It seems like we live in a world where everyone thinks they have a right to an opinion about everyone else’s family size (and parenting strategies, but that’s another post entirely).
Many people think two is the most appropriate number and are fascinated by asking the question, “Are you done now?”
Some Catholics get a little outspoken and think you have to have a zillion kids. (Or sometimes people misinterpret things and think the Catholic Church says you have to have as many kids as possible. It doesn’t.)
The Weston A. Price Foundation apparently thinks you’re hurting your children if you have them any closer than 3 years apart.
The pressure to have the perfect family – size and spacing – is intense!
Whatever happened to a husband and wife making their own decisions, in the eyes of God, about their family size and arrangement?
Who Gets to Decide?
I received an email from a Catholic reader who had discerned with her husband that they should have a large family, and they conceived their second child around baby number one’s first birthday, just as they had hoped.
During her pregnancy, she was doing a lot of reading around the real food blogosphere and listening to podcasts, and she was beginning to feel that the belief of many – presented as fact – was that it was reckless to have children less than three years apart. The mommy fear was pricked that she was setting up her children for a life of health problems: braces, glasses, and worse, simply by choosing to have a large family.
She wrote:
I’m sure you’ve heard of “second child syndrome,” which Dr. Cate in her book “Deep Nutrition” goes into extremely lengthy details about. The first child is always the supermodel while the following children will spend their lives in the doctors offices getting glasses, braces or medications. Of course you can make a better second child if you wait a minimum of 3 years before you try conceiving again.
This was new information to me, but my heart really went out to the reader.
I know what it feels like to think that your children’s health is of optimal importance and the pressure to care for them in the best possible way. We’re bombarded with opinions, research, celebrities, bloggers, doctors, and information from so many directions, and it’s hair-raising to try to figure out the best way to feed a family.
Does the Second Child Draw the Short Stick?
My third child doesn’t seem too unhappy here… 😉
I looked into the child spacing recommendations a bit more, and here’s what I found:
Food Renegade interviewed Dr. Cate Shanahan here, and I’ll excerpt the bit about this topic in particular.
Dr. Cate:
It’s the set of consequences that come from a kind of gestational sibling rivalry. These days, most mothers can not nourish themselves optimally before conception or during pregnancy. And close-birth spacing exaggerates the differences in health between siblings. There’s benefits and drawbacks to being first.
The first born gets first dibs at all the nutrients in mom’s body (minerals from bone, fatty acids from brain, etc etc). So there are definite advantages to being first if your mom did not follow an optimal diet. If baby number two is born in short order, mom’s body will likely be depleted of one or more nutrients for baby number two because baby number one took all she could spare. This relative deficiency means baby number one usually has a wider jaw and higher cheekbones than number two, for instance.
These days, being baby number one has a special disadvantage of its own because most women eat far to many carbs. This often makes their bodies relatively hormone insensitive, which means that their uterus will not perform optimally the first time around. And that performance can impact baby’s skeletal growth and symmetry. For baby number two, uterine blood vessels and hormone receptors and other infrastructure have all be laid down, and the uterus grows faster for number two. Because of this, baby number two is often more biradially symmetrical and has features indicative of optimal hormone sensitivity compared to number one.
You can see examples of the trend here.
Totally fascinating, presented factually and non-judgmentally…however…it’s really easy to read all this as a push to “do things properly.” I also have not read Deep Nutrition, so I’m not sure how the subject is handled in the book.
The Weston A. Price Foundation does specifically recommend three years for proper child spacing, and their warnings are a bit more in-your-face than the interview above:
From the Weston A. Price website:
Modern science validates this practice. We now know that the ideal interval for preventing physical birth defects is three years; this is also the optimal spacing for the emotional health of children. And allowing at least three years between pregnancies permits the mother to recover her nutritional stores between children and to provide sufficient attention to each child–and to her marriage!
Fertility Awareness can help create a healthy well-spaced family. It encourages communication and cooperation between husband and wife, and illuminates the fact that the family’s health depends on the cyclic nature that characterizes human reproduction.
While I am happy that the WAPF is promoting Fertility Awareness (another way of looking at Natural Family Planning), I would rewrite the last paragraph as follows:
I know plenty of large families with children close together who are more emotionally mature and balanced than only children and children who are spaced “optimally.” We can nickel and dime each other with research until we’re blue in the face, but the fact is that no one knows exactly how personalities, nutrition, birth order, child spacing, schooling, and more come together to create a human being.
A commenter at the WAPF article above hits the nail on the head:
In fact, I firmly believe from first-hand observance that they and their families are healthier than the average “enlightened” families with “properly spaced” children. One day perhaps we will understand that God did not create us in such a way that our bodies would accomplish feats of nature that were automatically unhealthy for us – in other words, if it’s possible, it’s because it’s meant to be so.
These are children we’re talking about, not just bodies that we need to care for and raise right. There are other considerations beyond physical health – social well being, emotional maturity, spiritual growth.
