Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Catholic Living in the Modern World => Topic started by: Matthew on January 19, 2015, 07:22:21 PM
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Has anyone besides me noticed how many older (let's say Baby Boomer) couples at your local Trad chapel have 4 children or fewer?
I mean from the best to the worst of them, they all have 4 children or fewer. Any of them that had 5 were considered to have a "large" family.
If there was a Duggar TV show back then, it would have been a family with 6 children!
Today they are the pillars of our Trad chapels. They provide generous material and other support for the chapels. They usher, lead the Rosary, serve Mass, run the bookstore, and just about anything else that needs doing. They have lots of time and resources to be such pillars. I'm even going to assume they are in the state of grace, having confessed any sins from their past life and are currently striving to live the Catholic faith in an exemplary fashion.
I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
Anyhow, long story short, few (if any) Baby Boomers I've ever encountered could ever say to me, "Well here is how I did it..." because there is a fundamental flaw in whatever system they had: they didn't have the natural number of children God wanted to send (no birth control or NFP).
So besides the fact that the US Dollar is weaker now than in, say, 1970, we also are "handicapped" as it were because many young trads today are embracing the full package of morality, which includes having a large family AND homeschooling them so they aren't indoctrinated in the increasingly-evil public schools.
Homeschooling was *very* rare when Baby Boomers were parents. So was breastfeeding, home birth, and large families. See now what I have against that generation? Oh, and they also embraced Vatican II. It was up to that generation to accept it or reject it. So many of them loved it or had no problems with it.
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I use the analogy of the laborers in the vineyard.
Let's assume the men who came in at 9:00 AM were content with their 1 denarius, and were psyched up to NOT hold it against those who came in at 4:00 and only worked one hour until quitting time (5:00).
It's up to the master of the vineyard if he wants to be generous. It's his money, and after all I did agree to a denarius a day, right?
So on the way home, the All Day workers are walking next to the One Hour workers. They come across a man with a cart stuck in a ditch.
The One Hour workers, full of energy, immediately begin helping the hapless traveler. They call to the All Day workers and reproach them, "Aren't you going to help us do this good deed? What's the matter with your sense of charity?"
How would you feel if you were an exhausted "All Day" worker and had to hear this from a One Hour worker? Wouldn't that just be the straw that broke the camel's back?
Applying it to our actual situation --
Hooray for the Baby Boomers who can put lots of money in the collection plate, who have time to help out with various things, etc. but they shouldn't judge us youngsters, even if we can't do the same thing at 50 or 60, because frankly we were never in the same position. Ever.
If you rewind any of those Baby Boomers' lives back to my age, you will NOT have someone essentially in the same position.
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My parents were baby boomers who grew up before Vatican II but went along with the changes. They only had three children. I am the middle child and the only traditional Catholic in the family.
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My parents were baby boomers who grew up before Vatican II but went along with the changes. They only had three children. I am the middle child and the only traditional Catholic in the family.
In my entire life, I have only encountered or met maybe 2 families with kids "my age" who had more than 3 siblings.
At my independent Trad chapel growing up, there was only one such family. There were a couple "large" families with 5 kids.
I'm only bringing this up because it's such a solid demographic pattern/truth. It HAS TO have a bearing on countless real-world issues, from SSPX school funding, to parishioner psychology, etc.
About 3 dozen threads could be started from this one.
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Matthew's post resonates with me.
I just wrote out a long post and lost it. However, we have encountered the same people. Honestly, I don't know if it is possible to teach them, but they just do not understand what it takes to run a family in 2015. I do also think they are lovely, kind, edifying Catholics.
I always find housing to be the big issue. Housing is so complex these days, with big families, the over-reaching arm of the state, homeschooling, and all the other costs, it is such a huge decision. Most of the boomers tell you to buy a house and not rent. Just buy a house, it will be great. I don't think that taxes, homeschooling laws, how the children will be educated, or even van upgrades and such--things that keep us parents awake at night, ever cross their minds. I've tried to explain our situation but it is nearly impossible.
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I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
How do you know these things?
As for the rest, it makes me wonder where my husband and I fit into the Trad world given we're Johnny Come Latelies with no children and no particular wealth. I wonder what the parishioners at our chapel think of us.
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At my chapel, most of the parishoners are single older people who found out about the true faith late in life. There is one married man, but he comes alone, without his wife, though he brought his son a few times, but not regularly. The one large family we had left the chapel to support Father Pfeiffer.
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I guess you can make observations Matthew, but be careful to not make conclusions. I would give more credence to your conclusions if you actually talked with the folks that you have observed. NFP aside, God ordains life in the marriage and neither you nor anyone else knows details of why the couples had 3, 4, 6 or 2 kids for that matter.
Keep in mind that parents of baby boomers were impacted by two wars, WWII and the Korean War. I am a baby boomer and my parents were not Catholic, but the number of children they had was impacted by those wars as my Dad was away during that time. Life was chaos and even when he was home, relations between my Dad and Mom were strained. "Who are you?" Women learned to live without the man in the house and that created all kinds of strain when he was there and relational adjustment when he came home for good.
