Quiverfull Catholic Family

[homeschoolmomma1]

I forgot to mention at church yesterday That I also met a family that sat by my husband and kids. He said I just HAD to meet her. So here she came with a little baby in her arms and a long skirt on. Her daughters and boys came training behind. Her husband reminded me of an Amish man with a beard. The girls were in dresses (however it was church time)

Anyway I got to talking to her and she said she is one of 19 children herself. around 30 years old and has 7 kids. I asked if she had twins and she said 'oh no' but it does run in the family. The first born was supposed to be twins but died still born I believe.

Anyway I will keep you posted about this family around 30 and her oldest is 11. I think she is trying for more from the likes of it. A parish family member came up to me and shook her head and said, "we are worried about this family" hmmm

She does not know 19 kids and counting but I think she is lying to be honest. She is on a mission to have more babies... and she 'looks' like Michelle. Long hair- not from the 1980s though

[darareaksmey]

Soooo...I don't pay that much attention to Quiverfull doctrine, but are there Catholics who really follow that particular philosophy? I mean, don't Catholics have a much, much longer tradition of having large families without the "arrows in the quiver" bit?

[O Latin]

I went to high school with a girl who is the oldest of ten. The tenth was born during our sophomore year (there might be more by now, I haven't really kept up with her). They were Catholic. However, other than the number of children, they seemed pretty normal. She wore pants and dated and had a job and did extracurricular activities and now she's in college. I think nowadays most Catholics have more normal sized families, but there are still some very large ones.

[lilwriter85]

Soooo...I don't pay that much attention to Quiverfull doctrine, but are there Catholics who really follow that particular philosophy? I mean, don't Catholics have a much, much longer tradition of having large families without the "arrows in the quiver" bit?

There are some Catholics that follow Quiverfull because of particular bible verses and then are some Catholics that have large families because they hate birth control. When I was growing up Catholic, there were only about a handful of Catholic families with large families. There was one family that had 8 kids. The wife was one of my CCD teachers and she said that birth control was evil and that God should control how many kids you have. She was sort of wacky. She never had any other kids, so I do wonder if she and her husband changed their beliefs a bit or maybe they could no longer have kids for different reasons. There was another family that 12 kids and they homeschooled and they actually didn't let their kids join any of the church youth groups, I suspect they were very strict and probably didn't like the idea of some of their kids hanging out with youth pastors and other kids at pizza places or playing sports.

[homeschoolmomma1]

Oh I know Catholics have large families- It wasn't the fact that she had a large family just the way she 'acted' I mean most Catholic families with lots of Children don't act like they want 100 more

[alysee]

I have a dear friend who is 1 of 12. And as I have said from an earlier post my aunt and uncle have 10 kids themselves. I think in my particular area the average for Catholic famillies that I remember seeing in church was 5 but there were a couple with mega famillies of 9 and 10. In my family we were three. My parents always said they would have wanted more but financially and emotionally couldn't care for anymore.

[demgirl]

I think it depends on what you define as "Quiverfull". Does Quiverfull mean no birth control? Does it mean no birth control and no natural family planning? Does it mean saying that you trust God with your fertility, but in reality you are doing everything you can to get pregnant and keep up with the fundie Joneses?

[clibbyjo]

Catholics are fine with natural family planning. In the classes we took before getting married in the Catholic church, our "teachers"(a married couple and I am sure the husband was gay) had 2 kids and went on and on how natural family planning works great and is allowed.

Of all the Catholics I know(many as both my dh and I grew up Catholic), there were more abortions and premartial sex in that population that any other. The kids who went to Catholic schools were the worst. They don't practice what they preach. My husband's Catholic school nephew has already knocked up his second teenage girl at the ripe old age of 18. Classy and not very Catholic.

[3 is enough]

Although the Catholic Church is against any type of birth control other than natural family planning, the actual number of Catholics in non-Third World countries where birth control is readily available who actually follow that particular teaching is quite small.

I am one of 5. After my youngest brother was born in 1969 (an oops! baby ;) ) my mother went on the pill. It did bother her- she went to her priest, who was quite progressive at the time (many Quebec priests were ahead of their time), and he told her to follow her conscience.

When I got married, I had no qualms or guilt- no old men in Rome were going to dictate when and how many kids we would have.

[Cran]

NFP is allowed, but of course, there are families who decide not to use it and bein the sense of the word quiverfull.

I noticed a certain rise among those Catholic who style themselves "plain Catholics" and are real mad on modesty, too.

This rise of misunderstood conservatism across the denominations and religions makes me fear for the future. Nothing can be that easily misused.

[MonkeyMomma]

We knew a lot of families like this when I was homeschooled ... 8+ children, socially conservative, many who were skirts only for girls and/or covered their heads in church. I don't think that theologically there's too too much in common with QF, but there are definitely some underlying similarities in practice, including homeschooling, obsessiveness about modesty and purity, male headship of the family, etc.

[SunnyAndrsn]

An old friend of mine is they youngest of 15. Her parents were Roman Catholic, and did not do the 'quiverfull' philosophy, just the stereotypical catholic "be fruitful and multiply"

Kids all went to public school, wore normal clothes etc. They grew up on a farm and their father was very abusive. No sexual abuse, but physical and emotional abuse. Stuff like telling my friend she was a whore and God was punishing her when she had an ovarian cyst that required surgery. Mom didn't leave d/t the catholic teaching about divorce. Finally, their parish had a young priest who she went to in desperation. The priest told her that the US government considers 20 years in prison a life sentence, and she'd done double that. He told her he wouldn't have a problem with her taking sacraments in the church if she divorced her husband. I think the fact that she was covered in bruises from his fists probably had something to do with it.