Siblings teach a child more about the world than perhaps anything else in one’s entire life, whether they’re Irish twins and best friends or ten years apart with almost a parent/child relationship. No health book or organization is going to tell me how varied their ages ought to be.
Who Has a Say in Your Family? Man, Wife, and God.
Here’s the bottom line – God says children are good, and if He desired 3 years between each child, then the average “natural” child spacing with breastfeeding would be 3 years, and it’s much more like 2 years – and I think that’s children two years apart, not just pregnancy 2 years apart.
I also don’t interpret that to mean that God wants everyone to have as many children as they can, two years apart, throughout their child-bearing years. All. People. Are. Different. We all have different gifts and talents, levels of patience, and coping mechanisms. What is “just right” in the eyes of God for my family might be horrible for another couple.
I myself happen to have extremely long periods of amenorrhea (breastfeeding infertility) after childbirth: 19, 23, and 21 months and counting. My children thus far have nursed a few months into the next child’s pregnancy, a mortal nutritional sin in the church of WAPF.
And so far, in my data set n=3 children, or n=1 family, they have successively only gotten healthier.
The even more important bottom line, that I need to be reminded of as much as anyone, because natural living really can be a slippery slope into idolatry before we even notice it, is that food, caring for the environment, health, and the WAPF are not a religion.
My faith is in God, and I believe that the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth and a line of leaders going directly back to St. Peter and the apostles.
A lot of people have a beef with the Church over contraception, saying things like, “Nobody gets to come into my bedroom and tell me what to do.”
That makes perfect sense, except for the fact that God, your Creator, is everywhere, created you in your parents’ bedroom (or wherever it happened), and is the author of life itself. To kick Him out of anywhere is…well…ridiculous. It doesn’t make sense at all.
God, who created the world, designed it with certain rules. To say that He can no longer be in charge of governing His own rules – like the one that says egg + sperm = baby, and the one that says man + wife = forever, undivided – is to make ourselves a god.
It’s a wonderful gift that God gives women cycles of fertility and infertility, and that man is brilliant enough to have figured out the natural signs, allowing us to, in cooperation with the Lord through prayer and discernment, use those cycles to achieve or avoid pregnancy, without putting anything unnatural between man and wife.
The marriage bed is sacred, as long as we allow God to be there.
The table, on the other hand, while a holy endeavor and part of a woman’s vocation in her family, is not exactly sacred. We would do well to remember to keep our trust in the Lord through our meal prayer, no matter what sort of food is being served. (Again, speakin’ to myself here, people.)
Whether sexuality or health is at risk of becoming an idol, let us leave our moral choices between us and God, without human organizations pressuring us with opinions where they don’t belong.
Is a Large Family Going to Hurt Your Children?
Here’s part of the letter I wrote back to my concerned reader:
If God is calling you to have a large family, I respect and honor that so greatly, because I don’t know that He’s given me the fortitude and perseverance to raise a brood and survive to tell about it! If God has many in store for you, spacing them 3 years apart would likely put you so close to 40 that the WAPF would have many things to say about the risk you put your children at just by conceiving that late in life. Phooey on that. No one chooses a child’s timing but God, through a man and wife’s discernment.
One thing I’ve always loved and clung to about the Catholic faith is the value of suffering. I, too, have found myself worried about my children’s long-term health, or even beating myself up over certain health decisions based on a negative outcome either in the short term (like a brief illness which is nonetheless annoying and painful to the child and family) or in the long term (worry about Crohn’s or other chronic and/or deadly diseases).
In this Internet-information-driven world, it’s easy to do.
However.
God says suffering has meaning. Who am I to say that I want to protect my children from the opportunity to offer up their suffering as a prayer for this fallen world, to unite their pain, whether that be braces, glasses, or an autoimmune disease, with the Cross of Christ for the good of the world and the salvation of their own souls?
Too often I lose sight of the prize, of the gift of Heaven at the end, and I focus on the little temporal details that affect my day, my hour, my minute. It’s not up to me to protect my children from the pain of the world 100%, but to teach them how to cope with anything and how to cling to the Body and Blood of Christ, keep the faith, and live eternally in Heaven with our whole family someday.
I will pray for your little one in the womb and all your future saints for God, and I ask you to do the same, and may the post I write someday be inspired by the Holy Spirit and not my own weak and selfish nature!!
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me and inspiring my own!!
Whether we “hurt” our children by setting them up for potential physical complications is a risk we take by living in this fallen world. There are all sorts of hurts out there, which our children are at risk of experiencing just by being born, period.
Our job is to make any “hurt” part of living, not something to be scared of.
And I’m preaching to myself, here, believe me. I’m not exactly known for “rolling with the punches” even though I wish I was more that kind of person.
Let us consider potential silver linings to “second child syndrome,” keeping in mind that every child is a gift, and every day on earth is a gift as well:
- How many ways could the Lord use an “imperfect” second child to better a family?
- How will the first child learn to be more patient and loving because of 2nd child’s ortho appointments?
