The report on large families, esp. quiverfull families, is on NPR this morning, you can read it or listen to it here (it is about five minutes long): In Quiverfull Movement, Birth Control Is Shunned. From the intro...
Among some conservative Christians, a movement is giving new meaning to the biblical mandate to "be fruitful and multiply."
The movement, called Quiverfull, is based on Psalm 127, which says, "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."
Those in the Quiverfull movement shun birth control, believing that God will give them the right number of children. It turns out, that's a lot of kids.
It is a pretty fair article, without the usual “opposing view” people screaming about how we are eating up all the food and destroying the environment. You can tell that it is a completely foreign world to the correspondent Barbara Bradley Haggerty, as it is to many people.
This is something I am assuming was taken somewhat out of context…
That's also the hope of Nancy Campbell, a leader of the Quiverfull movement and author of Be Fruitful and Multiply.
"The womb is such a powerful weapon; it's a weapon against the enemy," Campbell says.
I don’t know that the way it is portrayed is all that accurate and I hope it wasn't chosen for shock value. We didn’t have a bunch of kids because we thought they were useful tools in the culture wars. We had them because God blessed us with them and we embraced that blessing. I also don’t know that the way it is written really is representative of what Ms. Campbell is trying to say. I get what she is saying when she says stuff like: "We look across the Islamic world and we see that they are outnumbering us in their family size, and they are in many places and many countries taking over those nations, without a jihad, just by multiplication," Campbell says.. It is not all about that, but if God’s people won’t have children and won’t raise their children up to follow Christ and won’t evangelize, well pretty soon we won’t have many Christians left over, will we?
What is really instructive is to read the comments that follow at the end of the article. Here are some samples…
I hate to see christians pigeon holed like this... not all are crazy, right wing conspirators that want to topple whole religions and societies in the name of christ.
I really wish the tax laws in this country were overhauled so that people who choose to have more than 2 children actually had to bear the full, complete cost of each additional child. No Federal or State handouts, no exceptions or exemptions, no nothing!...Then if they want to go on a population jihad fueled by irrational, archaic religious beliefs fine, but the entire cost comes out of their personal pockets, not mine or anyone else's!
This story about the Quiverfull movement is frightening to me on so many levels! It seems that their idea is to multiply to such great numbers that they will be able to take over the country (perhaps the world!) in order to deny those of us with a different perspective our right to live as we see fit. One of the very things that make this country great, and I might add something that enables THEM to do as they wish. There is room for everyone at god's table. Although with such irresponsible breeding, and giving no thought to the fact that this world does have finite resources, there may be no food for anyone to eat there.
Certainly it is rational to view stay at home moms with more than 2.1 children as being terrifying! Eeek, she has five kids, run! That is just the first few comments I read, I can imagine that the tenor of the conversation will continue to reflect this sort of narcissism. I am tempted to reply back but I figure that is just a waste of time. NPR is aimed at a particular audience and it is apparent from the comments already posted that no one is interested in having an intelligent conversation. It was just a few years ago that women had twice as many kids as they have today, but these people make it sound like some crazy movement that sprang up out of nowhere.
npr quiverfull national public radio quiver full quiverful
8 comments:
Arthur,
I read the NPR article and thought it was a pretty good one. The comments were harsh..... but expected. I for one tell people that we purposely chose 10 kids to plan our retirment.. purely selfishness on our part because I didn't want to be abandoned in a nursing home and left to die. What do these people think is going to happen? Who will sit with them and love them at the end?
They will reap the consequences and truly be sorry they didn't chose life.....
Being a mom of 10 doesn't mean I am a "saint" or I am "crazy" it just means I purposely chose to focus my time and energy and funds on children vs. things.
Why can't people respect that?
God bless,
gloria
We're amused by the current "family" model in American society. Both mother and father work full time, farming their 2 and a half kids out to day care and/or school while they work, only to make enough money to pay the bills and perhaps some excessive life style tidbits. With both parents working, neither has time to cook nourishing foods, instead eating only highly processed, then microwaved foods, eating out frequently, and visiting the doctor often with nutritional deficiency caused illnesses.
The extra money spent on "instant meals", restaurants, medical expenses, day care, and the extra vehicle and business wardrobe for the working mother, almost always is more than she is actually bringing in as take home pay. So really what is the point of having two jobs, at the expense of quality family time?