So if Mr and Mrs so and so have more wealth because they had "just" 4 kids, damn'it , take your mind off them and put it back on important things, like prayer, our own shortfalls, and such. They are of no concern to you nor anyone else and be grateful they now have the time to tend to things in the chapel that keep things going and... praise them for it. The 4 kids they did have were a lot more than the poor wife who had none after her husband was shot in the head at Normandy.
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I guess you can make observations Matthew, but be careful to not make conclusions. I would give more credence to your conclusions if you actually talked with the folks that you have observed. NFP aside, God ordains life in the marriage and neither you nor anyone else knows details of why the couples had 3, 4, 6 or 2 kids for that matter.
Keep in mind that parents of baby boomers were impacted by two wars, WWII and the Korean War. I am a baby boomer and my parents were not Catholic, but the number of children they had was impacted by those wars as my Dad was away during that time. Life was chaos and even when he was home, relations between my Dad and Mom were strained. "Who are you?" Women learned to live without the man in the house and that created all kinds of strain when he was there and relational adjustment when he came home for good.
So if Mr and Mrs so and so have more wealth because they had "just" 4 kids, damn'it , take your mind off them and put it back on important things, like prayer, our own shortfalls, and such. They are of no concern to you nor anyone else and be grateful they now have the time to tend to things in the chapel that keep things going and... praise them for it. The 4 kids they did have were a lot more than the poor wife who had none after her husband was shot in the head at Normandy.
Have you actually *read* any of my posts?
You should be able to tell the difference between philosophizing/talking big picture demographics and judging individuals. I absolutely despise doing the latter -- you must not know me at all.
First of all, you need to go look up what a "Baby Boomer" is. It is someone born between ~1948 and around 1965, plus or minus. The generation you speak of is the "Greatest Generation", or the PARENTS of the Baby Boomers.
The Baby Boomers' war was Vietnam, not WWII.
And as much as I "think the best" of all the individual Baby Boomer couples I know, the fact remains that large families in this generation are as rare as hens' teeth. I would know -- Baby Boomers were my parents, and all my classmates' parents. I know how many of my peers had more than 3 siblings -- virtually none.
Now the Greatest Generation were the ones who often can remember outhouses, not having a phone, not having a TV, living on the land, and they tended to have what I would call "natural size" families. And many young Catholics are having natural size families today. But the natural size family seems to have "skipped" a generation, for whatever reason.
Noting trends like this is for "educational purposes only". It's not so that you can go to Mass next week and yell slurs at the Baby Boomers you see. It's so you can better understand the world, just like any other philosophical endeavor.
By the way, I *have* drawn a conclusion about Baby Boomers. Drawing conclusions is the behavior of rational beings. What I should avoid doing is judging individuals from that generation. Thanks for the condescending admonishment, but you're really preaching to the choir telling me such a thing, as virtually everyone on this board can tell you.
We need to be precise and clear in our speaking/thinking, just like St. Thomas Aquinas was.
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I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
How do you know these things?
As for the rest, it makes me wonder where my husband and I fit into the Trad world given we're Johnny Come Latelies with no children and no particular wealth. I wonder what the parishioners at our chapel think of us.
I know these things because I've walked this earth for a while, and I've noticed a distinct trend among Baby Boomers, even the good Catholic ones, to have much smaller families than the "norm". I realize the "norm" varies, but you can see a drastic cutoff in the average number of children when you compare the Greatest Generation (WW2) and the Baby Boomers. Just look it up if you don't believe me.
I don't have to have inside knowledge to open my eyes and see things that are quite public.
I don't know WHY all the Baby Boomers have such small families -- maybe there was a REALLY effective NFP book, maybe there was something in the water -- that's all beside the point. All I'm saying is that they have small families. Nothing more.
If you want to narrow things down to personalities, and/or draw a judgment, sentence, condemnation, etc. from that, you're on your own.
Some people are cut out for abstract philosophical discussion, and some are not. I hate to say it, but many women are not. They tend to make everything personal and specific -- it's in their nature.
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I guess you can make observations Matthew, but be careful to not make conclusions. I would give more credence to your conclusions if you actually talked with the folks that you have observed. NFP aside, God ordains life in the marriage and neither you nor anyone else knows details of why the couples had 3, 4, 6 or 2 kids for that matter.
Keep in mind that parents of baby boomers were impacted by two wars, WWII and the Korean War. I am a baby boomer and my parents were not Catholic, but the number of children they had was impacted by those wars as my Dad was away during that time. Life was chaos and even when he was home, relations between my Dad and Mom were strained. "Who are you?" Women learned to live without the man in the house and that created all kinds of strain when he was there and relational adjustment when he came home for good.
