they were not actually trying to comment on religion as a whole. Maybe Thomas only spoke for himself, and for that weird Mormonish flavor of Protestantism in which he was formed. Maybe, since this story is so firmly grounded in northern Idaho, it was only commenting on the particular brand of religion that’s widely available out there. But, somehow, I really got the impression that his character was meant as a symbol of Christianity in general. I wonder what you all think.
And to be fair, Thomas was, in spite of all that, portrayed pretty sympathetically, as a realistic, fleshed-out, sincere and smart human being, albeit somewhat naïve. You don’t often see that in anti-religion stories – usually, they’ll portray religious folks as shallow, stuck-up, two-dimensional idiots – so, I appreciated that. But they seemed to imply that he will eventually “outgrow” his religion. And I got the vibe that that’s what the writer(s) think about religion – that it’s something to be outgrown. Which is unfortunate.
However. I think, in trying to show that religion is wrong and bad, they actually managed to show us something true and beautiful about religion and God.
Because they did a great job of portraying sinners sympathetically, too. Charlie obviously epitomizes “living in sin” – I mean, he left his wife and child for “love,” which is an irrational, unreliable, and flesh-driven phenomenon, regardless of your sexual orientation – and yet, he is a smart, wise, and compassionate guy, and you really feel for him, and see where he is coming from. It could be said also that he is gluttony incarnate, but, I don’t think he can be held accountable for gluttony, because he’s clearly an addict and emotionally unwell. It’s like how someone who commits suicide when they’re very depressed cannot be held accountable for this terrible sin, due to their disrupted mental state. Although Charlie, like any addict, obviously carries some responsibility for getting himself into this position in the first place. But, you can understand why he did. You completely relate and sympathize (at least, I did).
And for that reason, this movie actually does a really good job of portraying God’s mercy. When a story causes you, the viewer/reader to see things from God’s POV, and you see the goodness and spark of divine in a character, no matter how disgusting that person’s behavior – you start to see them through the lens of God’s mercy – that is, I think, the mark of a really worthwhile story.
So perhaps they might have messed up in trying to portray religion, but, regardless, I personally think they did a really good job (whether intentionally or not) of making a movie that shows us something about God: something edifying and true and beautiful.
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I’m not here to quote the Catechism or any authority on this, since, as far as I have been able to tell, there is no authoritative advice on this particular question – if there were, I wouldn’t be here writing this speculative little blog post, would I?
I know that those with physical health concerns are exempt from fasting, so, obviously, if you’re in early ED recovery and were underweight and are actively trying to restore weight, definitely don’t fast. But what about those of us who have been physically healthy for a while?
For those who aren’t aware (although, I’m assuming that, if you clicked on this post, you probably have some familiarity with EDs), an ED is not the type of problem that once you’re eating well again, you’re fine. It’s like an addiction in that it is very much a mental/emotional problem, and it is permanent, it stays with you your whole life, and “being in recovery” is always an ongoing, active process. You have to choose it every day. Even those who are doing really well are always at risk of relapse. Also, just because someone looks healthy on the outside does not mean they are healthy. Many, many people with terrible, life-ruining EDs might actually be normal-sized or heavy. Hope that clears up any potential misunderstandings.
Lent will be here soon, and so I am once again asking myself: what is a person in recovery from an ED supposed to do?
(I should specify here: someone with a history of ED who, like me, is not yet very advanced in the spiritual life. If you’re super advanced spiritually, to the point where worldly concerns no longer seriously bother you at all, and the ED stuff no longer has any kind of hold on your mind (except, maybe, in the form of fleeting temptation), then this whole post probably doesn’t apply to you. I’m talking about those of us who are still in what St. Teresa of Avila would call the first two to three Mansions of the soul – those of us who are still at all bothered by things of the world. St. Teresa compares these worldly concerns to rodents, snakes, and vermin that sneak in the doors of the Mansion. I feel like, for someone in these outer rooms, it’s probably not a good idea to pick up these vermin and play with them and try to befriend them — which is, basically, what fasting from food when you have a history of ED actually constitutes.)You may think it’s a simple answer: just don’t fast from food. Find some other way to fast, such as from caffeine, alcohol, social media, online shopping, or what have you. This seems to be the prevailing opinion in online Catholic places I’ve visited.
However, I’m not sure if the great saints would agree. I’m thinking of such saints as Augustine, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom, who stressed the importance of subjugating the flesh rather than being subject to it – referring to food and hunger, not to anything else. I can’t help but wonder if these great saints would think it’s a lazy cop-out on our behalf to say that we can’t fast because it affects our mental health adversely.
Throughout history, you see great saints who barely ate anything at all, or fasted on bread and water only, and who nevertheless were healthy and well and thrived until very old age. Look at the monks on Mt. Athos, always strictly fasting, yet some of the healthiest people on earth! So, doesn’t that prove that it’s just weak and lame of us, to claim that we can’t fast because it would “harm our emotional health?” I feel like, by playing this card, we out ourselves as just pampered, wimpy 21st century Westerners with no real problems.
Of course, you might argue that, well, fasting, in our case, could likely put us in a state of mind that’s vulnerable to relapse, and if that happens, then our physical health would suffer too, which perhaps feels less wimpy than complaining about our feelings. But, for counterpoint, see previous paragraph. We shouldn’t worry so much about our physical health, right, because the great saints have shown us that, if we truly fast for God, He won’t let it actually harm us.
But therein lies the problem, I think. Is someone with an ED even capable of fasting for God? I kind of don’t think so. I know in my case, whenever I even think about restricting food, it lights up the “yes, weight loss!” and/or the “I will be so perfect!” centers in my brain, out of which practically nothing good ever proceeds. I imagine it’s the same for anyone who’s had a serious or long-lasting ED. It seems impossible for us to fast without it being selfish (which an ED very much is, essentially). Even if we think we’re doing it for God, we’re probably actually getting some addictive, ego-pleasing little hit out of it. Heck, I think even if we yielded control to someone else, did it someone else’s way, let someone else prescribe us a specific plan with exact instructions what to eat and what not to, it would still light up all those disordered centers in our brains, because we would follow instructions the best, following the instructions would make us morally unimpeachable, etc. These processes are immediate, emotional reactions, not a conscious thought process that we can choose to interrupt.
I guess we could, with constant effort, work on fasting while also working on overcoming this disordered connection. But let’s be real, if fixing that broken connection were actually possible, EDs wouldn’t be such a cruelly persistent problem. As I said earlier, there is no cure. And the mental burden placed on an ED recoverer trying to fast, could be likened to that of a bona fide alcoholic trying to practice drinking in moderation. It simply does not work. Alcohol in any quantity is bad for the alcoholic.
So does it follow that restricting food, to any degree, is always bad for an ED recoverer?
I’m not sure. From my own experience, I know that, at times, as a recovered person, I realize how much physically better I feel when I eat lightly and get some exercise. Not even in a way that’s related to my size (not consciously, anyway); I simply feel physically better, and realizing that, as a recovered person, is a very liberating feeling, because it’s like, hey, I can eat salads and drink water without it being sad and disordered! I can actually choose between light and heavy foods according to my preferences! How novel!
