In just a couple of months my wife and I will have the experience of three children ages three and under before either of us hits 30. It’s a fact whose mention elicits such varied (and sometimes alarming) reactions from people that I too often succumb to the temptation to drop it…just to see. Similar scenarios have played out over the course of my relatively brief married life. When Laura and I were still in graduate school and expecting Jonah’s birth to come just shy of our first anniversary, we both had to put up with our share of subtle (and sometimes unsubtle) admonishment. This replaced the much less tolerable admonishments we had received from certain people prior to our marriage because we were suspected of being materialistic, child-hating, birth control loving pseudo-Orthodox due, in no small part, to my publicly stated views on the ends of Christian marriage. To be clear, neither “back then” (four or so years ago) nor “today” do I believe my views are all that controversial. At least, they’re not controversial if you accept, say, St. John Chrysostom’s views as being uncontroversial. What was controversial then and still is now seems to be my absolute revulsion at the righteous indignation which accompanies most (though not all) public discussions of “birth control,” “conception control,” “contraception,” etc. (call it what you will) and Orthodoxy. I have never understood why it became and remains a sort of “litmus test” for the “authenticity” of a particular marriage or the moral fiber of its members. There are certainly moral questions involved—very important, fundamental moral questions. But the public rhetoric, even when it’s not mean-spirited, so often comes across as an expression of sour grapes from individuals who apparently had to miss the boat of free and frequent trips to the mattress before jet setting to Europe to drink overpriced wine in the finest mid-range tourist hotels in London, Paris, and Madrid because their darn priest wouldn’t let them use rubbers.
I know there are well meaning individuals out there who have proffered very thoughtful discussions of the Orthodoxy/contraception “issue.” But for every analysis which contains both moral and intellectual rigor, there are two-dozen crackpot screeds animated by an inner “logic” of some phony baloney “naturalism” which should entail all of us making prostrations before the icon corner every time we try and subvert God’s will by alleviating our headaches with ibuprofen.
Really, though, I don’t want this post to open up the contraception question for debate. As I always tell people, “Go ask your priest” or, if they seem particularly distraught, “Let me tell you about how much I love my children…” What vexes me is that the current and future composition of my household is about the only thing which gets me a “pass” to even be mildly reproachful of those within the Church (and even some outside of it) who simply cannot get past contraception as the alleged “root of all evil.” It’s not at all dissimilar to the “free pass” I received during law school to criticize the Supreme Court’s affirmative action jurisprudence because I happen to have the “right” last name. I realize that there is a temptation to look down upon and/or criticize married Orthodox couples in one’s age bracket who are perfectly capable of procreating and yet “choose” not to. Children are wonderful, but man, they’re a lot of work. The next childless married Orthodox Christian I meet who tells me how “nutty” or “strange” it is that I have three children better hope my Guardian Angel is on duty; otherwise, they’re getting a punch to the sun. No trips to Madrid for my clan, not now or in the near future. But life goes on and besides, as I have discovered twice in the last tear, Huntington County, Pennsylvania is really pretty. We’re fine going there for vacation every so often.
I love my family. I really do. I love my two sons despite the fact they have tested their poor father’s weak heart time and again the past three days. To every fool who tells me they’re waiting for the “right time” to have children, I’m inclined to say that the “right time” was probably back when they were 22 and still had the hope of keeping pace with young boys who, even in their happy moments, are strangely akin to poo-flinging chimps. I feel almost out of date to be doing this stuff, but it’s still some of the best way imaginable to spend my time. I just hope that when one of them takes the desperate Major League ballclub which happens to draft them during the first round for a ride and inks a $15+ million contract, they remember that dear old dad is still paying off his student loans.
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