- How will baby two’s imperfect vision allow the parents an opportunity for sacrifice, to see clearly the Lord working in your family?
- How does NOT looking like a supermodel perhaps protect child two (or 3 or 4 or 5) from some of the negative peer pressure in high school that comes with “beautiful people” and “the popular crowd?”
- How can we allow God to work through our suffering, rather than limiting Him to only showing his goodness through happiness?
I want to remind even myself today that all suffering has meaning. That if my child falls ill, it will be an opportunity for me to demonstrate faith, peace, perseverance, and the power of prayer.
We’ve learned a lot about many lives of the saints this year in our family, and so many of them had serious difficulties, physical and situational, in childhood and beyond. Their faith was strengthened by the trials, and I have a hunch there would be fewer saints in Heaven and on earth if there were no trials to overcome.
In closing, I challenge the pressure to give our kids the best start possible by spacing them at least three years apart. I disagree that anyone outside God and a couple should have any input on the size and spacing of a family. One child, ten children: all are blessings in the eyes of their Father in Heaven.
I don’t think that one’s health should be their top priority, since after all, we’re not just bodies, but beings infused with an immortal soul by God Himself. Our bodies are a gift, but they are not the primary gift of life.
I think that suffering has value, great value, and that we all – I’m first in line – need to remember to keep life balanced and not live in fear of sickness or pain.
We don’t need to run toward it and ask to be made ill, to eat junk food irresponsibly and make ourselves sick, but I hate to think of all the moms (raising hand first, again) who are more at risk of a stress-induced illness with all the worry they harbor over their family’s optimal health.
There are no perfect children.
There are no perfect parents.
No one has perfect health.
There is no perfect family…
…except for yours, when you live in the grace of God and do your best to live in love.
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I agree with child spacing, it makes a lot of sense to me. But its wrong to judge others for not believing in it. We are all going to have different opinions and thats ok. I dont understand why we cant all just get along.
awesome!!! thank you!
I have four (not Catholic) and I feel each parent is different. What is right for one family may not be right for another. My first three are all within 5 years of each other, the two oldest (now 25 and 23) being just 17 months apart. None of them have had any health issues and my second child has just gotten a 4.0 in her first year of graduate school! My third child is a Navy corpsman and is phenomenal physical condition. And this is with feeding them the wrong things growing up. I’ve just recently changed my eating habits. This article was very well written.
And I needed to write it, Alexandra. Look at all these beautiful families being lifted up by folks in comments! I’m loving it! 🙂 Katie
Amen!!! 🙂
John Wesley was the 15th child of Susanna and Samuel Wesley. Charles was their 18th child. I can’t think of two brothers in the last 500 years who have had more positive impact on the world than those two. They changed the history of England and the United States, and many other nations through the missions sent out by the US and the UK.
I absolutely love your article. Thank you! So well written!
There is one big point that gets left out of the “second child syndrome” claims. Most moms I know who are living a conscious real food life move closer to that goal, often because of our children my family (and I) eat MUCH healthier now than we did when my now eight-year-old was born. Our kids – and wanting to nourish them as optimally as we can – have been the impetus for most of those changes. I had the easiest time with my third pregnancy, primarily because I was so conscious about addressing deficiencies and building any nutritional stores I could before I got pregnant with her. I never even thought about that with my oldest. All things being equal, I can see where the concern comes from, but the world isn’t necessarily equal is it?
^^^this. I have 7, call me irresponsible if you will, but, we leave it up to God to space our children how he sees fit. Our gaps are 13 mths, 14 mths, 6 yrs, 6yrs, 3 yrs, 18 mths. All of my children are extremely healthy, so I don’t think any of that matters, God is in control.
I needed to read this. Feeling too stressed about food lately… I think you are right on about letting a food/lifestyle philosophy become a religion (seeing how I am falling into it, myself) Thank you for your thoughts. May God Bless you!!!
Thank you so much for this post. As a woman who has struggled with infertility for 12 years, it always makes me ache to hear people “gripe” about children. Thank you for celebrating families and celebrating the gift that all children are.
Including my beautiful kiddos, born from 3 different mothers, placed in our family for a reason.
Wow. You really touched me with this piece. I have really been agonizing over this same thing. We have been discerning this is our own marriage right now as I feel the need to get healthy before getting pregnant, but hate to wean my daughter and we really always wanted a large family! I really appreciate your thoughts on making physical health and food into an idol- as I often catch myself with this on my frustrating journey to health! I totally agree with the stress part, too- the problem of getting a stress induced illness because we worry about these things so much! Thank you so much for this. Know you have inspired me so much and encouraged me to grow in faith. What a great ministry you have through this blog!!