So if Mr and Mrs so and so have more wealth because they had "just" 4 kids, damn'it , take your mind off them and put it back on important things, like prayer, our own shortfalls, and such. They are of no concern to you nor anyone else and be grateful they now have the time to tend to things in the chapel that keep things going and... praise them for it. The 4 kids they did have were a lot more than the poor wife who had none after her husband was shot in the head at Normandy.
Have you actually *read* any of my posts?
You should be able to tell the difference between philosophizing/talking big picture demographics and judging individuals. I absolutely despise doing the latter -- you must not know me at all.
First of all, you need to go look up what a "Baby Boomer" is. It is someone born between ~1948 and around 1965, plus or minus. The generation you speak of is the "Greatest Generation", or the PARENTS of the Baby Boomers.
The Baby Boomers' war was Vietnam, not WWII.
And as much as I "think the best" of all the individual Baby Boomer couples I know, the fact remains that large families in this generation are as rare as hens' teeth. I would know -- Baby Boomers were my parents, and all my classmates' parents. I know how many of my peers had more than 3 siblings -- virtually none.
Now the Greatest Generation were the ones who often can remember outhouses, not having a phone, not having a TV, living on the land, and they tended to have what I would call "natural size" families. And many young Catholics are having natural size families today. But the natural size family seems to have "skipped" a generation, for whatever reason.
Noting trends like this is for "educational purposes only". It's not so that you can go to Mass next week and yell slurs at the Baby Boomers you see. It's so you can better understand the world, just like any other philosophical endeavor.
By the way, I *have* drawn a conclusion about Baby Boomers. Drawing conclusions is the behavior of rational beings. What I should avoid doing is judging individuals from that generation. Thanks for the condescending admonishment, but you're really preaching to the choir telling me such a thing, as virtually everyone on this board can tell you.
We need to be precise and clear in our speaking/thinking, just like St. Thomas Aquinas was.
Matthew, a little touchy aren't you? Take your eyes off the boomers and put them on you and the current generation if you need to look around. There is room for more than your observaton. Boomers parents were living during WWII and Korea and yes, boomers less about 50K of them, lived past Viet Nam and the free love days, post Vat II days, the drug explosion, on and on. So what?
If a topic is so convoluted as you have posed this one, perhaps it was best left unwritten. It appears you are trying to stir the pot when it is a non issue. The past is done, gone, and forever will be. How much guilt do you want to stir among older folks with this type of topic.
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Has anyone besides me noticed how many older (let's say Baby Boomer) couples at your local Trad chapel have 4 children or fewer?
Yes, I noticed a long time ago. Statistically speaking, it is clear as day that many are contracepting, in one form or another, since otherwise you would have a different shaped distribution curve.
So it was obvious to me, aged 17, when I did a straw poll, that there simply were not enough large families. Nothing like enough. Someone HAD to be cheating, or fertility had dropped off a cliff for families with newer German cars. Or they were all abstaining for years on end. That seemed unlikely.
I've pointed this out before on forums and you always get the stupid defence from people like Knickerless who cannot understand human reproduction and standard deviation and distribution curves. The charity police then dive in.
The data does not lie. If Trads were not in some way gaming the system the family size distribution curve would be a different shape. And decent high school Maths student can understand this. There is no mystery here. People simply don't want to accept the facts. Do a poll yourself. I dare you. I double dare you.
My solution was to go and earn a six figure income so I could afford the kids that would inevitably come along. That way I could beat the world at its own game. I don't believe in the no-win scenario.
Rather than cheating God, I thought it was smarter to cheat the banks, since the banks cannot send me to hell and when they need more money they just print it using the software I sold them. Why make life difficult? If money is what you need find a way to make more.
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I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
How do you know these things?
As for the rest, it makes me wonder where my husband and I fit into the Trad world given we're Johnny Come Latelies with no children and no particular wealth. I wonder what the parishioners at our chapel think of us.
I knew two people who I thought were married late in life...turns out they were brother and sister.
Whoops.
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As guilt isn't something necessarily to be avoided (leads to repentence or reminds those who've been forgiven of the ongoing need to make reparation) and this is a discussion forum, I don't think a topic with such wide-reaching ramafications should be avoided.
It does matter. Those raising families today look for the sort of parenting wisdom that should come from their parents, aunts, uncles and it's extremely difficult to find anyone who can pass on their experiences of raising their "normal" Catholic family. You can go back to your grandparents, but the world changes too much over two generations and they're too far removed from their parenting days to give much advice.
A young person growing up, even if their parents didn't have a normal-sized family, should be able to look around and see that families come in different sizes, but, just like Matthew, I had only ONE classmate with more than 3 siblings -- they had twins which brought their count to five. Catholic or not, all of the families looked similar and NONE of them looked like the young families you see in Trad chapels today.
The nearly universal trend also did damage to the ability of Catholics today to raise a "normal" family. The Catholic population of the US should be significant enough that at least a small percentage of homes and vehicles would be designed with large families in mind, but they're not.
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Has anyone besides me noticed how many older (let's say Baby Boomer) couples at your local Trad chapel have 4 children or fewer?