But, at the same time, I’ve realized I have to be really careful when I feel that feeling. Feeling healthy and feather-light is super addictive to me, and pretty soon, if I’m not careful, there’s a law set in stone, and it’s all raw veg all day long whether I like it or not, and this becomes really hard to break out of.
So, is restricting always bad for someone with an ED? No, and yes. It’s slippery.
That’s why I think mandatory fasting from food for a predetermined length of time, is probably a bad idea for anyone with a history of serious ED. Our brains are broken. We just can’t fast like normies can.
But then what are we supposed to do for Lent? Should we just give up social media? That’s a good one, but IMO it doesn’t subjugate the flesh the same way fasting from food does (we who have been chronic restricters are already masters at subjugating the flesh that way, frankly; if you have ever been diagnosed with anorexia, suffice it to say that you’ve already earned an A+ in not yielding to the whims of your stomach). Should we perhaps give up a particular food or kind of food, and replace it with something equally nourishing that we enjoy less? Like, in my case, I might consider replacing my nightly chocolate protein smoothie with, like, a bowl of plain scrambled eggs, or something?
But tbh even the thought of that is lighting up my ED centers again. “Yes, I will be so good, I can do without pleasure!” “I can be so pure!” “I will only consume healthy proteins, I will cut out so much sugar!” To someone who’s never had an ED, these probably sound like great and healthy thoughts – but, if you’re prone to EDs, you get why they are not.
So, I’m inclined to think that any kind of “food law” is a bad idea, for us. We have something of an allergy to food laws.
One of my best, and hardest, Lenten fasts was actually the year I made myself sit down to eat meals with my family three times a day, hahaha. Normally I hate eating meals, and prefer quick, solitary snacks at random times throughout the day, staying pretty hungry until my one “large snack” right before bed. (Don’t talk to me about how unhealthy this pattern is, I already know. Trust me, I’ve spent decades trying to figure out how to manage food in my life, and I finally have a sustainable system that works decently well for me, so I’m not gonna fuck with it.) That Lent was really challenging, especially at first.
But honestly I don’t know if I’d repeat it, because I realized after the fact that any dietary law change like that kind of screws with my head, like, I found myself expecting to lose weight or achieve some higher level of perfection or familial bliss or something, like I’d win some Great Mom award for being so wholesome (“Look at me, I always make sure my family sits down to eat together three times a day, get on my level!”); and, like, I became slightly neurotic and puritanical about it, getting twitchy if my kids were out somewhere and I had to eat alone. It just didn’t feel entirely Lenten, that way, but more like a personal improvement exercise (not necessarily a bad thing, and perhaps I should try it again, but not as a Lenten fast). Self-improvement is not supposed to be the point of Lent at all.
And that’s the thing. It’s not even that fasting is bad for an ED recoverer’s health. It’s that, coming from us, fasting is not a good sacrifice for God.
So what will I do for Lent, then? I must find some way to subjugate the flesh without imposing food laws. Cold showers? Yikes, maybe. Exercise? Risky, as exercise addiction is a very real part of ED for many of us, including me. Waking up early? Extra chores? Yikes, might be a good idea. Will have to give it some prayerful consideration.
“But wait, Mith,” you may be saying, “you say no food laws, but aren’t you a vegetarian?”
I am, indeed, seven days a week. But at this point I’m literally vegetarian out of personal taste. I spent so many years avoiding meat for ethical/ED reasons, that I have developed an aversion to it; nowadays I simply find meat gross. I honestly wish I could go back to eating it, because I struggle with protein intake (see my post about my shitty hair). But when I eat meat I can’t get past the idea that I’m chewing on a carcass, that my stomach has become a graveyard, and it gives me the major ick. Although, I’m not a hardass about it, like, when I was pregnant with my son and randomly craved meat, I honored that and ate what I was craving (Arby’s roast beef sandwiches, and, a real nostalgia flavor for me, Fischer’s pickled bologna).
So would the great saints tell me I’m a wimp, for claiming exemption from fasting? Maybe. But they didn’t live in 21st century America, where EDs are a serious epidemic, so they probably wouldn’t understand. It’s a different world these days. New environments breed new diseases. I’m sure they understand now in Heaven.
After all, there’s nothing great about fasting in and of itself. Just like any suffering, it only has value if you do it for love of God. Which ED folks cannot. So, if we can find other ways to subjugate our flesh for love of God, I don’t know if God will really care that we did it some other way instead of by restricting food. He might even prefer that. At least, I hope so.
ETA: Part Two of this post is now available here!
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Are we morally obligated to look good? This question has bothered me since basically the onset of puberty/my ED (which both occurred, unsurprisingly, at the same exact time), and continues to bother me now, twenty-odd years later, as I am seriously considering chopping all my hair off.
I chopped all my hair off once before, in like 2015 it must have been, around the time I started trying to get sober and read the novel “Dietland” and basically really leaned into this kind of “fuck societal beauty standards,” “imma do me” philosophy, which was super freeing. However, short hair looked awful on me. At work, I was constantly getting mistaken for a dude (it didn’t help that I have a deepish voice, big hands, and a flat chest). I looked terrible, like, seriously, and after a few months, when I got into a relationship (the same guy who was crazy enough to date (and then propose to) my unstable ass was also crazy enough to find me “attractive” even with super short hair, or so he claims; I still don’t buy it) and started wanting to look nice again, I couldn’t wait for the hair to grow back in. I vowed never to chop it all off again!
So why am I wanting to do it again, a decade later? Because: I had three kids in three years, and postpartum hair loss has done a real number on me, like, it’s bad, I’m not exaggerating when I say that I think my hair volume has decreased by at least 70%. It’s a tragedy; it looks terrible; I don’t have the time, energy, or funds to “take care” of it (I’ve always been a simple girl w/r/t hair care: just shampoo, conditioner, and maybe a leave-in conditioner – too much hair product gives me the ick, I hate gels and aerosol sprays and anything that makes my hair feel like it’s got stuff in it; and this routine worked fine for the first thirty-one years of my life). So, my hair sucks, it’s getting worse, I am powerless to do anything practical about it, and every time I see it, touch it, or think about it, this mess that is stuck to my head, it causes me great emotional distress; which means, as far as I can tell, my options are either wrap it up or chop it off. I worry about wrapping it, frankly, because I am white and I’m afraid I’ll get accused of cultural appropriation and/or mistaken for a cancer patient. So, chop it off, then?
But is that even okay to do? In my faith community, women don’t cut their hair short. Not because we believe it’s a sin, it’s just a cultural norm. Short hairstyles on women only became popular for Western women in the 20th century, along with some forms of immodest dress; in a way, bobs and pixies were I guess like an expression of “rebellion against the patriarchy,” which attitude is very much not in keeping with my faith. Women are expected to present as feminine and men as masculine (which also means that long hair on men is frowned upon, which, suffice it to say I have a few feelings about as well, lol). So, if I chop my hair off, I’ll probably get some funny looks, and people will probably judge me. It’s not like I can go to Mass wearing a t-shirt that says “it’s not a political statement, it’s postpartum hair loss,” lol.
But obviously if a woman has to chop her hair for medical reasons, that’s different, right? But, if I still have a choice (as in, my head is not bald with patches of hair, it’s still covered in hair, just very very thinly), am I not morally obligated to choose the option that will look nicer and more feminine?