Julia Skinner Everyone has different thoughts about reasons for spacing, and I’m sure there are pros and cons to closer together as with farther apart. I don’t think anyone here will slam you, but I would respectfully disagree. We’re not currently procreating at replacement rate in the U.S., so some folks need to pick up some slack, and honestly, I’d rather it be loving, educated parents rather than neglectful, have-more-kids-so-I-get-more-welfare people. 🙁 Social Security stopped working because there weren’t enough of my generation to pay IN. And: http://www.overpopulationisamyth.com/
My children are 11 years, 18 and 16 mths apart(yes,4 and no, I am not Catholic or do not follow the quiver method) 😉 My children have never known life without a sibling, which I think is awesome, at least the last 3 anyways. 🙂 I also think it is great that they are so close together. My girls are BFF, and their older brothers love them dearly. My children are healthy, other than the minimal colds.
Pretty sure God is in control of how far apart my children are. I won’t argue with His timing.
Great article!
Mine are 13 months apart and my 2nd is overall much healthier than my 1st! I think that setting “rules” or even “shoulds” about these things causes division and finger pointing more than it helps people.
My 2 are almost 4 years apart, it is fantastic, the oldest could do basic things like dress herself, was well out of nappies ect before I had the second, way less work. They have no issues playing together. Personally, and I realize I am going to get slammed for saying this, but I don’t think it is overly responsible add more than 2 children into an over populated world.
There are so many factors that go into “family planning”. My children are six years apart. Had we had another child soon after our first, I’m not sure our marriage would have made it. We are a strong and secure family. We need less, “you’re harming your child” over such nonsense and need to focus on building string families and children. To each their own.
My babies are 14, 10, 4. But Oldest is Hypothyroid, middle child is celiac, and third child is type 1 diabetic. The oldest catches every virus down the pike, middle child is better at fighting them off, baby girl has had 3 colds in 4 1/2 years and no flu or stomach bugs. My health during all 3 pregnancies was dismal, suffering from the worst cases of Hyperemesis glavourum. I am also the test case for the use of Zofran during pregnancy. With Baby girl I was in the hospital for a month on a pic line for food. Although all my babies are beautiful children, the piece about the birth order and their looks doesn’t ring true in my bunch either. The youngest is the most “supermodel” beautiful followed by middle child, and then the oldest. I am not having any more due to the fact that Hubby and I think it would be bad stewardship if we did. Not to mention the chances that I would leave him and the kids without me due to my death. I remember about 13 years ago the powers that be said that 11 from birth to next conception was optimal. It is always changing and I believe the best 2 determinations for time to have a baby is God by allowing you to conceive, your body. You should know your body well enough to know when it is time.
Misti,
You have a lot to juggle! Phew! But what a good attitude, thank you! 🙂 Katie
this is ridiculous. my kids are 19 months apart and i wouldnt want them to be a day further apart. they are best friends.
All this stuff about how to have ‘perfect’ children really bugs me. My kids are 16 and 20 months apart. I didn’t conceive and gestate them, they were adopted from foster care. They didn’t benefit from good prenatal nutrition. They were exposed to quite a lot of drugs and poor nutrition and you know what? They will still grow to be the people God meant them to be and they have just as much worth as any child spaced 3 years 9 months apart.
Also, in the almost 2 years we have had them, the two oldest haven’t yet had a week cumulative of days they were sick and the youngest hasn’t had a sniffle in the last 6 months. They are doing well at their activities and are happy kids who are a joy to be around and they can run faster and throw better than any of the other kids in the neighborhood.
I don’t think people have as much control over their kids as they think they do.
You go girl! God bless you for adopting those blessings when you had no idea the raw material you were getting, and for pouring such love and grace into them!
And…I love your last line. 😉 Katie
Last thing– condoms & diaphragms aren’t difficult to use, don’t have any abortifacient or long-term effects… it doesn’t have to be breastfeeding all night or co-sleeping or free for all! 🙂
Yeah, but for Catholics those methods of prevention simply aren’t options.
Perhaps to some Catholics.
She is right that there are so many factors to all areas of whole-child health– from spiritual to emotional to physical! And I appreciate that she realizes that suffering has value! And we definitely don’t want to play God!
I’d personally come down in a different place from her, in that I’d say we can find that it is PHYSICALLY “healthier” to space our children further apart than 2 years. But I’d follow that with saying that physical health is just one factor in family planning: there’s also family situation, parental health, parental age, family size desired, financial situation, emotional health. Physical health is SO not everything, especially bc ultimately God is in control of that too. He knows who will have a genetic disease or get sick at the wrong time, or who will get permanantly injured in an accident. And I’d also remind folks that having a large family in this hurting world can also mean adoption rather than repeated conception!
So yeah– no judgment on when & how people choose to have kids, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t say that physically, in today’s cursed and hormone-saturated environment, three years is physically healthier and care probably will need to be taken to either allow that (my theory is that bfing doesn’t fully prevent pregancy bc of all the estrogens in plastic, soy, milk, etc) or to compensate for choosing not to do that (for a whole host of valid reasons) with supplements.
I enjoyed your post. While I’m not Catholic (though I am all about Jesus!), I really saw so many nuggets of truth in what you said. However our children come to be in this world, God has a wonderful plan for their lives and made them exactly the way they are. I’m glad to take advice as just that, advice. Is three years optimal? Maybe. Are we wrong to have children closer than that? Nope. Again, thanks for your post and your thoughts!
