God Will Provide For Your Babies

[lilwriter85]

lorialexander.blogspot.com/2013/03/weeping-for-women.html

I am weeping for women with an empty nest at age 39; their fertility surgically destroyed; their hormones artificially regulated; their physical and emotional health in shambles. {Helen Aardsma}[/quote

[merrily]

She can tell it to the children languising in the church's 'orphanages', the babies in the 'baby mill', and the women in the laundries. Weep for being such a condescending asshat Lori. Not for the women who CHOOSE to become mothers and the children who were NOT abused by the system you so loved, and definitely not for the children raised by loving heterosexual and gasp! same sex couples. Jebus, is there NOTHING else you can do except put down others?

[ILoveJellybeans]

Just because birth control is available, doesnt mean you have to use it. If you want another baby, dont use it, if you arent sure whether you want to have another baby, dont do anything permanent to stop it.

Nomatter whether you have one kid or 20, you cant have babies forever, and at some point (unless you die before your youngest kid is in college, or infantilise your adult child to the point where theyre living at home at age 50 and cant function in the real world) you are going to have an empty nest. Part of being a parent is letting them grow up, leave home and find their own life. If you want your kid to be a baby forever, get one of those reborn dolls, they never grow up.

[Fargood]

I am weeping for women with an empty nest at age 39; their fertility surgically destroyed; their hormones artificially regulated; their physical and emotional health in shambles. {Helen Aardsma}[/quote

Sixty percent (60%) of all infertility is attributed to Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which is a hereditary hormonal condition that interferes with ovulation (among other things.) It's not a "surgical destruction" and the only way for many of those affected to conceive at all is through hormonal regulation of their cycles. For many of these women, if they did not seek medical treatment for their condition, they would not conceive at all.

I wish these people would read a book once in a while.

I went through ten years of infertility. No, it wasn't my fault. I didn't choose it and no one can explain to me why it happened. And while it was a tough road to travel, my physical and emotional health are really pretty darn awesome.

[GeoBQn]

Has Lori mentioned liking the Duggars? Has she ever seen the episode where they go to El Salvador (one of the countries where abortion is illegal for any reason) and they met a family with 14 children--many of them dead?

[BravaAmica]

lorialexander.blogspot.com/2013/03/weeping-for-women.html

Dafuq?! An empty nest at 39 years old? That sounds amazing- the kids are gone and me and my husband have the youth and energy to go on adventures. Or maybe I could start a new phase in my career. The possibilities are endless, really. A friend of mine is 38 and her second (and last) child leaves for college this fall. Her and her husband are going to miss him but are excited about this new time in their lives. Most of us have to wait until our late 40s or early 50s to experience one on one time with our spouses again. I'm kind of jealous.

[Isis]

Every single excuse is a lack of trusting God except severe health problems for the mother if she were to have more children. This is only my opinion but not having enough money, too much work, afraid of childbearing, etc. all stem from a lack of trust in God's provision and strength

So trust in God's provision and strength in every circumstance except "severe health problems for the mother" ? God will provide food, housing, medical care etc for your children, He will provide you with the strength to overcome feat of childbearing, and the work of childraising...

But if you have medical reason that pregnancy would be dangerous to you - you are SOL and should plan accordingly?

[Burris]

I am weeping for women with an empty nest at age 39; their fertility surgically destroyed; their hormones artificially regulated; their physical and emotional health in shambles. {Helen Aardsma}

Way to slap women with fertility problems in the face. I had one miscarriage in 2007, and that's it. My husband and I never attempted to prevent pregnancy; it's simply that one or the other of us, or perhaps both, were not supposed to have children. My husband and I both agree eugenics is a path to destruction, but perhaps God ordained that his condition - perhaps the lethal variant of it, which could have hit any or all of our progeny - should not affect any child born to us.