I mean from the best to the worst of them, they all have 4 children or fewer. Any of them that had 5 were considered to have a "large" family.
If there was a Duggar TV show back then, it would have been a family with 6 children!
Today they are the pillars of our Trad chapels. They provide generous material and other support for the chapels. They usher, lead the Rosary, serve Mass, run the bookstore, and just about anything else that needs doing. They have lots of time and resources to be such pillars. I'm even going to assume they are in the state of grace, having confessed any sins from their past life and are currently striving to live the Catholic faith in an exemplary fashion.
I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
Anyhow, long story short, few (if any) Baby Boomers I've ever encountered could ever say to me, "Well here is how I did it..." because there is a fundamental flaw in whatever system they had: they didn't have the natural number of children God wanted to send (no birth control or NFP).
So besides the fact that the US Dollar is weaker now than in, say, 1970, we also are "handicapped" as it were because many young trads today are embracing the full package of morality, which includes having a large family AND homeschooling them so they aren't indoctrinated in the increasingly-evil public schools.
Homeschooling was *very* rare when Baby Boomers were parents. So was breastfeeding, home birth, and large families. See now what I have against that generation? Oh, and they also embraced Vatican II. It was up to that generation to accept it or reject it. So many of them loved it or had no problems with it.
If they are an older couple then maybe they have learned the error of their ways.
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I guess you can make observations Matthew, but be careful to not make conclusions. I would give more credence to your conclusions if you actually talked with the folks that you have observed. NFP aside, God ordains life in the marriage and neither you nor anyone else knows details of why the couples had 3, 4, 6 or 2 kids for that matter.
Keep in mind that parents of baby boomers were impacted by two wars, WWII and the Korean War. I am a baby boomer and my parents were not Catholic, but the number of children they had was impacted by those wars as my Dad was away during that time. Life was chaos and even when he was home, relations between my Dad and Mom were strained. "Who are you?" Women learned to live without the man in the house and that created all kinds of strain when he was there and relational adjustment when he came home for good.
So if Mr and Mrs so and so have more wealth because they had "just" 4 kids, damn'it , take your mind off them and put it back on important things, like prayer, our own shortfalls, and such. They are of no concern to you nor anyone else and be grateful they now have the time to tend to things in the chapel that keep things going and... praise them for it. The 4 kids they did have were a lot more than the poor wife who had none after her husband was shot in the head at Normandy.
Have you actually *read* any of my posts?
You should be able to tell the difference between philosophizing/talking big picture demographics and judging individuals. I absolutely despise doing the latter -- you must not know me at all.
First of all, you need to go look up what a "Baby Boomer" is. It is someone born between ~1948 and around 1965, plus or minus. The generation you speak of is the "Greatest Generation", or the PARENTS of the Baby Boomers.
The Baby Boomers' war was Vietnam, not WWII.
And as much as I "think the best" of all the individual Baby Boomer couples I know, the fact remains that large families in this generation are as rare as hens' teeth. I would know -- Baby Boomers were my parents, and all my classmates' parents. I know how many of my peers had more than 3 siblings -- virtually none.
Now the Greatest Generation were the ones who often can remember outhouses, not having a phone, not having a TV, living on the land, and they tended to have what I would call "natural size" families. And many young Catholics are having natural size families today. But the natural size family seems to have "skipped" a generation, for whatever reason.
Noting trends like this is for "educational purposes only". It's not so that you can go to Mass next week and yell slurs at the Baby Boomers you see. It's so you can better understand the world, just like any other philosophical endeavor.
By the way, I *have* drawn a conclusion about Baby Boomers. Drawing conclusions is the behavior of rational beings. What I should avoid doing is judging individuals from that generation. Thanks for the condescending admonishment, but you're really preaching to the choir telling me such a thing, as virtually everyone on this board can tell you.
We need to be precise and clear in our speaking/thinking, just like St. Thomas Aquinas was.
But you are judging, you accused them of cheating which in all fairness is probably a correct observation but why is this a topic, can we not be pleased that they have tradition and are trying to live a good Catholic life now.
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I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
How do you know these things?
As for the rest, it makes me wonder where my husband and I fit into the Trad world given we're Johnny Come Latelies with no children and no particular wealth. I wonder what the parishioners at our chapel think of us.
I know these things because I've walked this earth for a while, and I've noticed a distinct trend among Baby Boomers, even the good Catholic ones, to have much smaller families than the "norm". I realize the "norm" varies, but you can see a drastic cutoff in the average number of children when you compare the Greatest Generation (WW2) and the Baby Boomers. Just look it up if you don't believe me.
I don't have to have inside knowledge to open my eyes and see things that are quite public.
I don't know WHY all the Baby Boomers have such small families -- maybe there was a REALLY effective NFP book, maybe there was something in the water -- that's all beside the point. All I'm saying is that they have small families. Nothing more.
If you want to narrow things down to personalities, and/or draw a judgment, sentence, condemnation, etc. from that, you're on your own.