Katie, thank you so much for this wonderful article! I recently read Nourishing Traditions and jumped in head first… then my depression reared it’s ugly head and I found I had NOTHING TO EAT! Lol, I stressed about it a lot, but I feel the Lord led me back to your site, and I felt such comforting reassurance… your philosophy that we don’t have to be perfect in eating healthy, just doing the best we can. Now I make my own yogurt, chicken broth and cooked-from-dry beans, but I don’t stress if we need to hit Taco Bell on a crazy day. You are an inspiration to us all, and I believe God has put you in this place to guide His daughters in this crazy world! God bless you, Katie!
Great post, Katie. It’s wonderful when the Holy Spirit reminds us that only He is sovereign, especially in a culture that tells us we are our own gods. 🙂 Well done.
This is an apt post for our times. God is in control of all things whether we recognize (agree with or cooperate with) it. I am a mother of 6 lovely children, and often get comments on how beautiful they ALL are! God wove them, out of my weakness, and He will keep them- body, mind and spirit.
Katie,
Thank you for posting this, clearly this was not a problem I alone was struggling with. I am the concerned mommy that she quoted in this article and it’s very reassuring to see so many women/families struggling with the same balance to have a happy, healthy family, but not always knowing what is exactly the right things to do!
I look forward to reading more of the comments as they come in. God is bigger than all fears and concerns, but it is really nice to have a community behind you!
Liz,
I’ve been so edified by all the positive comments! I was sure someone would have something opposite to say, but what a blessing this community is, you’re right. Glad you weren’t too shocked to see your email become a whole post… 😉 Katie
This is going to be one of your all-time classic posts. LOVE. IT.
I know this isn’t mentioned here, but one thing that does bother me (I’m allowed to say this – we’re expecting blessing #5 and any more the Lord has for us!) is when large families sleep train their young infants. I realize this is to protect Mom’s health and sanity. But then fertility returns earlier and Mom’s body really can get depleted without that break from nursing longer…
Who am I to say this is not God’s will for that family? But does it not seem a bit rushed and not natural? I try to guard my heart against idolatry in family, parenting methods, etc. so I’m not praising “natural” at all costs.
Help me understand how to be more compassionate. I know you must have some thoughts on this, Katie! Or anyone else?
Ruth,
Your concern for mommies (and families) is admirable! We Kimballs are so proud of our kids and willing to spout advice on all sorts of parenting issues…except sleep. We have 3 terrible sleepers and have banned ourselves from ever saying anything about sleep. *grin* For real…I think sleep training before 6-8 months is hard on the child, but I also only got my babies to sleep through the night when we night-weaned them, at 14 mos. 16 mos., and…um…how old is John? 21 months this week. He still wakes up 2-10x a night. I’m so tired…
That’s my thoughts! Next weekend we’re night weaning the kid. I can’t wait!
🙂 Katie
I was so sure that my mom gave us water too young or sleep trained or something and that is why she wasn’t able to put more space between her babies. I was going to do it right. I co-slept, nursed constantly and have children who seem like they will never sleep through the night and still had a period at 12 weeks postpartum 🙁 But my babies were almost 2 years apart anyway . . . turns out kids who are constantly in your bed and want to nurse every few hours can space your babies in more than one way 😛
LOL – a “natural” child spacing by kidsintheway syndrome. Yep. That’s good stuff. 🙂 I have a friend whose husband’s family, every single female, gets her cycles back at 12 weeks. There’s something to be said for genetics! 🙂 Katie
Ruth – here’s my additional 2 cents…All my (3) babies slept through the night by 3-6 mo. We did sleep training because my husband was tired of not getting a good night’s sleep:) Even with that, my fertility didn’t return until 7 mo with the first, and closer to 12 with the second two. And just how fertile I was after #1 is debatable…just because you get pregnant again doesn’t mean your body is ready to carry said pregnancy…So sleep training is not necessarily the culprit. Genetics are a big issue…I know so many women can breastfeed while pregnant, but I suspect that I (and others in my family) simply can’t. And then there’s that whole God issue…Currently I am 100% convinced that God is preventing any additional pregnancies for us. I think we’re the world’s worst NFP practitioners…;)
Not to mention, breastfeeding is depleting of a mother’s body as well as pregnancies. Really, I think she needs a break from both to really rebuild her body.
We’re living in a time of transition, where it seems that the “many things that were forgotten, which should not have been forgotten” are being rediscovered, thanks to modern science. Lots of people don’t know some of the new information. Others know, but don’t know why to care. Still others know, and know why they should care, And do care, but for other reasons have chosen differently. And then there are those who didn’t expect to be pregnant again so soon…:)
Tribal norms frequently used to dictate child number and spacing. I believe they used various forms of NFP for this, but evidence also suggests the widespread use of infanticide…I’d rather have the size of my family be a private, personal decision than have any society, traditional or otherwise, dictating how many children to have, and when.
