Sex without babies.

Contraception is one of the things that I find hardest to talk about with non-Catholics. The notion that God would care about whether or not one, within the context of marriage, uses prophylactics, is very weird to them. And, in a culture where we deliberately eat calorie-free food and then slather ourselves with sun screen and spray on a fake tan, the notion of nature acting for an end is also quite foreign. Therefore, I don't think that the act itself (ahem), or a discussion of God's will (interference with), or even a discussion of natural vs. unnatural, is the best place to begin.

Instead, let's consider the overall objective of the use of contraceptives. Essentially, the objective is to have a small family, or no family at all. No one uses contraceptives to have only nine children. An ostensibly justifiable use of contraception would be to wait until you have sufficient financial resources, secure jobs, a residence in a place with a good school system, and so on and so forth, before you start bringing forth progeny. Again, hypothetically, you would stop bringing forth progeny before you have so many kids that your time, energy, finances, etc, are exhausted. Sounds reasonable, don't it?

What you are doing, essentially, when you wait to have children until your job, house, etc are all set up for them---and you have only a few children, so as to avoid over-extending your resources---is creating a box in your life where children fit. You are creating a space in your life for children, rather than allowing a family to take over your life. This, again, does not seem unreasonable.

However, the results of this kind of family planning can be very nasty. Children do not like to live in a box. They naturally rebel against it. Children always (no matter how small the family) make insatiable demands on their parent's time, energy, and resources. They refuse to be kept within those boundaries set by their parents; they try to take over their parent's lives.

Now, sometimes (hopefully, often) the "planned" parents have a change of heart. They realize that children are a greater gift than prosperity or free time, and they re-structure their lives so that their children come first. However, many parents of the contraceptive, children-in-a-box mentality are unprepared, and eventually resentful, of the box-free nature of kids. They continue to try and juggle family, finances, and free time in a situation when no juggling is really possible. Tada! Frustrated parents and neurotic children! Fun for the whole, uh, family.

I taught at a super-expensive technology summer camp for the past two summers. The kids I taught were from small families, or were only children. Now, gosh, some of these kids were awesome, well adjusted tykes. Their parents said hi to me every day, asked about their child's progress, oohed and aahed over their child's video game (wherein a puppy dog solved a maze and then pooped apples), and so forth. However, most of the kids (especially the ones from Marin, eesh)...were not well adjusted. Nor were they awesome. They were unenthused about everything I tried to teach them. Sullen, intractable, and jaded (ever seen a jaded eleven year old?*). And why shouldn't they be? Their parents had placed them in a tech camp, not so much because the kid had an interest in computers, as because their parents needed a babysitter. These parents were eager to fork the kids over in the morning (giving young Tyler or Kai a quick kiss on the cheek goodbye while simultaneously talking on their cellphone), and reluctant to pick them up in the afternoon (many the long, dull half hour I spent waiting for a tardy parent to get their sullen childblob). These kids knew that their parents had other priorities...and they usually either stayed silent and unhappy the whole time they were at camp, or made mad grabs for adult attention when they had the chance.

The problem with contraception, as far as I can see, is not so much the act of putting on a condom or popping a pill in order to thwart a pregnancy, as the attitude towards the value of human life. In most large families I know, the children obviously come first. The mothers and fathers of large families have sacrificed almost everything that our culture values; they have no free time, no savings, no security, no nothing. Large families are untenable economic units, and stifle the opportunities for personal and financial development on the part of the parents. And yet, large families, both the families I grew up around, and the ones I'm lucky enough to currently teach, tend to be much happier than small families. Why? Because a large family is so obviously one in which parents place a greater value on human life, on children, than on anything else in the world. The kids in a large family recognize this, and tend to be personable, secure younguns. They aren't prone to the saddening attention-getting techniques that I had to deal with when teaching the yuppie spawn; they know that they are loved and valued.

This is not to say that the only happy families are big families. There are, obviously, lots of happy families which are on the smaller side. However, the act of contraception is intrinsically one which says "I value my *space/health/money/whatever* more than I value children..."; it tends towards an attitude wherein kids are an imposition, rather than a gift. This is not to say that every married couple who uses contraception is guilty of this attitude. Still, essentially, what makes for a good marriage, and a joyful family, is living for others, not for yourself.** Contraception, while not always used for selfish intentions, tends towards a kind of selfishness which is injurious both to your relationship with your spouse, and to your relationship with your children.

Speaking as the future teacher of (screwed up) generations to come, I'd like to implore y'all to refrain from reproducing until you are entirely ready to devote your life to your spouse and children. Thank you, and goodnight. Oh, and also, I submit myself to the correction of the Magisterium, blahblahblahfishcakes.

* I haven't even touched on the spoiled uber-materialism of most of these children. Good gad. Talk about passing on family values.

** This goes back to the notion of marriage as a vocation. This requires fuller explication. Which I'm not presently giving, nyah.