Some people are cut out for abstract philosophical discussion, and some are not. I hate to say it, but many women are not. They tend to make everything personal and specific -- it's in their nature.
But actually the bolded isn't completely true. You're also stating that they "cheated" and that they didn't have the "full" number of children as if you know that God would have given them more children. You don't know what God wished to be their particular "full" number.
This isn't something personal since I am not one of the people you are discussing. I am trying to put myself in their shoes though and I wonder why you care so much what they did or did not do before coming to Tradition. It seems to bother you a lot that, in your opinion, they "cheated". Why?
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Matthew said:
I hate to say it, but
In this particular case, I think that you are acting more like a woman, Matthew, than 2Vermont.
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I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
How do you know these things?
As for the rest, it makes me wonder where my husband and I fit into the Trad world given we're Johnny Come Latelies with no children and no particular wealth. I wonder what the parishioners at our chapel think of us.
I know these things because I've walked this earth for a while, and I've noticed a distinct trend among Baby Boomers, even the good Catholic ones, to have much smaller families than the "norm". I realize the "norm" varies, but you can see a drastic cutoff in the average number of children when you compare the Greatest Generation (WW2) and the Baby Boomers. Just look it up if you don't believe me.
I don't have to have inside knowledge to open my eyes and see things that are quite public.
I don't know WHY all the Baby Boomers have such small families -- maybe there was a REALLY effective NFP book, maybe there was something in the water -- that's all beside the point. All I'm saying is that they have small families. Nothing more.
If you want to narrow things down to personalities, and/or draw a judgment, sentence, condemnation, etc. from that, you're on your own.
Some people are cut out for abstract philosophical discussion, and some are not. I hate to say it, but many women are not. They tend to make everything personal and specific -- it's in their nature.
But actually the bolded isn't completely true. You're also stating that they "cheated" and that they didn't have the "full" number of children as if you know that God would have given them more children. You don't know what God wished to be their particular "full" number.
This isn't something personal since I am not one of the people you are discussing. I am trying to put myself in their shoes though and I wonder why you care so much what they did or did not do before coming to Tradition. It seems to bother you a lot that, in your opinion, they "cheated". Why?
Because cheating means not playing by the rules. And the rules are, and have always been, you don't contracept. Which, in the aggregate, they did. Otherwise the numbers, the statistical distribution, would be different.
You do know the number of children God would have given them, in the aggregate. It's called the Total Fertility Rate and has been declining for the last 100 years.
http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2010_TFR_1.htm
Are you suggesting God might have decided to give a whole tranche of Practicing Catholics less children, while at the same time the world has gotten richer and the total fertility rate has dropped off a cliff?
Seems a little counterproductive to me. Be fruitful and multiply (until I decide to pour weed killer on some of you for no apparent or constructive purpose).
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Has anyone besides me noticed how many older (let's say Baby Boomer) couples at your local Trad chapel have 4 children or fewer?
I mean from the best to the worst of them, they all have 4 children or fewer. Any of them that had 5 were considered to have a "large" family.
If there was a Duggar TV show back then, it would have been a family with 6 children!
Today they are the pillars of our Trad chapels. They provide generous material and other support for the chapels. They usher, lead the Rosary, serve Mass, run the bookstore, and just about anything else that needs doing. They have lots of time and resources to be such pillars. I'm even going to assume they are in the state of grace, having confessed any sins from their past life and are currently striving to live the Catholic faith in an exemplary fashion.
I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
Anyhow, long story short, few (if any) Baby Boomers I've ever encountered could ever say to me, "Well here is how I did it..." because there is a fundamental flaw in whatever system they had: they didn't have the natural number of children God wanted to send (no birth control or NFP).
So besides the fact that the US Dollar is weaker now than in, say, 1970, we also are "handicapped" as it were because many young trads today are embracing the full package of morality, which includes having a large family AND homeschooling them so they aren't indoctrinated in the increasingly-evil public schools.
Homeschooling was *very* rare when Baby Boomers were parents. So was breastfeeding, home birth, and large families. See now what I have against that generation? Oh, and they also embraced Vatican II. It was up to that generation to accept it or reject it. So many of them loved it or had no problems with it.
Interestingly, yes. My friend who has 12 children and we who have "only" 7 have discussed this privately. We have been on the receiving end of such incredibly generosity that it is really hard to discuss this, so please let me say, I know quite a few and they are amazing people: they have been role models for me and my husband.
But....the ones I know have 4 children pretty much across the board. My friend mentioned that her parents were always "different" because they had 6!
I know personally a couple today, NO still but fairly traditional, that purposely stopped at 4 and I know how they do it, because we talked about it.
So let me give some insight, if I may.
The Baby Boomer generation spans from those born around 1945 to 1965---maybe a few years on either end. There are a lot of factors involving this generation of men and women. I like to sometimes call these people the Professional Generation because not only did they go to college and become professionals, but they relied heavily on and trusted the opinions of the professionals over the opinions of their priests.