Thanks everyone for your thoughts. This KS community is the best, safe place for asking hard questions on fascinating topics like this. Readers here are thoughtful, smart and kind.
Excellent post – one of your best. I had to skim the last few paragraphs because it got long, though. 😉
Who, me? Long? 😉
I enjoyed this tremendously, and I am not Catholic, though I am a Born-Again Christian. And unlike most of the mamas on here, my baby making days are over as I am in my early 50’s and enjoying grandchildren.
I had 8 children, the first two 3 years apart with a miscarriage when #1 was 15 months old. I got divorced when my kids were 6 & 3 (abusive relationship), and remarried when my kids were 8 & 5. I then went on to have 7 pregnancies, but 6 babies (another miscarriage in there!) in the following 8.5 years. All kids are grown and healthy. I homebirthed the last 6, nursed for their first year of life, tandem nursed baby #6 while pregnant for baby #7, and believed with my whole heart that God made our family when and how he wanted it to grow.
My sister and I are 11 1/2 months apart; I am the oldest. I have thin lips, she has thick lips. We both have very high cheek bones (both sides of our family have Native Amer. mixture), and I am short and tend to be heavy, whereas my sister was tall and has always been a bean pole. Neither of us needed glasses till our mid 40’s. My brother came about 2 1/2 years after my sister (and 3 1/2 after me), and he has the high cheekbones and thick lips. My youngest sister came 3 years after my brother, has the flatter face of our dad, thicker lips, and a head full of hair (very thick). She wore glasses in her teens, though no one else did. We all have the same chin makeup which is exactly as our mom’s was.
We did not fit the profiles listed per birth order.
None of us needed braces. None of us had illnesses to speak of, and we are all smart.
Oh, and when I was having my kids I found it almost unbearable how people would say with a sneer, “Oh! are you pregnant AGAIN?!?!? I’d reply with smile, “Yes! Isn’t it exciting”? I’d either get the eye rolls or they’d try to back-pedal. I’d also be asked if I was going to ‘finally get fixed’ after the baby was born, to which I’d reply “No, I’m not broken, I don’t need ‘fixed!” And I probably shouldn’t have done this, but on several occasions I’d have perfect strangers, usually in the grocery store, say something like. “Gee, haven’t you figured out what causes that yet”, in very rude manner, and I’d look them straight in the eye and say back very sweetly, “Yes, and it’s so much fun we can’t quit!”. That one would embarrass them and they’d turn on their heel and walk away. 🙂
Lori,
Darn right you’re smart! 😉 Those are some great responses. I can’t believe people would stoop so low as to use the word “fixed” on a human being! Sheesh. Their mothers must have fed them fast food. 😉
Katie
Great post!
The WAPF view does okay at explaining my brother and me, especially our teeth. He has great teeth, straight and even and never had a cavity. And this despite the fact that growing up he never brushed! I have pits, fissures, lots of cavities, an underbite, buck teeth, etc., despite being fanatical about oral hygiene.
But on the other hand, my mom believes in eating “low fat” and so probably never replenished her nutrient stores over the three years between us. And when she was pregnant with my brother, she was on WIC — so she ate a lot of free cheese and butter.
I think it’s important to know to eat very well when you’re having a lot of babies, especially close together. But I have really focused on nutrition and my second son seems to have far *fewer* problems and my pregnancy with him was so much easier! They are only two years apart.
Instead of a rule, “three years between kids,” why not take the rule, “the closer together your kids are, the more you should focus on nutrition between and during your pregnancies”? Because you’re right, there are so many more factors that go into child spacing than just nutrition!
Sheila,
I like your rule! 🙂 Katie
This needed to be said. Thank you!
I liked your post as you did not condemn anyone and upheld our Catholic faith. Each child is a blessing and my oldest is the least “healthiest” of my four children in seven years. I have studied a lot of Weston A. Price’s work. I love his research because it was not one size fits all. The three things that were the same in all healthy groups he studied 1) all diets had animal food in them, 2) no processed food, & 3) nutrient-dense. Some of these groups were healthier than others and he did comment on why he thought it was. But he never condemned. I thoroughly enjoy Weston A. Price Foundation research, but know that it is not being run from a Catholic/Christian point of view. There are things that come out of their organization that I feel are new age beliefs and against my Catholic belief. I guess what I am saying is take the good and leave behind the bad and you did that. Kudoos to you!
This was so well articulated! I am mother to seven, with one on the way and I am protestant. I too believe that children are a blessing and that each husband and wife is responsible before God to decide how and when and IF to “plan” their children. Having healthy children is ideal, but lets face it, we don’t live in an ideal world. Many take this thought so far that if they find that their child has a genetic problem they are willing to get rid of it. Life is precious, and even if a child has to wear glasses or get braces, it is not the end of the world. Thanks for hitting this subject head on.