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In the Catholic world, we take Beauty very seriously. The Beautiful is right up there with the Good and the True. Beauty reminds us of God. Furthermore, Catholics are very “bodily.” We believe that the body and its senses are, basically, good. We are not a soul trapped in a meat prison (despite my frequent jokes about my meat prison or, as I like to call it, meat tank – “not a tradwife, but a tread wife,” that’s me) – our soul and body are inextricable. We are both, and our bodies will be resurrected in the next life (which is why we are not cool with cremation). This “bodiliness” is also why we like our feast days, our outward signs and symbols, our beautiful ornate churches, and all that. God made us physical creatures with the capacity to experience pleasure and appreciate beauty!
As such, we have a duty to take care of ourselves. After all, our bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit,” so we ought to dress and act like it. St. Francis de Sales says in “Introduction to the Devout Life” that his advice to his spiritual advisees is to always be the best-dressed, but most simply and inconspicuously dressed, person in the room. I.e., we should strive at all times to be clean, groomed, tidy, sensible, pleasing to the eye without being immodest or showy.
In this same vein, in the contemporary world of Catholic influencers and social media, you’ll often see discussions/reels addressing the subject of whether spouses are obligated to stay in good physical shape for their partner. (Which, in this era of “body positivity” and anti-diet culture, is pretty controversial.) And the consensus is: yes, they are: it is your duty, as a spouse, to make yourself as attractive as possible for your spouse. (This goes both ways, before you go accusing anyone of sexism.)
Which is not at all to say “you should marry someone solely for their appearance” or “if they put on weight, you can emotionally abuse or even divorce them” – those are definitely not the Catholic way. The point is, marriage is just as much physical as it is spiritual, therefore as spouses we have a responsibility to maintain that aspect of our marriage. If your partner doesn’t make an effort to take care of themselves, not only is that not good for them personally, it’s not good for their spouse either. “The two become one flesh,” etc.
Obviously, spouses have a special obligation to take care of and look after each other, to consider each other’s preferences. But even non-married people have a responsibility to take care of themselves and look presentable. (And this is not saying that people with better genes are morally superior. What you’re born with has no moral weight; it’s what you choose to do with it. A naturally gorgeous, skinny woman who doesn’t wash or groom herself and goes out in sweats and a t-shirt is failing, while a naturally homely, chubby woman who styles her hair, cleans herself up, and puts on a nice outfit, is succeeding.) This, as far as I have gleaned, is the Catholic POV on physical appearance and self-care.
Now, for me, and probably for a lot of women of my generation, and perhaps women in general (but I think especially those of us who came of age in the era of the Special K Diet and America’s Next Top Model, and had it ingrained into our young minds that thin and beautiful = superior), this can be a huge turn-off. Everything in us might hear “you have a moral obligation to be pretty” and, as a trauma response, retaliate with great violence and anger. “Oh no you don’t! I’ma stop you right there, don’t even try that one on me! I did my time in that hellscape, and I’m still healing from my trauma! You know what, I ain’t morally obligated to look good for anyone, my body is my business and my business only!!” If, like me, you ever went through a “revenge ugliness” phase (I’ve had a couple), you certainly get it.
Revenge ugliness is still something I have an inclination for. In fact, I probably let this inclination get the better of me, more often than not (it’s why my entire wardrobe looks like oversized trash bags). Like many of us who wrestled for many years with an ED and are tired, I am over the pressure to look sexy and appealing. I also hate the sensation of tight-fitting clothes – so many years of being so painfully body-conscious have made it so that I cannot relax in a fitted top. It gives me the ick. (This is also, apparently, not uncommon among women with ED history or body image issues.) We just don’t want to be perceived at all (also at play here, in my case, are the AvPD and my desire to dress modestly – although, if I’m being honest, my trash bag maxi skirts are only 20% for “modesty” and 80% to conceal my most hated feature, my hideous legs). So, revenge ugliness: just leave me alone to rot in my trash bag.
I felt the same about my super short hair, when I had it. It felt liberating. There’s something really comforting about revenge ugliness: setting oneself free from the male gaze. Back when I used to be really thin, wear makeup, and dress more prettily, I used to get more attention, more kindness, more interest, more acknowledgement in public spaces. It’s kind of cool to know that, if I cared, I could change people’s perception of me, but I don’t, so, it’s like a nice cloak of invisibility. It’s like opting out of this cruel game that all women are thrust into from the onset of puberty, whether they want to play or not.
But: revenge ugliness is not a Godly attitude to have. The Godly attitude would be, I guess, an honest appraisal of one’s naturally good and less-good features, and dressing accordingly, in a way that is modest, aesthetically pleasing, and demonstrates that you have some respect for yourself, your neighbors, and your daily life. So, for me, probably not trash bags and a buzz cut.
But: does God expect me to make myself that uncomfortable, just for the sake of being aesthetically pleasing? Does He expect me to just suck it up and deal with the emotional and even physical discomfort of living with my hideous thinning, scraggly hair, because at least the length is somewhat “feminine?” Does He expect me, as a married person, to exchange my oversized baggy tops for something snug and cute that gives me the major sensory ick, just because it would be more ladylike and my husband would prefer it?
I’m not sure about that. I think God expects us to do the best we can with what we’ve got. Psychological and emotional baggage is part of “what we’ve got.” Maybe I wasn’t born with this baggage, but it’s become a part of me, and now it is among the factors that I must take into consideration when deciding how to present myself. I think, if dressing a certain way is significantly uncomfortable for a person, they probably aren’t expected to dress that way (with some exceptions, of course, like, if someone is super uncomfortable wearing anything more modest than underwear, they should probably seek psychiatric treatment, as there are certain rules that simply must be observed: for example, women have to wear long dresses and cover their heads in church, whether they are comfortable or not – however, there are such a variety of headcoverings and materials to choose from that realistically everyone can find something that agrees with them). As long as we’re not being disrespectful and/or violating some basic societal convention, we probably have some leeway in how exactly we choose to dress. Especially under extenuating circumstances: if you’re sick, or just had a baby, or disabled and unable to keep up with self-care. God only expects us to do the best we can with what we’ve got.
So, maybe the trash bags can stay, as long as they’re clean and tidy and wrinkle-free.
But, would chopping all my hair off constitute a violation of societal convention? Would it be disrespectful? Would I be prioritizing a selfish desire (for comfort, for my own pleasure and relief) over my duty (to look feminine, to respect my husband’s preferences (because, come on, every straight man prefers long hair))?
Believe me! If I could have long hair, I would. I don’t want to rebel against the patriarchy. My hair is a travesty, at this point, and it’s not a thing of “beauty” by any stretch of the imagination — but would it be even worse if it were shorter? I’m on the fence.
Well, damn. I was hoping that writing all this out might help clarify the best course of action, but alas. I still can’t tell if the desire to chop is the old “revenge ugliness” urge coming up again, or if I honestly think it’d be for the best given my circumstances. — Or maybe just a little bit of revenge ugliness is acceptable, within certain parameters?