In the 1960s and 1970s doctors made no qualms about recommending sterilizations and hysterectomies to women after they had 2 to 4 children. There was this hysteria over the "population explosion" and eugenics was already put into practice secretly in many communities.
For Catholics, the Church waited a long time before addressing the birth control issue and even when it did, it was a luke warm condemnation at best. But the damage, so to speak, had already been done. A very many priests were already counseling their older parishioners that birth control was not necessarily bad because the Pope had said anything about it.
The women I know had hysterectomies in their early 30s because the Dr. said that it was necessary. They never really asked why is it necessary. In my mother's case (who is not a baby boomer but a silent generation), she was pushing 30 when I was born. The doctor told here it was harder for women to have babies in their thirties, the risk of a "deformed" baby was higher and if she wasn't having any more babies, she didn't really need a uterus or ovaries.
Interestingly, this coincided with women flooding the work force and having to leave their children with grandma. Given that the church waited so long to address birth control, the physician's advice, and a rise in women working outside the home, it is no wonder this happened. For many, I think 4 was alot then and they were glad when they started school and they could go to work.
I am not being critical, mind you. I know these couples and, yes, they say "I wish I could have had more, but I couldn't." But they did so enjoy there careers and prosperity.
So in many ways, I don't think it was necessarily intentional like these modern people today in their practice of NFP. They had children, expected to have children, but the people they trusted and believed gave them bad information and began steering them in a more worldly direction.
I will say this though, as wonderful as these Boomer couples are, they really don't relate to what we are going through today. The costs are exponentially higher in many places with car safety seat laws, auto inspections, mandatory this and that, CPS threats, nosy neighbors, a general suspicion of large, religious families, a disdain for one-income, traditional families, the average commute for going to work, the cost of groceries and gas. They are incredibly generous as a group, but sometimes very critical of why families are struggling financially.
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Matthew it was the Traditionalist or Silent Generation that served in Korea. They grew up during the Depression/Dustbowl and I believe some postponed marriage to save for a home to make sure they had a place to live. These are the folks in their eighties now who wrap up the extra food on their plate from the church pot luck or Golden Corral.
Remember there was no $8,000 a year in food stamps, $5,000 cash from the Earned Income Credit, Medicaid for children and pregnancy healthcare cost, or WIC for large families then.
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FWIW, I just need to share this. My husband and I sometimes feel like outcasts as traditional Catholics and we were definitely outcasts as NO Catholics.
As non-religious people we routinely used birth control. He never wanted any more after our first child and I was working and going to school, so it was easier for me. We used birth control. But our second son came along anyway.
When we converted in 1998, the discussion of having children NEVER came up in our RCIA class. EVER. I honestly did not know that a married couple could not use birth control. My husband didn't ask because again, it was easier for us.
There is a 5 year age difference between our number 2 and number 3 because we never planned on any more. Number 3 was a total miracle and honestly, the one child that changed our lives.
We became more involved and interested in the practice of our faith, but when we found a fairly traditional priest, we were counseled regarding NFP. In fact, they paid for our materials as I had just recently quit my job because we could not afford child care for three children.
Fortunately, after taking the class, I felt like a scientific experiment, unloved, and an object, so I began to question whether or not NFP was really a good thing. It certainly was a lot of work and their were many days where we intentionally abstained when neither of us wanted to only because we didn't want any more children. It weighed on me heavily and we abandoned the practice after two years.
After that, we had 4 more children each about 2 years apart.
It is VERY hard for me sometimes. I know we would have had more children if we had just believed they were God's gifts and just opened our hearts to receiving them. Since I had two children in my 40s, I suspect I was quite fertile and we probably would have had at least 3 more, maybe 4. But we didn't want it and we did everything to reject it.
As for being outcasts....upon my 5 pregnancy in NO, the whispers and gossip started. The stares, the questions, the criticism was too much.
When we came to SSPX I was pregnant with #7. The priest even commented that there were large age gaps between our children and waited for some explanation. Having "only" 7 seemed to be a mark of a lack of faith or something. No lay person really said anything, but we were occasionally asked if we married late or had fertility problems.
So while the world thinks we have some huge family, we don't.
We are, however, incredibly blessed and grateful to God for changing our hearts. Our children are amazing.
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"I honestly did not know that a married couple could not use birth control".
You never watched any stand-up comedians on TV or read the newspaper in the 1980s and 1990s about Pope John Paul II, condoms and Africa?
I'm surprised that anyone could fail to notice this. It's a bit like not knowing that Muslim ѕυιcιdє bombers or "martyrs" are reputed to get 72 Virgins in paradise. Surely everyone knows that right?
It's such a well publicized cliché about Catholics that I am puzzled how anyone could get through daily life and miss knowing this little factoid.
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But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
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"Baby Boomer" here.
In my late teens, having survived Hell on Earth, I attempted to formally "join" the Church, having been denied this as a child due to insanity I needn't go into. I had been to many pre V2 Masses and longed to receive Holy Communion. So, I went to a "priest" who told me absolutely NO; I was "too old" and it was "too late". He didn't care about my crying.