Ditto, Heather! God bless your brood of blessings! 🙂 Katie
So very interesting. This post almost made me cry, and that is a hard thing to get me to do. Maybe it was partly the woman in line at the store today who looked at my three and said, “fun time, isn’t it?” I grimaced…she said, “No, really, it is fun. Been there, done that. I know…” Bless her. Some days I need that reminder.
Now, there is this odd set of rules around breastfeeding in Jewish law that, looked at historically, would seem to indicate that it might be more natural for kids to be ~3 yrs apart than typically happens now, when the average lactational amenorreah is ~14 mo. Basically, it says that a woman may initiate/re-initiate breastfeeding at any point in the first two years. After that, she may continue breastfeeding for up to 5 years as long as she and the child desire it, and the child doesn’t go more than 2 days without nursing. Though I mean this as interesting trivia.
My kids seem to be getting increasingly healthy as well. But our diet has also been getting increasingly better. My baby has all her baby teeth but her canines, and I can’t believe the amount of room left in her little mouth for those last four teeth! Fingers crossed we can avoid braces in at least two of the three kids…
What? WAPF is NOT a religion? Whew! I’m so relieved. 😀
I actually laughed at a couple of the poor-second-child warnings. I’m older than my sister by 4 years – but I needed glasses in Jr. High and she didn’t until college; I needed braces and she didn’t . . . Oh, and I left her to do all her own fighting over freedoms, dating, etc., as I didn’t have a boyfriend until I left for college.
My husband is 2 years older than his brother, and it’s my husband who has the astygmatism and severe nearsightedness.
I don’t understand the Catholic church’s objections to barrier birth control, and I don’t understand how it’s any less natural than “rhythm” – I’ve never felt that my diaphragm “came between” me and my husband (The Pill, yes, now that I know it actually can function as an abortifacient.) But this Protestant appreciates hearing someone repeat that you can’t kick God out of part of a relationship – either He’s there or He isn’t.
Sandy,
Great call on “either He’s there or He isn’t.” 🙂
I don’t know if you were asking for the Catholic theological background on barrier birth control, but I’ll try to share it in 60 secs or less.
Any form of birth control that involves still actually having sex is against natural law, which must include both the unitive and procreative functions of the marriage act. In other words, any time a man and woman come together, they must allow God to choose if He creates an immortal soul, and they also will be physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually connected. Science backs up the latter with information about hormones, etc. Anything that gets in the way of the procreative act says to God, “I am going to do this thing designed for procreation but I’m not going to allow you to have a role.” It’s also saying to each other, “The act we’re doing stamps in our bodies that we give ourselves fully to one another, but we don’t really want to do that right now.”
Anything that defies the unitive act, i.e. sex outside of marriage, is lying with ones body, saying to each other, “I am going to do this things that says ‘forever’ but I really mean ‘for a while.'”
More on NFP here: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2011/05/31/mary-and-martha-moment-why-i-choose-nfp/
It’s great to ask the hard questions! 🙂 Katie
Hmmm… then to be consistent, couples should also abstain from sex while breastfeeding (that can even have abortifacient effects by impeding implantation), while infertileor on a period, or before a mom gets her period back after chuldbirth, or after menopause!
Christina,
Allowing both the unitive and procreative goals doesn’t mean the couple must conceive with each marital embrace, just that they’re not doing anything to say, “No way!” to God. The Church honors the fact that God clearly created women with infertile times – in fact, many, many more infertile days than fertile ones. A married couple may make love whenever they wish, in the eyes of God, as long as they play by the rules: no lying with your bodies and saying “I give you 100%” with the action and yet pulling back and saying “except my fertility” by any sort of barrier method or contraception.
The whole point is that we can’t control everything.
Does that help clear up the Catholic teaching on the subject a bit?
🙂 Katie
PS – and to your comment to Kristin, yes, plenty of Catholics choose to deny Church teaching. That’s between them and God…but I do my best to make sure they have full knowledge.
I do appreciate the Catholic church’s position– for sure it’s a healthy contrast to our culture’s very selfish view of children!
However, this is yet one more area where I am thankful that “my conscience is captive to the Word of God –if I can’t be convinced by Scripture or plain reason,” I’ll go back to my regularly scheduled program, thanks. 🙂 (that would be a Martin Luther reference)
Just as we are not attempting to control God’s hand by weeding our gardens, letting land lie fallow, pulling seedlings, and in limiting how much ground we cultivate, there’s no reason to say we are defying His Sovereignty by choosing to– in faith, prayer and with an attitude that treasures children– space or limit our children by any non-abortifacient means! I just don’t see it in Scripture.
Kids are blessings– but not unqualified ones. Proverbs is FULL of examples of just how terrible undisciplined, rebellious children can be. And the examples of most of the patriarchs & kings of Israel/Judah are terrifying examples of how bad parenting can go. Honestly, I can’t find a single Scriptural example of large families where the kids loved the Lord & were well parented. We have to steward the children we have– and if, prayerfully & gratefully, we realize that in our Cursed world we would not be able to steward a child well (perhaps because our own health is so poor), then there is nothing unBiblical about choosing to attempt to forgo conception. At least that’s how I see it! 🙂
Christina: I really like and appreciate your gardening metaphore . . . gardening is such a good illustration of stewardship in many forms.