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A few days ago, I saw a post on one of the Catholic IG pages I follow – a nice little post saying something like (I paraphrase): “let’s encourage parents of small children when we see them struggling at Mass! Children should be welcome in the presence of the Lord, He said so Himself!” A nice sentiment, trying to reassure us parents of noisy, squirmy future saints.
And then, predictably, who do we find in the comment section but a bunch of young men (whose bios mostly said “Class of ‘23,” “Class of ‘26” or some such) saying: “no! parents need to control their kids!” “Teach your kids to behave! Kids need to be taught how to be quiet and sit still!” “Parents of noisy young kids are lazy and selfish! learn to control your spawn or don’t take them in public spaces!” “if your kids are acting up it’s because you’re a bad parent!”
I have a lot of feelings about this.
For one, to these young men: please, go finish your homework, and report back in 10 years or so when you have some actual parenting experience. But, self-righteous college kids aren’t the only ones filing this complaint, so I’d like to take this opportunity to respond to anyone and everyone who’s out there accusing parents of littles of “not disciplining their children” or “not teaching their kids how to behave at Mass.”
Listen: the tl;dr of it is this: we are teaching our children. They are learning. The very word “learning” implies a process, a learning curve. Children below the age of approximately four require plenty of time and practice to learn this skill, and for some, who are more hyperactive or stubborn by nature, it is actually impossible for them to sit quietly for over an hour. You cannot expect them to show up to Mass one day already knowing what to do.
Now, I will admit that parents of disruptive, unruly kids should step out. Most churches have a cry room or a nursery or at least a vestibule or lobby. Just because we have little kids who are struggling, does not mean we are entitled to ruin Mass for everyone else and make life hard for the Priest.
And it is also true that we do need to be making an effort to teach our kids. Don’t be sitting there zoned out while your toddler is running up and down the aisle. Catch that little goblin and take him out! This is especially true of children over age 4-5 or so. Unless they’re special needs, by that point, they do have the mental capacity to follow instructions and sit quietly. If your kids are 7, 8, 9 and making a ton of noise playing with plastic toys in the pews and you’re not shushing them, then yes, sorry, I am judging you and probably even giving you the stink eye.
But those of us with preschoolers and toddlers – either help us out, or leave us alone. We are trying here. Give us a break. Please go read a book and learn about how a toddler’s brain works before you come at us about silencing our kids.
Speaking of books, a while ago I read a really good book from the ‘50s called How To Raise Good Catholic Children or something like that (highly recommend, for moms, btw), and in it, the author (an American mom of like 13 kids) says that babies and toddlers should stay home – that it is neither normal, good, nor necessary to bring babies/kids under kindergarten age to Mass! I guess in that time, people just stayed home with little kids – parents alternated going to Mass with the older kids, or whatever. This very pious woman, writing in the ‘50s, talked like it was simply weird and silly to bring toddlers to Mass, as it would just be disruptive, and besides, parents of young kids are exempt from the Sunday obligation if they don’t have childcare options.
Honestly, thank you to this writer. I don’t know why this custom changed in modern America. These days there’s this huge, well-meaning pressure on parents to “bring your little kids to Mass! Expose them to it early! They will receive so many graces just by being there, and it’s important for them to see their parents at Mass,” etc. In a way, this pressure annoys me even more than the haters telling us we’re bad parents because our 3 year olds make noise. This toxically-positive “bring your kids! they are welcome! don’t let anything stop you!” attitude really creates a massive sense of pressure for us parents of little kids, as if we’re failing our kids and setting them up for a life of sin if we’re not bringing them to Mass weekly from the time they are born.
And I see the results of this pressure in the online Catholic Moms places where I hang out. The absolute suffering that some moms go through to make it to Sunday Mass, whether they’re in the first trimester and horribly sick, or they have multiple toddlers and a baby and no help and they’re trying to wrangle them all and keep everyone quiet – forget being present for the Mass! It just becomes a battle that moms grit their teeth and suffer through weekly, trying to keep their kids calm while feeling the judgment of everyone around them. “But they’re getting so many graces just by being here!” Maybe so, but honestly, an innocent toddler will probably be okay receiving those ever-available graces later on once it doesn’t require such a Herculean effort from their mom.
I see Catholic moms these days in some kind of competition with each other for who’s the toughest. “How soon did you take your newborn to Mass?” “I took mine a week after she was born.” “Oh, well I took mine 3 days after, I’d had a c section and I was in agony the whole time but I did it!” “I took mine the day we got discharged from the hospital, had to sit on a pillow and couldn’t kneel and didn’t hear a word of the Mass, but at least I was there!” What ever happened to Churching of Women, a tradition which honors the six-week recovery period that God has written into a woman’s biology, a period which is recognized and honored in cultures around the world. New moms need to stay home and rest.
Give moms a break. We need to stop pitting them against each other in the suffering olympics. Sickness, recovery, and childcare are all valid exemptions. We’re not holier than anyone else for forcing ourselves to go to Mass when we’re not well or able enough. Winning the suffering olympics will not make you a saint.
And it’s the same with bringing little kids to Mass. Every other post on these forums is “how do I get through Mass? My kids are x, y, and z years old and it’s so hard on me and my husband!” And you inevitably get one-uppy comments like “oh well my kids are x, y, z, a, b, c, d, and e years old, and I take them all by myself because Dad’s in the choir; all you have to do is just… ” (which advice doesn’t work for every kid all the time). The pressure to “bring your kids!” really creates a toxic mindset among Catholic moms, like if we just try harder, suffer more, we’ll be holy like these other moms who appear to be doing it better. I even saw several moms boasting about how they took their babies/toddlers to Midnight Mass on Christmas, because they just hate to miss it (because they’re sooo holy and devout!). A newborn, I can understand, because they sleep at weird hours anyway, but an 18-month old?? At midnight? Do you really think God expects that of you and your poor kid? Just go to the Mass during the day, to fulfill your obligation!
But, and I’ll keep saying it: caring for littles does constitute an exemption! If it’s seriously too hard, you’re off the hook!
That being said, I do bring my little kids to regular Sunday Mass – because of this societal pressure, and because everyone else at my parish does it. But do I wish the customs were different, that I weren’t expected to bring them? With a passion!
Given that there’s this pressure from all sides, our fellow parishioners need to cut us some slack. “Don’t feed your kids snacks in Mass! Don’t bring plastic toys! They should sit quietly and look at a picture book about the Mass, and if they get bored, then you’re just not helping them enough!”
I agree that snacks in the presence of the Lord are not a good idea — at all. I play this one by ear, personally; it depends on the parish. I would never dream of feeding my kids snacks during the TLM! But, when we were still attending the NO, if a quiet snack of some kind kept my kid from screaming, I’d give one. Because which would you rather I do, give them a quiet snack or just let them scream? (And yes, I would give them breakfast beforehand, and a snack in the car on the way here, and yes, I would always clean up the fallen crumbs in the pew after.) Same goes for toys. Absolutely don’t bring noisemaker toys or anything electronic, but if a plastic horse or a dragon puppet keeps my kid from screaming for a couple minutes, best believe I’m packing that sucker in the diaper bag.