Part of the quiverful model is that one parent can stay home with the children and actually nurture them as they grow, and "train them up in the way which they will go..."
We're not "quiverful." We long to be, but are willing to let God fill it in His time, not rush things along medically. We feel the same about having kids as not having kids: God will either give them or withhold them as He sees fit, and we will be fully blessed either way.
Gloria, you have your priorities straight. Children are a blessing, and you have been way more blessed than many, no matter what the naysayers will tell you!
-Steve
Paula,
I can almost guarantee that in virtually every circumstance you are correct and that a two spouse family actually costs more in the long run. I have long been of the belief that mothers working outside of the home has nothing to do with economic need and everything to do with women buying into the feminist notion that if they are not working outside of the home, productive members of the society, they are lesser beings. Thus we have women who stay home being described as “just a housewife” as if working as a receptionist or a doctor is somehow more vital to our society than raising children. As more and more women enter the workforce, the need for institutionalized daycare and expanded public education puts our children under the control of government and less under the influence of their parents.
Steve wrote the comment, but I am not opposed to answering to his name ;o)!
I was the oldest of 6 myself. One of Steve's sisters has 8 that she homeschools!
I'm sure you can well imagine how expense childcare would be!
One would need to more than a bit wealthy to make it work.
Paula
I am an agnostic, I am currently separated from my wife, and I have two children. I am curious about this way of life and would hope to engage someone in an intelligent conversaion to satisfy my own curiousity. Some quick questions, how do you pay for more than three children?
Can you explian this non-sequitir more fully, "-visiting the doctor often with nutritional deficiency caused illnesses."
Or this straw man here,"feminist notion that if they are not working outside of the home, productive members of the society, they are lesser beings."
Could it be that some women don't want to be housewives or even mothers? That they want to be accomplished professionals?
my email is james.severin@hotmail.com
James,
Thanks for stopping by and for your questions.
how do you pay for more than three children?
That is a very interesting question, posed in an interesting way.
To answer your question briefly: We do not have expensive cars. We don’t take expensive vacations. A trip to Disney is not in our future. We live very modestly, we try to be frugal. We don’t have cable/satellite TV. Our kids share bedrooms, toys, games. We rarely eat out as a family because it is kind of hard to get a table for 10 and it is expensive. Our quality of life is measured by our family life, not by the vacations we take or the cars we drive or the balance of our investment accounts. My children have plenty to eat, a comfortable home, loving parents who have made the raising and educating of our children our priority. I make a very comfortable living now, but even when I was making far less and we had 4 or 5 kids, we lived comfortably. People had large families for centuries before wide-spread contraception. What has changed is not the cost of raising kids but the expectations of what children need to be happy. Our view is that children are not an expense, they are a blessing. Kids are not expensive; buying them everything a consumerist society says they need is expensive.
Could it be that some women don't want to be housewives or even mothers? That they want to be accomplished professionals?
If a woman doesn’t want to be a mother, that is her business. If her passion is her job, then that is what she should do and she probably shouldn’t have kids. If she wants to be a mother but has bought into the very real worldview that women are fulfilled only by working outside of the home (even to the point of being told that they are letting down the feminist movement by staying at home), that is a problem. Being a mother is taxing, it takes time and it takes effort. Trying to be a mother devoted to family and kids and simultaneously being a “professional” is unrealistic and unhealthy.
When I look at women who are frazzled and harried, taking their kids to daycare every day, getting home at 6 to whip up some dinner, helping with homework and shuffling their kids off to bed I don’t see fulfilled, “accomplished” professional women. I see women who are crushed by the weight of juggling being a mother and trying to fulfill the feminist mandate that they be employed outside of the home. Being a mother who cares for her children is a far more vital and noble profession that being an accountant or a doctor or a secretary.
I really don't think that the quiverfull movement is a solution to "frazzled and harried" women. Cooking for, cleaning up after, bathing, teaching, doing laundry for, and watching more than 3 or 4 children every single day would be way more frazzling than the tight schedule during the week for the hypothetical suburban mom with 2 children. I imagine that Mrs. Duggar has had a much more demanding, time-consuming life than our hypothetical suburban mom. Until some of her children got older and she got smart about it and got the older ones to do all that stuff for the younger ones in her place.