And now with my husband ill, we almost certainly cannot adopt - so yeah, empty nest. I am his and he is mine: My beloved is my mission - his happiness, his ability to return to work and all the other activities he enjoys. Perhaps God saw this thing waiting for us, and knew how hard it would be for us to care for children when we ourselves would be so taxed.

There are other blessings for a family without children. In our case, it's a happy marriage that turned out to be so incredibly durable and stable it surprised even us. We don't need a quiver full of arrows to fire at our enemies in your stupid culture war. We have something else - a thing you and your cronies lack: Facts, truth, the capacity to empathize. If this is not a war of flesh but of spirit, than we and people like us will ultimately win – those with children and those without - because we don't treat each other as consumables to be aimed at the enemies we imagine everywhere. We treat each other as what we are: Diverse human beings, worthy of dignity.

I feel sorry for you.

[caitiedid313]

If my husband was a patriarchal douchebag, I'm sure I'd try to avoid alone time and genuine interaction by having as many people around as possible. For her, no children means no buffers or excuses for her attention to be elsewhere.

On the other side of the coin, FH and I do want children, but we don't know exactly when. We are torn between not wanting to be in our thirties when we start spawning and not wanting to share each other with anyone else for a while. We may be heathens, with my pants-wearing and our drinking and dancing, and don't forget our Catholicism, but at least we are happy. You couldn't pay me enough to switch places with her.

[August]

Thankfully, I was 48 years old when my baby left for college. However, the above quote really struck me. I felt I had been lied to by our society. We should control our fertility and prevent babies, it told us. Up until artificial birth control, most people just had babies whenever God blessed them with them and they didn't think anything about it.

Why is that a lie? No rational person would prevent a baby they wanted or have one they didn't. That's what the reality based world calls a choice.

If there are any lies, it's that birth control is infallible and that you can have babies in your 40's.

[August]

Dafuq?! An empty nest at 39 years old? That sounds amazing- the kids are gone and me and my husband have the youth and energy to go on adventures. Or maybe I could start a new phase in my career. The possibilities are endless, really. A friend of mine is 38 and her second (and last) child leaves for college this fall. Her and her husband are going to miss him but are excited about this new time in their lives. Most of us have to wait until our late 40s or early 50s to experience one on one time with our spouses again. I'm kind of jealous.

You know, I preferred having my 20s free. Entering my 40s I'm not so into the things you can do without kids. If I'm at home crafting in front of the TV there might as well be a sleeping child in the next room.

There's also a lot to be said for doing things at the same time as your friends.

[August]

Sixty percent (60%) of all infertility is attributed to Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which is a hereditary hormonal condition that interferes with ovulation (among other things.) It's not a "surgical destruction" and the only way for many of those affected to conceive at all is through hormonal regulation of their cycles. For many of these women, if they did not seek medical treatment for their condition, they would not conceive at all.

I wish these people would read a book once in a while.

I went through ten years of infertility. No, it wasn't my fault. I didn't choose it and no one can explain to me why it happened. And while it was a tough road to travel, my physical and emotional health are really pretty darn awesome.

I don't think she's talking about childless, she's talking about childfree. It's not a compassionate weeping, it's a smug passive-aggressive weeping.

[Burris]

And wait – I'm not done with you yet, Lori:

My husband survived because a lot of people – a great many of them – worked to preserve his life. From the doctors and nurses to the janitors who sterilized the walls and mopped the floors to the people who developed the strong antibiotics he needed to those who created the trach and the ventilator and the oxygen concentrator.

And because we live in Canada, where we have received a lot of help with the related costs, we are not facing bankruptcy or anything of the sort. In fact, we're still on track to be fully debt-free within two years. So, in a real sense, all the citizens of this country – this country where people called me sister when I had no right to their sympathy, and where my husband was never hidden away – have helped us.

God moves all the time, through people who, of their own free will, are willing to serve one another. When provisions arrive for the children of parents who cannot afford so many, people – human beings – are covering that bill. When monies arrive for the electricity you cannot afford, a fellow human being sent that check.