“You should be teaching them the parts of the Holy Mass! Of course they’ll get bored if you’re not engaging them.” LISTEN. I try. I educate my kids about the faith constantly, it’s a huge part of their life. My three year old, she already knows the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be by heart, but when she’s already bored and restless and fidgety? She DOES NOT CARE. My almost-two year old, who can ID pictures of Jesus and Mary he’s never seen before, and kisses the crucifix all on his own? When he’s bored and fidgety, cares EVEN LESS. I try, nonetheless, and this is usually how it goes:
Me, whispering: Hey, look! Did you hear that bell ringing? Do you know what that means?
3, screaming, thrashing away from me, grabbing at my veil: Mooooom! No! NOOOO! I want to go outSIDE!!!
Or: me, whispering, pointing: Look, buddy, see up there? who’s that on the cross?
1.5: [starts to scream until I let go of him, then once free, runs off, laughing, and starts trying to mess with neighbor’s personal belongings]
Just one of these would be a challenge, but both at the same time? Come on now. What are we supposed to do?
Fine. Maybe I’m just a terrible parent. Call me what you will, I’ve tried everything. But keep in mind that my four-year-old sits quietly through a full ninety-minute High Mass more than 90% of the time, so am I really that bad, or are kids below a certain age just not designed to sit still and quiet for that long.
“But Mith, my two and three year old sit perfectly quiet and still, it’s not that hard, you just have to train them–”
QUIET! Your kids are not my kids. Congrats!, I’m thrilled for you that you birthed such well-behaved children, gold star and a cookie for the holiest mom ever! But this illogical debate tactic is called survivor’s bias: “I had an okay time, so everyone else should too.”
Moms of young kids are between a rock and a hard place here, where we must either (a) enlist in the suffering olympics and subject ourselves to the judgment of our neighbors by bringing our little kids to Mass, or (b) be treated as if we are not only failing our kids, but sinning by missing Mass, when in fact childcare is a valid exemption and no one ever talks about this fact!! Why does no one ever talk about this fact?
Get this! One time I was even talking to a therapist (a fellow Catholic), and in conversation I mentioned my struggles with wrangling the kids at Mass, and her response (to me, her therapy patient, who struggles with crippling fear of judgment from others) was: “oh, one time I saw this mom at Mass whose toddler kept throwing his toy, and she kept giving it back to him – I wanted to smack her! What an idiot!” Excuse me? I was like, well what if the alternative is the kid screeching if he doesn’t get his toy back? Do you think Mom wants to be leaning over and fetching the damn toy over and over? No, she’s probably doing whatever it takes to keep the kid from screaming! Would you rather the kid screech? Seriously! (Except, I only said that in my head while laughing in agreement, because I am afraid of confrontation and also incapable of being open & honest in therapy, lol.)
Give moms a break!
I know there are sometimes individuals who have auditory issues, like folks with autism or something, for whom the sound of little kids’ voices at Mass is very triggering. I am sorry for these people, I’m sure it’s awful and highly frustrating (and as I said, I do agree that parents need to make an effort and utilize the cry room), but unfortunately, I also don’t think it’s fair for such individuals to expect the whole world to bend to accommodate their unique needs. If one needs a quieter Mass, one can come to the earlier Mass, or on a weekday, or if it’s severe, talk to their Priest about a health-related exemption and possible alternatives.
So please, if you see a mom of littles who’s clearly trying, clearly fighting a battle: be nice to her. Help her out if you can, or offer an encouraging word after Mass. (If you see a mom who’s neglecting her 8, 9, 10 year olds and letting them dink around and cause a ruckus in Mass: by all means, judge away.) But I don’t want to hear anyone, especially know-it-all young men with zero parenting experience, yapping about how moms need to do better.
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TW: I am Catholic, and as such am opposed to birth control, IVF, surrogacy, abortion, etc., all of which I will mention in this post.
Some people – quite a lot of people out there, it seems – apparently think it’s unethical for parents past a certain age to have kids. Unethical! Wow.
As a mom, I’m on the older side myself: I gave birth to my first when I was 30, and have had two more since, and, God willing, would love to have even more. But now, I’m officially in the dreaded “Mid Thirties,” when, according to the Internet, fertility takes a nosedive, and women are basically used up and devoid of value (unless, of course, you’re very rich and can afford to make yourself look 20something still). Past the Mid-Thirties, you’d better get your tubes tied or be on a reliable birth control (if any man still wants to sleep with you, that is, which, good luck with that, grandma), because any kid of yours has a super high chance of being disabled or different, and we can’t have that; how inconvenient, how un-glamorous. That is the prevailing attitude online.
And IRL, too, it seems. At least where I live. I’m in a pretty “country” area where most new moms seem to be in the 18-25 age range. And no, I’m not shitting on young moms, and yes, I know, 18-25 is “peak fertility” so that is a good and normal thing that most moms are that age. Yay! I love that for them! All moms are equally deserving and valuable.
I do think it’s weird, though, that so many moms in this culture boast that they are/will be “done having kids by 30.” I guess the idea is, they want to be able to enjoy their late 40s/50s in freedom without having kids/teens to take care of, and they want to be still pretty spry when their grandkids are young. That’s all fair, and I can definitely see the advantages there; but are those really good enough reasons to close oneself off to potential life after your 30th birthday?
Also, the “fertility peaks before 25” statement is very much a vast generalization, for one thing. Some of us dealt with physical and mental health issues that killed our fertility In our teens and twenties, so much that we can literally count on two hands the number of menstrual periods we had between 14 and 29; some of us are actually way healthier and more fertile in our 30s, thank you very much. And for that matter, many of us older moms did not choose to be older moms. We would have loved to have kids in our 20s, but life did not happen that way, and we are just grateful to be moms at all. So thanks, Internet, for rubbing in our faces what we already know and regret and can’t change.
“But moms over 35 are more likely to miscarry or to have a baby with genetic conditions.” For one, there’s always a chance of miscarriage or pregnancy loss, which is tragic, so if you are not in a place to be able to cope with that, then you should probably not get pregnant right now.
As for genetic conditions: parenthood comes with risks. It can be hard. It is not guaranteed to be smooth sailing. You are not guaranteed to get the healthy, perfect babies you dreamed about when you were a little girl. If you are not open to difficulty, to tragedy, to hardship, to a thankless, unglamorous struggle, you should probably not get pregnant at this time. People really think kids are only worth having if they fit into our mental image of a picture-perfect life. If you would kill your child for having Downs, then parenthood is not for you.
And besides, the risk does go up, it’s true; but the risk is still minute. The fearmongering about “old moms” is really out of control.
Women have been having healthy babies in their late 30s and 40s since the dawn of humanity. The idea that we are morally obligated to get sterilized or go on birth control past a certain age, is so twisted! First of all because birth control is a moral evil and no one should be on it. (I know there are some exceptions for health conditions.) But even if it somehow weren’t, the idea that it’s “immoral” or “selfish” to have kids past a certain age, is absolutely false.
Obviously, the use of IVF and surrogacy are immoral — but a mom who naturally gets pregnant in her late 30s or 40s? There’s literally nothing selfish about her having that baby, in fact she is doing what she should. God designed women to be able to have children from teenage through almost 50. All of those years are equally natural and valid times to have a baby. If you conceived spontaneously, in the normal way, then guess what, you are fertile, you are in your childbearing years, you are able to have a baby; anyone who tells you otherwise is sorely misguided!