Yes, I see Scripture as forbidding abortion or abortifacient methods of “birth control,” but never as denying humanity’s responsibility for prudence.
I wasn’t necessarily asking you to explain it, right here and now (seeing as the post was on a slightly different topic!) but I have been curious and puzzled, so – Yes. Thank you.
I love how you approached this topic, Katie! I’ve been hearing this more and more from the WAPF crowd. Scientifically, it seems lacking to me because it fails to take into consideration so many other factors. But what bothers me most is the message (even if unintentional) that kids are more valuable if they meet certain physical standards. And that God’s timing must be somehow “wrong” if you find yourself unexpectedly expecting before the 3 years is up.
So yes, yes, yes to everything you said! 🙂
When it comes to having children, people get mean and nasty really fast – and I’m not sure why. How many children you have AND WHEN YOU HAVE THEM is based on God’s will. And for anyone else to presume otherwise seems rather big-headed to me. But, what do I know? 😉
BTW: I wasn’t calling you big headed. LOL I was referring to the WAPF…but I don’t need to tell you how I feel about them. Ahem. 😉
LOL, thanks for clarifying, but I think I understood your aim there, sistah. 😉 Katie
This post blessed me so much. My second born (2year spacing) has developmental delays and gastrointestinal issues. But God is sovereign and HE alone opens the womb in perfect timing. I know He has a reason for my Davey and your take on this encouraged me immensely. Thank you!
I really cannot thank you enough for this post!!!! I have mulled over and stressed about everything you mentioned in this post and I think you have an awesome and clarifying perspective. I’m am currently pregnant with my third child – my first 2 are 17 months apart and these 2 will be about 26 months apart (both pretty much natural spacings) and I did have a lot of health problems after #2 was born, so I’ve worried excessively about that happening again this time from the less than “ideal” spacing. BUT. Both times we felt called to be open to life, and who am I to argue with God? (not that I haven’t, but in my saner moments I know it’s ridiculous). We are also Catholic and do feel called to a large family so it has been very stressful to think that if we wanted to follow the WAPF advice we would HAVE to use NFP to guarantee that – but we feel morally obligated to reserve the use of NFP to truly serious matters. Anyways, the point of all of this is THANK YOU for addressing such a tricky, profound, and emotionally charged topic with such grace and truth. It means a lot to know that even just one other person out there really believes that we should follow God first, with everything else falling in line behind his Will.
Many, many people Christina. God bless you for being open to His murmurings, even in the face of popular culture and “health food” culture. {hugs} Katie
I have 9 children – ages 2 months to 12 years, and I’m 36 – with plenty of child-bearing years ahead of me. They are all very healthy children; so I find the WAPF information amusing. I had my first child right after I earned my M.A. and my graduate school friend told me, upon hearing about being pregnant with my second child just 10 months after the last birth: “You know – the ideal spacing is 3 years. Your body is depleted of nutrients that you need for a healthy pregnancy and baby. It’s reckless to get pregnant so soon.” I think she meant well . . .
I appreciate your post, as a real food advocate, homemaker, and Catholic mother of a large family.
THANK YOU.
God bless you, Kristin! You’ve definitely earned your “M.A.” as in “Mother of AWESOME!”
🙂 Katie
Well said, though I am Protestant, not Catholic.
And we definitely have the same papasan chair. Scary. 🙂
Thank you! And loved this!
Very well-said OR
Very. Well. Said. (it always makes me smile when you emphasize things like this!)
I had never heard of this before….so glad….as if there isn’t enough guilt and angst thrown at parents by the enemy already.
Many, many blessings to you.
Amen!
Thanks Katie! I’m so glad you wrote this post. Too many people are idolizing health these days, and while the desire to give your children the very best is honorable, we have to recognize that there is greater good to be gained that the little we can control. Children are a blessing no matter what!
It’s certainly rude any time someone asks you a probing question about your private life, but why should that affect your personal decisions? The WAPF recommendations are just that: recommendations. And, they are very good recommendations whether you choose to follow them or not. As for suffering, yes, it has a value. But, to actively seek it out is insanity. The martyrs didn’t throw themselves on the pyre, you know. And, no, no one is perfect, but to love God and to be a spiritual person is to at least strive towards perfection as an ideal. Isn’t that what we all try to do every day? As the WAPF and the ancestral health movement gain momentum, a lot of us are learning things a little too late. There is really nothing we can do about that. Acceptance is important in that case. But, why would you continue your old ways after you’ve been enlightened?
Susie,
I definitely don’t advocate seeking suffering, although fasting is a wonderful way to sacrifice purposely – a different level of suffering though. I really wanted to call people’s attention to the fact that our health, even if it IS optimal to space children 3 years apart for nutrient health – cannot be our main focus in life or in child-bearing discernment. It’s one piece of the puzzle.
Thanks for commenting!
🙂 Katie