And yet you are part of a movement that decries such sharing among the public and would rely on private donations only – and you yourselves would only give to those who share your views. The Bible says you're wrong in both where you give and how.

For if you love them who love you, what reward have you? do not even the tax collectors the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? – Matthew 5:46-47

He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. – Luke 3:11

These words above, from the Bible itself, are directed at people – at how they should treat others. They would equally true if there were no God at all.

Moreover, most of those who helped us did so in secret. They gave without recognition or hope of reward. We could make a book full of only their names if we knew them.

Do to others as you'd have them do to you. Show kindness not merely to family and friends, but to strangers and – where possible – to enemies as well. If you have more than you need and see someone else with less than he needs, share from your abundance. Do justice and love mercy.

I've failed at these things, but I know they are the gold standard for human behavior. The apex of all morality. The foundation for the best ethics.

You say you follow the Bible, that its statutes are forever – then how is it that you can ignore the role human beings play in God's service? And how can you not see that to stretch beyond your means without plan is not only tempting God but also impacting all the people who must share in the additional weight you've added to their burdens?

The help you get does not come from nowhere; God doesn't just 'magic' new money into existence or make new food out of thin air. People share these things. And you dare try to wrap your mouth around the concept of human dignity when you have such a poor understanding of it!

[Drina Adams]

I'm always annoyed when religious people talk about having children as though selfish women are to blame for putting their careers first. i'm the first of my friends to have a child and I'm pregnant with my second. No close friends have children. i suspect one or two are trying and I know another doesn't want them, never has. I also know people who've had three rounds of IVF or cycles of other treatments and have decided enough is enough. I know a couple married for 15 years before their 'miracle' baby. My parents know couples who don't have children, maybe they never wanted them, maybe they couldn't. Who knows. I also know friends who went out with guys for a long time, hoping to get married to them and have children, but the relationships ended and their childbearing is now on hold.

It has nothing to do with not trusting God. It has to do with LIFE, and the slings and arrows that crop up along the way. I was on birth control for some years, came off it, got pregnant within six months and got pregnant while breastfeeding. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, fundies who think I'm a bad breeder who fucked up my reproductive rights. And not wanting loads of kids doesn't make me a bad person, it makes me a person exercising choice.

[lilwriter85]

Has Lori mentioned liking the Duggars? Has she ever seen the episode where they go to El Salvador (one of the countries where abortion is illegal for any reason) and they met a family with 14 children--many of them dead?

She is a Duggar fan. She did a posting about them and the Bateses once. She talked about how they don't fight and how "they are so much better than the Kardashians." I think Lori only sees the happy image and she doesn't realize that Boob and Mullet struggled in the past financially. If she is a regular viewer, she has probably seen that episode but the info on that family just went in one ear and out the other with Lori. Lori has also done postings where she has encouraged people to have lots of kids and not use birth control. The huge problem with her saying that crap is that she really has no recent experience with a large family and she doesn't see the financial aspects. Women with smaller families or no kids have done the math in regards to fiances and large families. Some people see that having a large family would be difficult and they decide to limit their family size.

Four kids is still kind of small and Lori's family lived comfortably. There are QF fathers who make much less than Ken and are supporting 5 or move kids. I also think Lori likes the perks of the upper middle class lifestyle. If she and Ken had a dozen children, they wouldn't be going on vacations to Hawaii and she wouldn't have been able to send her son to a private Christian college. Her kids also attended a Christian high school and the youngest daughter attended Biola for awhile. Lori thinks on the surface that a large family would be great, but she doesn't think deeper about finances,. I also think her kids are happy with the size of their family. Her kids probably know that if there had been more kids things would have been difficult. I also suspect that none of Lori's kids will have large families. I see them each having four kids at most. The oldest daughter will be turning 30 soon and hasn't had kids.