Are you aware that women who work part-time actually spend a greater percentage of the time they're around their kids actually interacting with them? Who spends the second largest percentage of time around their kids interacting with them? Full-time working mothers. Who spends the least? Stay-at-home moms. You could make an understandable argument that that is because stay-at-home mothers are around their kids for so much of a larger percentage of the time, but similar studies have shown that mothers who work part-time are overall better mothers as far as the quality of their interactions go.
I understand you hate daycare and all, but do you realize that for young toddler girls, time spent in daycare is rather vital for their IQs? Toddler girls who were not in daycare at least 10 hours a week had IQ's averaging 10 points lower than toddler girls who had been in a daycare program for at least 10 hours a week? Also, how on earth do children of quiverfull families ever learn to be people in the big world outside of their families and other quiverfull families? Daycare and public school play a vital role in children learning social skills that they will need later on (well, at least the male children will - y'know, the ones that have to go out and get jobs).
I'd like to say that the majority of feminists (because like any group, the feminists have their crazies...) do not feel that women who want to stay home with their children are somehow less valuable than women who both work and raise children. I think what you are missing is that feminism is about women being able to decide for themselves (individually, not as a collective group) what they find meaningful and valuable in their lives, and pursuing those things. If that is having and raising children, and the woman decided that, good for her! If that is having a career and not having children, good for her! If that is having both a career and children, good for her! You all have some warped ideas on feminism.
Finally, as for your quote:
"Being a mother who cares for her children is a far more vital and noble profession that being an accountant or a doctor or a secretary."
How do you figure? A woman out saving lives as a doctor has not done as much good as one who continually pops out new ones? ??? This is really baffling to me.
Thanks,
Amy
Amy,
Thanks for commenting. I appreciate the time that went into your comment. Having said that…
I find some of your assumptions pretty questionable. Women who are stay at home moms spend less time “interacting” with their children than women who work outside of the home? Really? Come spend a day with my family and tell me that stay-at-home moms don’t “interact” with their children.
...similar studies have shown that mothers who work part-time are overall better mothers as far as the quality of their interactions go.
That is a pretty strong blanket statement without a shred of documentation. Women who work part-time are “better mothers” based on some definition of the quality of their interaction? What is “quality interaction” and who gets to decide? I think that hugging a child who scrapes her knee during the day is more valuable than a woman rushing home to microwave dinner before driving their child off to some guilt driven activity. In fact just the opposite is documented to be true, that women today are far less happy and satisfied. The feminist movement has a far more insidious motivation than merely giving women the choice to work or not and the feminist movement has sold women a mess of pottage labeled “equality” and the only equality is that Americans are all equally miserable. Your view of feminism sounds very noble but I find it frankly naïve.
You are correct in one aspect. I hate day care. I hate that women have bought into the notion that they need to work and that the extra money they think they are making justifies bundling even tiny children off to be monitored by someone else. The idea that being warehoused with other children and watched by strangers is somehow beneficial to children strikes me as delusional. Do children learn to survive by necessity, to adapt and become social chameleons out of self-defense? I am sure that is true. However I don’t believe that is the sort of environment that is healthy for a child and I don’t find those traits to be admirable or traits that I want my children to embrace.
As far as “socialization”, that is a tired argument that gets thrown out against homeschoolers all the time. My kids spend lots of time in play with other kids, my oldest daughter volunteers at a home for adults who unable to care for themselves, they are involved with church groups and in 4-H. It is borderline insulting to assume that we lock our kids up and never let them see the light of day or interact with other children. The difference is that we have some control and regulation of those interactions, i.e. we are being parents, instead of throwing them in a pool of their peers and hoping for the best.
It seems you are throwing all manner of purported statistics and “facts” out in an attempt to refute what is so glaringly obvious that it defies reason to argue against it: children are as a rule best cared for by those who care for them the most, i.e. their family. Children in America by and large raise themselves under the influence of their peers and under the watch of paid surrogate parents who ensure that they don’t get hurt. We are reaping the harvest of that method of parenting in absentia every day in America and elsewhere in Western civilization. There is nothing that is more valuable demonstrated in the world around us by its absence than parenting by parents. So I maintain my claim that stay at home mothers serve a far more vital role in shaping our culture than doctors or engineers.
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