But what about the argument that old moms are being selfish because they’ll be too tired to be fun moms, or they won’t be around to see as much of their grandkids, or their kids will be forced to watch them age and die while said kids are still relatively young?
Sorry, but that’s just part of being a human in a family, isn’t it: people age, people die. Women are generally fertile from teens through almost 50, therefore, some kids are born to younger parents and some to older parents. Their experiences of their parents are likely to be different. (But not guaranteed. Some older parents are in great shape, live a long time, and are involved with their grandkids; some younger parents die young. Nothing is guaranteed. If you plan your whole life around avoiding pain and suffering, you’re going to have a really bad time (take it from me, I have a clinically diagnosed avoidant personality). Nothing is guaranteed.) So what? So what if one kid’s parents are older, as long as they are loved and raised well? Should that child have been prevented or aborted just because his parents aren’t running around him in circles in the yard, or don’t keep up with his music or slang, or because he will have to see them age or die while he’s still only in his twenties or thirties? Do those circumstances make his whole life a waste, would he be better off never having existed?
It’s pretty absurd thinking.
I mean if you think about it, the whole “I want to be done by 30” is, in fact, way more selfish than being open to life for as long as you can. So your free time/vacations/hobbies are more important to you than the potential children that you could be devoting yourself to? I’m not shaming anyone who loves their hobbies and vacations or whatever, but surely it’s clear how that is a more selfish choice than someone who could have chosen to enjoy their personal leisure time, but instead decided to give that time to their child.
So while initially I was pretty shook by all the negativity and stigma out there around “old moms,” and worried that I may have made a mistake, I have since realized that that negative buzz is all just another symptom of a very sick and massively deluded society. “Unethical”? For a married woman to get pregnant and have her child? People have such a bizarre idea of what “ethics” even is, these days!
Obviously I can understand preferring to have kids in your 20s. Being a young mom is more sexy, it’s glamorous, it looks more fun and people say you can “relate to your kids more” or whatever (although, I’m not here to be my kids’ bestie, I’m here to raise them). Teen moms are nowhere near as stigmatized as old moms, IMO – people like young people better in general. So I can understand preferring to have kids young, it being more fun at that age. I would have loved to be a young mom! But, let’s be real, every mom is just as much a mom as every other mom, regardless of age, and all pregnant ladies deserve our respect, not judgment. There’s no good reason to go on birth control or sterilize oneself after 30 or 35 (or ever, unless, again, you have some health condition that requires it for non-contraceptive purposes).
Okay, rant over. Leave old moms alone!
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…asking as a relatively “poor” person myself, who has been intensely judged by certain people around me for choosing to have kids. Are my accusers right? Am I irresponsible? Am I a child abuser for bringing kids into a life of financial discomfort??
CW: Pro-life, anti-contraception content follows.
If you’re still here: cool, hi friend, you rock! now, listen, I am just a random layperson who overthinks everything, okay, and this is all just my opinion that I’ve arrived at after a lot of mulling and stewing and prayerfully considering. I’m not trying to teach anyone the actual Catholic faith. I am not a priest or theologian. Please look elsewhere for formal instruction!
The other day I saw a reel from a pro-lifer I follow, responding to the common “pro-choice” argument that women in poverty need access to abortion in order to prevent more children from being born into a life of poverty and misery. Her response was basically this: all humans, regardless of their financial status, are equally valuable. In our society we tend to believe rich people are more important, more worthy, but this is false. We are all created equal, & etc. Then, in the comments, the pro-aborts were clapping back with: “we never said anything about the child’s value! It’s precisely because that child has value that he doesn’t deserve to be born into a life of poverty!”
Which sounds fair – but the thing is (and this is the point which the pro-lifer didn’t bother to make in her response, and I’m not blaming her for that, because it ought to be an absolute no-brainer, and anyone with a sane POV of human life would simply already know this): that child already exists. He lives inside his mom for now, but he is a separate human from her, and his body is not hers. Should we be allowed to drive to poor neighborhoods and just shoot little children on sight because they are poor and don’t deserve to be trapped in that life? Is that a noble and charitable thing to do? Obviously not. You don’t kill a baby who already exists simply because their family is poor.
But should his parents have had sex in the first place? (Obviously I’m not talking about cases where the sex was non-consensual, as in that case it wasn’t the mom’s decision to be open to life. And obviously, even in that case it is immoral to kill the child, who already exists and it’s not his fault he was conceived in such a way, and a second tragedy would not rectify the first. But I’m not talking about abortion or about cases where it was not the mom’s choice to be open to life.) The question this problem brings us to is: is it okay for poor people to be open to life (i.e. have sex at all)? Should poor people reproduce? Is it ethical for people who are poor to grow their family?
I think it’s important here to consider the difference between not having much and being in a lot of debt. You can be poor and living paycheck to paycheck (net zero), but not hopelessly in debt (net deep in the negatives). But having a ton of debt that you’re unable to pay is a different problem. (I think it’s probably okay to have kids while in debt as long as you’re able to make timely payments.) We have a moral obligation to pay off our debts. If you can’t make payments on your debts at all, it might be unwise to get pregnant, because kids cost money and not paying your debts is a sin, so in that case you’d be choosing to sin. So, for the purposes of this post, I am talking about not those couples who are drowning in debt and unable to make payments, but those who simply don’t have a lot.
It goes without saying that birth control is off the table. It is always pure evil (when used for contraceptive purposes; I know some women take it for health conditions). It is the root of so much evil in our modern world, and no one should ever use it – however, NFP (or Natural Family Planning, if you’re not familiar) is, in extreme cases, acceptable. I don’t know if it’s ever a good idea, but at times it might be necessary, like if one of the parents is having serious health issues, or they need to space births for pressing medical reasons. Anyway, for the purposes of this little SITV post, I just wanna make it clear that birth control is not an option, but NFP might be. Is it? I’m not sure.
The best and most morally perfect way to approach family planning is to not plan. As married couples, we should trust God completely with our fertility. After all, He arranged the whole universe, from all the billions of galaxies down to the workings of all the subatomic particles and how they interact; why would I believe that He can do all that, but He can’t figure out my household, oh no, this is too tricky, I better step in and take over here!
I hear a lot of trad women online profess that they live this way. They are Radically Open to Life. NFP is birth control, they say, and therefore it’s not the way to go. They seem to even look down their noses at families who use NFP.
I must say, I kinda agree with those women. I think they are doing it the most perfect way. But I also think they probably have a lot of privilege. They talk about making sacrifices in order to make this lifestyle work, but, I think they are assuming that their level of financial strain, and their specific sacrifices, are exactly as much as any other family would have to endure and give up. I think these women are forgetting that some people out there have bigger financial problems, have debt, and/or have jobs that pay less than six figures. People (myself included) tend to assume their level of “poor” is the same as everyone else’s.
Some people out there aren’t even sure if they will be able to afford the next month’s electric bill. Some people need food stamps to afford groceries. Should these people also be Radically Open to Life?