I wish some of the more hardcore fundies would read Lori's blog. Zsu, Steve Maxwell, and maybe Kelly C. would rip her apart. I can easily see Zsu telling Lori you should have had more kids and I can also see her ripping apart Lori's kids. I don't even think the Duggars would like Lori. Boob and Mullet wouldn't sympathize with Lori's health problems and they would probably hate on her for allowing her kids to go to colleges. They also wouldn't like Lori's ballerina daughter. I think some of Lori's fangirls with larger families will eventually ditch her blog. They will realize that there are things they don't have in common with Lori.

[NoneandDoneinCali]

So, let me get this straight: You should have children early because ... well, Jesus, headships, and God's army (or something). And you should ALSO have them late because ... loneliness? Sounds like young or old, women should live in some sort of regret. So what should I do, Oh Greatest of Mentors Lori? I made plenty of money in my twenties but had no business (not to mention desire) in having a baby. Now finishing up grad school in my thirties I suppose I may begin to consider thinking about it (I've always been ambivalent towards motherhood), but unless a truck full of money (we're talking STUDENT LOAN PAYOFF MONEY) drives up to my door, I'd be one of those horrible, ungodly government sponges. Not to mention I'm pretty stoked to start a new career, and, like I said, too much life has happened for motherhood to seem like a good idea.

What to do, Lori! Oh ... live my entire life full of regret and sadness? With tears always in my eyes? Choking on Godly envy of people like you? Rush to find an appropriate headship so I can maximize the last few years of my fertility? No thanks.

I'm sort of new around here ... what is with this chick? Do people listen to her?

[lilwriter85]

So, let me get this straight: You should have children early because ... well, Jesus, headships, and God's army (or something). And you should ALSO have them late because ... loneliness? Sounds like young or old, women should live in some sort of regret. So what should I do, Oh Greatest of Mentors Lori? I made plenty of money in my twenties but had no business (not to mention desire) in having a baby. Now finishing up grad school in my thirties I suppose I may begin to consider thinking about it (I've always been ambivalent towards motherhood), but unless a truck full of money (we're talking STUDENT LOAN PAYOFF MONEY) drives up to my door, I'd be one of those horrible, ungodly government sponges. Not to mention I'm pretty stoked to start a new career, and, like I said, too much life has happened for motherhood to seem like a good idea.

What to do, Lori! Oh ... live my entire life full of regret and sadness? With tears always in my eyes? Choking on Godly envy of people like you? Rush to find an appropriate headship so I can maximize the last few years of my fertility? No thanks.

I'm sort of new around here ... what is with this chick? Do people listen to her?

Sadly, some people do listen to her. I think most of the women taking her advice are already living the fundie/submissiveness lifestyle. A few days back someone commented on her blog that she views Lori as a marriage counselor. Outside of the blog, Lori and her husband Ken also do couples mentoring at their church and they have retained some of the couples assigned to them. Several couples have wisely rejected them as a mentors. One scary incident involving Lori was when she told a pregnant woman to please her husband sexually despite a doctor telling that woman not to do it for health reasons.

[Burris]

I'm sort of new around here ... what is with this chick? Do people listen to her?

Alas - one poster even compared Lori to a personal marriage counseler.

Ohhh RUUUUN!

[Anxious Girl]

So my aunt should just do nothing and hope that clothes, diapers, food, beds, sheets, and toys along with other needs fall out of the sky? You're so smart, Lori. :roll: I never understood the concept of God will provide.

[JesusFightClub]

Um what. I'm not 39 but I would like to know when I should be having babies and how providey God gets for women who

a. live in one bedroom flats and can't afford anything bigger as in EVER

b. don't have a male headship so would presumably be fucking guys randomly in club toilets to get da preshuss baybee or flinging themselves at any guy of marriageable age in sight, thus rendering themselves defrauding and immodest (and probably practicing harlotry)

c. have had addiction issues in the past

d. are a bit mental

e. are living off their overdrafts

f. would have to quit work if WILD BAYBEE APPEARED therefore becoming evil, government sponging dole mooching feminist whores

g. are universally acknowledged by all friends and family to have no maternal instinct whatsoever

HMMMM LORI! Still reckon this God insurance scheme will pan out?