It was literally unthinkable at that time to suspect:
a. That a priest would lie or even be mistaken--simply not possible because they were the closest thing to Christ on this Earth.
b. a priest could be unchaste (I thought something spiritual happened to them that made it impossible)
c. priest could be a ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ
d. religious were leaving in droves
e. Paul VI was a possible anti-pope (where I came from, when an answer was obvious, we all quipped, "Is the Pope Catholic?"
f. that any priest could possibly be ruining souls and entire families by molesting
g. that I even really deserved to be a Catholic
So, it was pretty devastating. I can't be the only one who was lied to, in fact I know I am not. My Holy Guardian Angel is the brilliant one, but that's a long story.
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I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
How do you know these things?
As for the rest, it makes me wonder where my husband and I fit into the Trad world given we're Johnny Come Latelies with no children and no particular wealth. I wonder what the parishioners at our chapel think of us.
I know these things because I've walked this earth for a while, and I've noticed a distinct trend among Baby Boomers, even the good Catholic ones, to have much smaller families than the "norm". I realize the "norm" varies, but you can see a drastic cutoff in the average number of children when you compare the Greatest Generation (WW2) and the Baby Boomers. Just look it up if you don't believe me.
I don't have to have inside knowledge to open my eyes and see things that are quite public.
I don't know WHY all the Baby Boomers have such small families -- maybe there was a REALLY effective NFP book, maybe there was something in the water -- that's all beside the point. All I'm saying is that they have small families. Nothing more.
If you want to narrow things down to personalities, and/or draw a judgment, sentence, condemnation, etc. from that, you're on your own.
Some people are cut out for abstract philosophical discussion, and some are not. I hate to say it, but many women are not. They tend to make everything personal and specific -- it's in their nature.
But actually the bolded isn't completely true. You're also stating that they "cheated" and that they didn't have the "full" number of children as if you know that God would have given them more children. You don't know what God wished to be their particular "full" number.
This isn't something personal since I am not one of the people you are discussing. I am trying to put myself in their shoes though and I wonder why you care so much what they did or did not do before coming to Tradition. It seems to bother you a lot that, in your opinion, they "cheated". Why?
Because cheating means not playing by the rules. And the rules are, and have always been, you don't contracept. Which, in the aggregate, they did. Otherwise the numbers, the statistical distribution, would be different.
You do know the number of children God would have given them, in the aggregate. It's called the Total Fertility Rate and has been declining for the last 100 years.
http://www.china-profile.com/data/fig_WPP2010_TFR_1.htm
Are you suggesting God might have decided to give a whole tranche of Practicing Catholics less children, while at the same time the world has gotten richer and the total fertility rate has dropped off a cliff?
Seems a little counterproductive to me. Be fruitful and multiply (until I decide to pour weed killer on some of you for no apparent or constructive purpose).
Forgive me, but I do not see how that graph tells me the number of babies God would have given them. I see the average US woman had 3.5 children in 1950. That certainly isn't support for numbers like 10-12.
As for God blessing us with less children, I happen to think that is a good topic for another thread. I wonder sometimes whether, knowing the end is near, that is in fact what God is allowing to happen.
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"I honestly did not know that a married couple could not use birth control".
You never watched any stand-up comedians on TV or read the newspaper in the 1980s and 1990s about Pope John Paul II, condoms and Africa?
I'm surprised that anyone could fail to notice this. It's a bit like not knowing that Muslim ѕυιcιdє bombers or "martyrs" are reputed to get 72 Virgins in paradise. Surely everyone knows that right?
It's such a well publicized cliché about Catholics that I am puzzled how anyone could get through daily life and miss knowing this little factoid.
I did not know. The only Catholics I knew before my conversion used some sort of contraception. I knew some who were sterilized. They inferred that things had changed. You can be snarky all you want, but I believed contraception was permissible.
There are still people who believe this, in spite of late night television.
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I am NOT, I repeat NOT saying that they are hypocrites.
But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger. If they are materially well off today, it's because A) times were just easier back then, and B) they had less children to support so they had a chance to build up more wealth.
How do you know these things?
As for the rest, it makes me wonder where my husband and I fit into the Trad world given we're Johnny Come Latelies with no children and no particular wealth. I wonder what the parishioners at our chapel think of us.
Pray the Holy Rosary every day. Say it with your husband. Ideally in front of a crucifix.
Go to Confession and frequent the Sacraments. Get your interior life in order and live a faithful Catholic lifestyle. Worry not what your fellow parishioner's think of you but ask yourself if they are right. Then, from there, focus on your weaknesses.
Pray daily.
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But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger.
This is what I find objectionable. The idea that it is a "fact" that "they cheated".
I daresay my parents don't count as baby-boomers, having been born in the '30s. But their children were born in the '60s and '70s. Three of us. They wanted six. God gave them three, and spaced us an average of five years apart. No cheating, and they had the full number of children allotted to them.