You might argue that they shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place, if they’re that poor. You should go into a marriage materially and mentally prepared to take care of a family, because that is the purpose of marriage. That is true, and a good priest would probably discuss that with the couple in pre-marriage counseling; but that aside, we’re not talking about “woulda coulda shouldas” here. Plenty of people with troubled financial pasts get married. Maybe they are working hard to increase their income, to achieve financial security. Let’s assume that, for whatever reason, they got married even though they were poor. Maybe unwise, but not a sin, and does not in any way invalidate the marriage; there’s no rule anywhere in Church teaching that says a couple must have x amount of money to get married. So, therefore, it’s still a marriage, which means that the rule still applies, doesn’t it: be fruitful and multiply.
But how fruitful? Should they stop after one or two? Is a poor couple obligated to avoid pregnancy (via NFP, of course) until they are more secure?
I found a super compelling article that argues the contrary. It’s really hard to find anymore. It used to be up on the SSPX website, but for whatever reason it’s not anymore, but I found it on some old forum a while ago. It was written by a priest in the 1940s and it’s called Rhythm: The Unhappy Compromise, or something like that. I really recommend tracking it down if you’re as interested in this topic as I am. Basically this priest argues that even poverty is hardly ever a serious reason for a couple to avoid pregnancy.
Because, think about it: Our Lord was born into serious poverty. He was born in a barn! Those are the circumstances that God, the God of the universe, the great eternal I AM, chose to come into our world in. His family was poor, working class; they had no financial security. Similarly, think of all the great Saints who come from poverty. St. Bernadette, St. Maria Goretti, and others. The author of this article I’m talking about was, himself, one of about twelve or thirteen children from a very poor family.
Our culture really looks down on families who “have more kids than they can afford.” I think some parents out there make all the other ones look bad (my husband used to be a social worker, and he tells me that he would sometimes see moms who would do stuff like sell their children’s food stamps in order to buy a new Xbox, etc. – corrupt, evil, lazy behavior). Not all poor parents are lazy or irresponsible. Many of them are doing the best with what they have, and making hard sacrifices. Making sacrifices, and accepting humiliation of help in the form of government benefits, despite the associated stigma, in order to prioritize bringing new life into the world. Is that so bad? Shouldn’t that be a priority? After all, that is God’s command to married couples, isn’t it? And besides, isn’t life supremely good?
That’s the problem, I think: we as a society do not believe that human life is, in and of itself, good. We believe it’s good only if it serves others, if it doesn’t burden others, if it’s pleasant and comfortable for the individual and those around him. If it’s unpleasant or a burden, it’s bad and should be avoided. We as a society believe that pleasure is the most valuable thing, and that we don’t owe anyone else anything. We’re all islands, free to pursue our own happiness – fuck everyone else, they’re not my problem. This is a very sad and distorted worldview. Human life is always a good thing, and it’s not our place to decide who should live and who should not.
“So Mith, are you saying that a couple who’s lost their jobs and home and is living on the street, literally begging for food, with their eight children starving to death, should continue to be Radically Open to Life?” (Well, for one, this family should look into SNAP if they haven’t already. The US government tries not to let children starve to death. Also, any Catholic church, or pretty much any Christian church that they stumble into, will also help feed them.) But still: should a couple this poor remain open to life? (I mean, for one, where and how would they even have sex if they’re living on the street with eight kids, lol.) I think some circumstances are dire enough to permit postponing pregnancy – but still, wouldn’t it be an amazing expression of faith, if this couple said “we know God will provide” and continued to be open? What a heroic expression of trust, even to the point of apparent lunacy, like Abraham in the Old Testament! He knew that God would take care of him, even when God told him to kill his child, he trusted radically, he did something that looked absolutely insane and wrong– and, because of that, God came through for him. I think radical trust is a great thing in any circumstances.
Not everyone’s faith is that strong, though. We’re not all Old Testament heroes. We are afraid – understandably so. Times are tough. We are weak; God knows this about us, and loves us anyway. So if a couple lacks the degree of faith necessary to radically trust God with their fertility… well, obviously they can still be a good Catholic couple, provided that they are working on improving their faith. But I think the point is, we should all strive to have the kind of faith that trusts radically in God’s loving design.
“Well, then, Mith, why do anything at all? Why wake up and go to work? Why cook and clean, if God will just take care of everything for us? Should we all just sit back and do nothing and wait for His help?” Lol come on now, that’s not how this works. God helps those who help themselves. We plant the seeds in the ground, and we trust that if we water and weed, God will make them grow. In this analogy, using birth control or NFP would be like digging up the seed, trying to manipulate the sprout out of the shell with tweezers, make sure it’s going in the right direction, trying to nip the potentially-bad sprouts in the bud, etc. Doing all that’s just going to kill the plant.
So that’s why I think, even in cases of poverty, openness to life is always a good thing. That being said, I don’t think it’s cool to shame couples who use NFP for serious health-related or financial reasons. (Especially if you’re financially privileged and don’t have to worry about actually affording bills. “We might not get the newest iPhone or take a Disney vacation this year” are not serious sacrifices. These kinds of people have no right to look down their nose at NFP users; they can take several seats.) Humans are frail, and we can’t all be perfect all the time, especially under pressure. NFP is not good, but it’s certainly much less evil than birth control, and it can be a useful tool for couples in dire situations (who are constantly working on deepening their faith, of course).
Human life is always good, and it’s not only permissible, but good, to prioritize having kids over material comforts. Radical trust is good in conjunction with responsibility and hard work. I believe Dostoevesky wrote in The Idiot that “children are the wealth of the poor,” and I believe that is true. Kids are good. We should have more of them. Unless we have solid evidence that a parent is being irresponsible or abusive or lazy, let’s stop shaming and judging families who “have more kids than they can afford.”
Poverty is, needless to say, awful, and it’s truly the mark of a society that has failed. I think we should work on improving our society and caring for each other, rather than just reducing our numbers. Killing poor people (including babies) is not the way to end poverty, I mean, come on now.
Oh, and before you come at me with the “global overpopulation” card, please do some more research. The USCCB and NCR both have articles debunking this myth.
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ETA: a lot of answers to this particular Question That Keeps Me Up At Night can be found here and here. I wrote this before finding these two sources, both of which clarify much of what I was trying to figure out in the post below. I highly recommend checking them out if you’re as concerned about this topic as I am. I feel like these answer the question I asked below of what someone like St. Louis de Montfort would say about contemporary “clean” pop music, and whether something like Christian-themed dubstep is okay. Apparently, neither of these are actually okay, because it is indeed the very rhythms, the actual unnatural structure of the songs, that are problematic.
Dr. K (who is a brilliant Catholic thinker, I always appreciate his writing) says in his article that music based in rhythm rather than melody is base and uncultured, even primitive. That the music of a well-developed society is more melodic, appealing to the intellect more than the flesh. As someone who used to play the drums, and has always loved rhythm and percussion in general, I’m really not sure how I feel about that. I see his point, completely, and it makes sense, and I believe that he is right; but I wonder, is enjoying rhythm always a bad thing?