Personally, I'd like to see the paperwork before I sign up...

[ILoveJellybeans]

Um what. I'm not 39 but I would like to know when I should be having babies and how providey God gets for women who

a. live in one bedroom flats and can't afford anything bigger as in EVER

b. don't have a male headship so would presumably be fucking guys randomly in club toilets to get da preshuss baybee or flinging themselves at any guy of marriageable age in sight, thus rendering themselves defrauding and immodest (and probably practicing harlotry)

c. have had addiction issues in the past

d. are a bit mental

e. are living off their overdrafts

f. would have to quit work if WILD BAYBEE APPEARED therefore becoming evil, government sponging dole mooching feminist whores

g. are universally acknowledged by all friends and family to have no maternal instinct whatsoever

HMMMM LORI! Still reckon this God insurance scheme will pan out?

Personally, I'd like to see the paperwork before I sign up...

Her answer would be probably that you should move in with your parents, start wearing frumpers and let them find a husband for you, so you can start filling your quiver, disregarding all issues mentioned above.

[AnywhereButHere]

Dang. In order to have an empty nest at 39, I would've had to have gotten pregnant at, oh, 21ish. While there are many great young parents, I would so not have been one of them. I was definitely not done being a kid myself. God did provide for my baby by not giving him to me until I was old enough to handle it. Take that Lori! :D

[chaotic life]

My sister had an empty nest at 38. She could only do one child while in evil medical school. In her mid-30s, she wanted a second child. She also had blood clots and was diganosed with a clotting disorder. She's 39 and not 100% certain she won't have a second child but the idea of heparin, high risk pregnancy and highly medicated childbirth just do NOT appeal to her AT ALL.

Instead, she is going to Amsterdam in April to see the tulips. She travels all over the world and now commutes between her practice and where her boyfriend lives, halfway across the US from where she lives. None of that would be possible if she had more kids.

I will have an empty nest by 49. I cannot WAIT. I love my kids. However, raising them is just one season in my life. There is life beyond this season. My kids start leaving in just over two years now and will steadily leave every couple of years for 12 years before I'm done.

I know what I just LOVE? Someone who did NOT live the life she now browbeats others is the ONLY option to take. It was okay for Lori to only have four kids and use birth control. Afterall, SHE had medical conditions that SHE deems were worthy of using birth control. However, young mothers cannot possibly having that level of medical conditions. Nope, no siree. She has seen the LIGHT and it has babies all over it. Therefore, she did NOT live what she preaches but all young mothers MUST do exactly as she says and not at all as she did.

Whatever. I don't have to justify what medical conditions led to the conclusion that my quiver was "full" at nine. Nor do I have to explain that half of my quiver is not biologically tied to me. However, I will NEVER lay splaid on an operating table for 1.5 hours while my doctor works to save my life, nor will I spend the day after I give birth connected to a milion wires so they can put back INTO me what they lost while saving my life the day before (like BLOOD). I was done before that nightmare, but it was a cold hard slap in the face that I wanted my children to grow up with me ALIVE and not merely a productive uterus as their legacy.

[lilwriter85]

I have a friend from high school who has a huge chance of having an empty nest at age 34. She is 29 now, she had her first child at 14 and then another one at 16. She has attended college and is providing well for her kids. She is currently dating someone and thinking about marriage. She has told me that kind of wants to have another kid especially if she does get married. Who knows what will happen with her.

[Dysfundamental]

There was, too, birth control in Lori's grandmother's day: condoms, diaphragms, and fertility awareness certainly existed by whenever Lori's grandmother was of childbearing age (and her great-grandmother, unless she's from a family with really long generations like mine---one of my great-grandfathers was born in the 1840s).

Also, my quiver was full at zero (though I helped fill some ebil homosexuals' quiver with two!)