Awkward Questions

When SSHH and I were expecting our first little one, everybody was congratulatory and overjoyed.  “How wonderful!” they said.  “You’re starting your family!”  Some were a little concerned that we were having children while still in graduate school and when we were newly married, but we assured them that I wasn’t going to give up my education or career to eat bonbons and stay barefoot and pregnant, and they quickly got over it.

Baby number two was cause for similar excitement.  When she was born, we heard a lot of “it is so nice that you have your boy and your girl now!”  I think most of our friends and family expected us to be done.

So when #3 came along, there was a little more hesitancy in their good wishes.  Several people asked, “was this planned?” or “are you happy about this?”  But three really isn’t all that unusual, and when little SweetPotato came hollering into the world, she won ‘em over.

When I was pregnant with our fourth, there was definite concern.  A few people could not believe that we would actually try for four children, and were convinced that we were just hiding the fact that we really had a family of “mistakes.”  There were a lot of questions about how we were going to “manage this” and more than one person expressed a conviction that I must have been somehow coerced into having a fourth child, because surely no woman would make such a limiting choice freely.

This fifth pregnancy has actually been rather liberating.  We’ve heard all the usual questions that people think are so novel and clever, the usual, “you know what causes this, don’t you?” and “you must not have TV, huh?”  But I think our friends and family are starting to realize that all of these crazy kids are exactly what we want for our family, and so there has been a fair amount of interest in why we’re choosing to accept a large family.

The most interesting questions have come from, of all places, my coworkers.  I’m in public service and work in a fairly diverse office.  To my knowledge, I’m one of two practicing Catholics.  When it became obvious that I was expecting again (my third child since starting work with this group), to a one they asked, “so are you done after this baby?”  I don’t make an overt show of my faith at work; I’ve got a calendar from our parish up on my bulletin board among the kid pictures and that’s it.  But I decided that my answer would be, “well, we’re Catholic so we believe that decision isn’t entirely up to us.  We’ll see” – and then I dropped the subject.

And then the questions started!  I had no idea just how fascinating that was to people.  I also had no idea that I’d end up discussing the ins and outs of NFP and lactational amenorrhea and why exactly the Church isn’t cool with IUDs with my colleagues (with whom I’d never discussed anything deeper than the weather to this point).  Just as interesting as the questions is the fact that they have so many questions, and even find this stuff interesting at all.  There was so much curiosity as to why anyone would chose this path, and even how one could chose this path and still maintain all of those things that the mainstream media says are discouraged for Catholic women – independent thought, a social life, hobbies, a career.

The questions shed such light on the way people view Catholic life.  I’ve been asked if my husband was really okay with the idea of not goin’ at it at all times of the month should we decide that we’d like to delay pregnancy (yep), if I was really okay with accepting the babies as they came right now (yep), and if I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be an “independent woman” because I was having “so many” babies (nope).  I’ve been asked how one could tell what point of their cycle they were in (ummm… do I need to give details?  We’re at work here.) and if the Church thought I was a “bad woman” for being the breadwinner for our family (nope) and if I felt “oppressed” by the Church or by my husband (definitely nope).  I’ve been asked if I ever wanted to just “go on birth control and enjoy not having kids” (nope.  Well, maybe at 3am with a screaming child, but really no.) and what I would do if one of my kids were gay (um, love them.  What did they think I was going to say?).  I’ve been asked if I would “let” one of my children become a priest, monk, or nun (of course!) and if my kids are allowed to watch TV (well, we try to limit it, but srsly – Blue’s Clues has saved my life more than once.).

So while things have gotten a little awkward – I never thought I’d have these conversations with my colleagues at work, who are otherwise decidedly in the “just talk about the weather” category – I’ve decided that it’s been a real opportunity for education and evangelization.  I’m Catholic and believe what my Church teaches about life and marriage and family.  I’m doing my best to live my life by that, although I fall short an embarrassing amount of the time.  I’m happy with the choices we’ve made for our family, although they’re hard – really hard – to carry out sometimes.  I’ve felt a bit like a museum exhibit the past few weeks (and here we have our Catholic woman!  A rare specimen that seldom emerges from the cave where she births and nurses her numerous offspring!  Note the floor-length skirt and veil!), but I think there’s some good that’s coming of it, as maybe some of the people who have asked all this will question, just a bit, what they read in the mainstream media about the Church, or might understand that some of the external signs of a Catholic life – that herd of children – don’t mean that anyone is repressed, oppressed, unhappy, bigoted, out of touch with reality, or closed-minded. 

Effecting change, just a tiny bit, in my wee little corner of the world…