As you can see, I still find myself wrestling with this question. Anyway, here is the original post (which is, in fact, not the original post, because I keep updating and revising this post):
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Before converting to Catholicism, I used to think that it didn’t matter what kind of music you listened to; what mattered was that you were a “good person” (whatever that nebulous term even means). My whole life, I’d always been embarrassed by much of my musical taste, because I was aware that it was very lowbrow and not the kind of thing to discuss around someone that I wanted to impress; but, I didn’t worry about the actual morality of it. But then, in 2012, I started looking into the Faith, and began to worry that there might be more to it.
Maybe I should change my habits? Or maybe it didn’t really matter, as long as I did all the right things otherwise? I remained very conflicted, and continued listening to my shitty profane music, albeit with a troubled conscience (if you checked this blog before a month or so ago, you may remember my previous post on this topic, in which I yet again demonstrated the mental gymnastics I’d perform in order to justify my listening habits) – all the way up until very recently. To make a long story short: I finally found a solid church to attend, and sought advice from a priest there, and was informed that willfully listening to impure content is, indeed, a venial sin — always.
So, with one or two brief sentences, that good priest basically laid this question to rest, for me: this question which had weighed on me for over a decade. Secular pop radio is generally bad.
But I still find myself wondering about exactly what, then, is permissible. Unlike in the aforementioned previous version of this post, I am no longer pretending to have arrived at a final answer. I’m just wondering aloud here:
Is it only songs with impure or sinful content (i.e. those that celebrate or make light of satanism, greed, envy, murder, drugs, sexual sin/promiscuity, etc.) that are bad to listen to? Or, is everything that’s contemporary or popular bad? Does being played on pop radio automatically make something bad? Or, is it just that, in order to find the few clean songs, you’d have to sit and listen through a bunch of bad ones, so that’s why it’s advised not to listen to pop radio at all?
I kind of assume this to be the case (maybe I should have grilled the priest further, but I truly hate to bother priests, even more than I hate to bother regular people). Because it seems like not every single song that’s popular and secular is bad – right?
Just a couple of examples that come to mind are “Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely” by BSB, “All Time Low” by Jon Bellion, “What I’ve Done” by Linkin Park, and “Chandelier” by Sia. None of these glorify sin. They talk about it, but they’re not celebrating it the way a lot of mainstream hip-hop does. – But, are they still problematic, simply because they deal with themes of worldly cares and struggles? Or because they are basically Godless, just complaining and whining with no mention of God or of any kind of spiritual sense of hope? You’re just wallowing in the world, then, aren’t you? Isn’t it problematic to just whine and vent about your sadness (or even glorify that sadness) if you’re not putting a Christian spin on it, if you’re not keeping in mind the hope of redemption?
Another thing that got me reconsidering all of this was, shortly before consulting this priest, I read St. Louis de Montfort’s “Secret of the Rosary.” In it, he made one quick mention in some clause somewhere of people who listen to “evil music:” implying that doing so is obviously not something that a Catholic should do.
Which set off alarm bells in my head right away, because, what kind of “evil music” could he possibly be referring to, in 1710 France? I’m no expert on music history, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t have anything that even came close to rivaling the profanity of even our cleanest pop music today. “Chandelier” and “All Time Low,” by St. Louis’s standards, would probably be “evil,” don’t you think? Not only because of the themes, but also simply because of the way they sound. Maybe music that sounds a certain way – like, music that speaks to and excites the flesh, or the emotions, rather than the mind – is automatically evil?
If that’s the case, then is Matthew Parker’s “Light of Dawn” evil because it is dubstep, even though the content is Christian? Or, is it sinful to listen to pop music if the lyrics are in a language I don’t understand (like this one, which is one of my all time favorite songs ever)? Or what about “Dragostea din tei“? Please, don’t tell me the Numa Numa song is sinful!
I wish I could pick St. Louis’s brain about this!
Because (bit of backstory here) I have the misfortune of having always really loved really bad music. Going all the way back to my childhood. I wish I could be like some of my smart and sophisticated friends, who find mainstream contemporary pop and hip-hop just tiring and gross and stupid, preferring cool indie or folk or retro music. I wish I were that cool! I just don’t have a taste for any of that highbrow stuff. The music that I like, I like because it affects my emotions and my flesh: the basest parts of me.
Which is funny, because I truly don’t care for impure content in books or TV/movies. I’ve always hated smut; it is just cringey, it does nothing for me and doesn’t tempt me at all. But rap songs about drugs, cash, strip clubs, and huge butts? Those just really do something to me. I love that shit.
I’ve never quite figured out why this is. Maybe because it is so removed from me, so un-relatable. With my AvPD and history of EDs, I’m basically an extremely repressed and avoidant person with shitty self-esteem and a terrible relationship with my own flesh (I often refer it, to my husband’s great annoyance, as “the meat tank”), and furthermore, have always lived in mortal terror of conflict, of offending someone, of getting in trouble. So, perhaps, these hip-hop songs, which are so visceral, physical, boastful, shameless, and confrontational, so everything that I am not – perhaps they speak to some deeply repressed part of me, and breathe life into it. Who knows.
For Lent this year, I’ve been listening only to classical and sacred music. Now, I’m wondering if I ought to continue this resolution permanently. The thought of doing that is awfully depressing. I’ve already resolved, since talking to that priest, to quit listening to the vulgar stuff, the stuff that celebrates sin. I figured that I could still listen to the stuff that’s not vulgar. But maybe I ought to stop listening to that, too?
Is it always bad to consume media that excites the emotions in a non-religious way? (I’m also thinking here about books or TV/movies that have romantic storylines – even if they don’t have any graphic content. Is it bad to love romance stories? This should probably be a post for another day.) We know that the passions are not a worthwhile thing, generally. But they’re not always bad, right? It’s a good (but not necessary) thing to feel passionately attracted to your spouse. It’s a good (but not necessary) thing to feel love and fondness for your family and friends, and to feel sadness when something bad happens to them. It’s a good (but not necessary) thing to be moved to tears by meditating on Christ’s Passion or on our own sins. But, all of these are instances where the passions are serving our soul on its journey heavenward. Listening to secular music that arouses emotion about secular things: is this always a bad thing to do?
I should probably find a chance to talk to a priest about this, but, for the time being, I assume that it is safe to approach this in the same way that I currently approach fast days as someone not super advanced spiritually and still in the grip of an ED: I don’t think it’s a good idea for someone like me to strictly fast from food on fast days, because of the state that I’m in. Similarly, at the stage I’m currently in spiritually, I really don’t know if it would be a good idea for me to give up all “fun” music entirely. Probably, when I make more progress, I will desire to give up more things. But would it be helpful to push myself to go ahead and give it all up now?
Maybe it would. But, I am weak. I’m still living in the world, and still desirous of some worldly pleasures. And I think it is probably at least better, and a move in the right direction, to start by giving up the explicitly sinful stuff (which, if I may be allowed to whine for a minute, is an embarrassingly big deal, for me, considering the kind of stuff I typically listen to). I am at least glad that I am making progress. I feel like maybe a good place to start is to only listen to things that I would be totally comfortable listening to with my five-year-old daughter present.
Or? I am curious to hear what others think. Do other practicing Catholics listen to any secular pop/rock/hip-hop at all? Do we just limit ourselves to the clean stuff? Or do we eschew it entirely?
MiTHology (4.0) 