My friend moved out of the house and never spoke to her father again--ever. Refused to let him attend her wedding, didn't let him have anything to do with her life at all. If it wasn't for the other children telling him she was getting married, he likely never would have known.

Oh...and the mom lost 4 pregnancies, at least one was late term. 19 pregnancies total, no twins. You'd never know it to look at the mom that she'd had such a hard life. She ended up with full dentures in her early 60's, as her teeth were just a mess. I think it's likely d/t all of the pregnancies. She had bladder surgery and a hysterectomy d/t a prolapsed uterus. (hint hint, Michelle...that things going to literally fall out of you!!)

[Cran]

I'd like to clarify the Catholic position on divorce: While the church does not accept a divorce as valid (because the church has no part in it - in some cases, an annullment might be obtained) and therefore does not want people to remarry. Nobody is banned from receiving the sacraments if divorced UNLESS HE IS REMARRIED. Remarriage after divorce without an annullment from the church is seen as living bigamistic, and such people are believed to be in a state of ongoing, i.e. mortal sin.

The church never-ever taught that you are not allowed to seperate from an abusive spouse, on the contrary, separation can be the only way not to sin because innocents (usually children) have to be protected.

Isn't it sad that so many people are misinformed about their faith in such a degree that they have to suffer for it their whole life?! :o

[Deleted03]

Although the Catholic Church is against any type of birth control other than natural family planning, the actual number of Catholics in non-Third World countries where birth control is readily available who actually follow that particular teaching is quite small.

I am one of 5. After my youngest brother was born in 1969 (an oops! baby ;) ) my mother went on the pill. It did bother her- she went to her priest, who was quite progressive at the time ( Quebec priests were ahead of their time), and he told her to follow her conscience.

When I got married, I had no qualms or guilt- no old men in Rome were going to dictate when and how many kids we would have.

I'm sorry but WTH??? This is so preposterous. Maybe this priest was ahead of time, but saying that all priests were ahead of time in Quebec is just wrong.

My prof's mom died giving birth to the 8th children because her qc priest told her not to follow the doctor's advice of not having any more kids, it was a sin.

Usually NFP is allowed, but there are always people that are more hardcore than others and would think that having sex without wanting to make a child is sinful - which might lead to lots of slips and additional kids.

My neighbors in France have 10 kids including one who has Down, and there are 3 kids after her. Many religious catholic families have between 5-7 kids. The Church sure has nothing against large families :P

[xDreamerx]

I don't know if this is QF so much as it is maybe a throw back to old Catholicism and the eschewing of any birth control except NFP. Think Bobby and Ethel.

[3 is enough]

I'm sorry but WTH??? This is so preposterous. Maybe this priest was ahead of time, but saying that all priests were ahead of time in Quebec is just wrong.

Sorry, although I never actually used the word "all", I can see where this could be construed as such. I should have said "some" or even "many". I have changed the original post to reflect this.

Certainly, there were still many old-fashioned, hard-line priests who did not think that any form of birth control outside of NFP was acceptable, and counseled the women in their parishes accordingly. And many women would have done as they were told, and suffered the consequences.

But as a whole, the Church in Quebec was more progressive than in other parts of the world, probably in response to the large numbers of French Canadians who began leaving the Church in the mid-60's. In the 70's, they allowed altar girls and had general absolution confession services at Easter and Christmas, which was unheard of elsewhere. I remember a priest in Pennsylvania talking about finally allowing girls to serve at Mass in 1991, which was old news to me. And, yes, many (not all) priests began adopting a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding birth control practices.

And the birth rate dropped dramatically - by the 1980's it was one of the lowest in the western world, and the government even started paying people to have babies- $500 for the first, $1000 for the second, and $3500 for each subsequent child. But the program did not have the desired effect, and was discontinued in the late 90's.

[Witsec4]

As some of the PP's have stated, NFP is the only form of birth control that the Catholic church will officially recognize. We have friends who were married for 8 years before having kids, and they use NFP. They then went on to have 3 "planned" kids, and one "oops". I think NFP's effectiveness really depends on self-control AND a woman knowing when she is ovulating. Soooo many things can mess with ovulation- stress, nursing, sleep deprivation, etc., that I think it would be pretty hard to get back into NFP once you've had at least one baby. My cycle returned to normal pretty quickly after giving birth, but I'd had other friends who didn't get their periods back for 18+ months after having a babies.

We are Catholic, and both DH and I were raised in the faith. His mom and dad stopped going to church long ago, but my parents still practice. Before we were married, both of my parents told us NOT to use NFP. My mom was one of 9 kids (only 7 lived to adulthood), and grew up really, really poor and in a house in very bad condition. My mom was actually really happy when DH got a vasectomy after we had 3 kids. All of our kids are 2 years apart, and I think she was getting worried that I'd just keep popping out a kid every other spring. &: ) I was 22 when we got married, and DS#1 came along 18 months later...I can't even imagine having kid after kid after kid for 20+ years....

[mirele]

I don't think Natural Family Planning is all that Natural, to be blunt.