I'm aware of a family with six children, who were spaced using contraception! And another family of seven, each of whom was conceived while contraception was used. And here's a blog post (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rebeccafrech/2012/03/the-failure-rate.html) by a lady who used to use contraception, detailing the types she was using for each of her children! So you can't assume that parents of big families don't use contraception, just in case we want to increase the number of people we can assume the worst about!
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But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger.
This is what I find objectionable. The idea that it is a "fact" that "they cheated".
I daresay my parents don't count as baby-boomers, having been born in the '30s. But their children were born in the '60s and '70s. Three of us. They wanted six. God gave them three, and spaced us an average of five years apart. No cheating, and they had the full number of children allotted to them.
I'm aware of a family with six children, who were spaced using contraception! And another family of seven, each of whom was conceived while contraception was used. And here's a blog post (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rebeccafrech/2012/03/the-failure-rate.html) by a lady who used to use contraception, detailing the types she was using for each of her children! So you can't assume that parents of big families don't use contraception, just in case we want to increase the number of people we can assume the worst about!
I'm saying "they" cheated, which I define as "the baby boomer generation". The "they" pronoun doesn't apply to any person in particular.
I believe it's against the Catholic Faith (the virtue of charity, as well as justice) to rashly judge individuals.
I'm judging and blaming a GENERATION, for which there is plenty of evidence. This isn't about individuals. It's called philosophizing and talking about the big picture. Macro-social trends, if you will.
So your attempts to "excuse" this or that couple is a wasted effort. You're attempting to block a bullet that was never fired.
Like I said before, I don't know if they used NFP, abstinence, something in the water, or birth control. All I know is that Baby Boomers rarely had more than 4 children. I'm one of those children -- I know how many of my peers come from big families. Virtually none.
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As for being outcasts....upon my 5 pregnancy in NO, the whispers and gossip started. The stares, the questions, the criticism was too much.
When we came to SSPX I was pregnant with #7. The priest even commented that there were large age gaps between our children and waited for some explanation. Having "only" 7 seemed to be a mark of a lack of faith or something. No lay person really said anything, but we were occasionally asked if we married late or had fertility problems.
Now this I don't understand. Well, I do understand it -- more Pharisaic behavior.
What's to explain in such a case? The fact that you have the latter children in quite "regular" intervals suggests a repentance/fixing up of the situation does it not?
I would respond flatly, "No, we used birth control. But I confessed that sin and amended my life years ago. Did you notice my youngest 4 are 2 years apart? Oh no, don't tell me that Birth Control is the mythical sin that can't be forgiven! I thought all sins could be forgiven if we repent and have recourse to the sacrament of Penance that Christ instituted for us poor sinners. Oh well, I guess we all can't be Without Sin as you obviously must be..."
You'd make those people feel so small, they'd want to crawl into the nearest hole and disappear.
Seriously, from the greatest to the least of them, they don't have a leg to stand on. However "nosy" it is to butt into a couple's private life and rash judge why they don't have "enough" children, it's even worse when you have EVIDENCE that the problem has been rectified.
What are they implying, that there's no forgiveness of sins? Ridiculous and un-Catholic.
Some people are such piss-poor specimens of Catholicism that they can't feel good about themselves unless they're tearing others down. These same lame-excuses-for-human-beings would probably judge harshly a couple married for 5 years with a 6 year old in tow. Hello, they got married! They probably confessed their sin. What more do you want?
These are the same kinds of people who automatically "do the math" when a young couple, or a recently married couple, announces a pregnancy.
Atheists and unbelievers have more human decency than these hypocritical Trads. Fortunately, I think these horrible human beings are rare. But they do exist.
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As for being outcasts....upon my 5 pregnancy in NO, the whispers and gossip started. The stares, the questions, the criticism was too much.
When we came to SSPX I was pregnant with #7. The priest even commented that there were large age gaps between our children and waited for some explanation. Having "only" 7 seemed to be a mark of a lack of faith or something. No lay person really said anything, but we were occasionally asked if we married late or had fertility problems.
Now this I don't understand. Well, I do understand it -- more Pharisaic behavior.
What's to explain in such a case? The fact that you have the latter children in quite "regular" intervals suggests a repentance/fixing up of the situation does it not?
I would respond flatly, "No, we used birth control. But I confessed that sin and amended my life years ago. Did you notice my youngest 4 are 2 years apart? Oh no, don't tell me that Birth Control is the mythical sin that can't be forgiven! I thought all sins could be forgiven if we repent and have recourse to the sacrament of Penance that Christ instituted for us poor sinners. Oh well, I guess we all can't be Without Sin as you obviously must be..."
You'd make those people feel so small, they'd want to crawl into the nearest hole and disappear.
Seriously, from the greatest to the least of them, they don't have a leg to stand on. However "nosy" it is to butt into a couple's private life and rash judge why they don't have "enough" children, it's even worse when you have EVIDENCE that the problem has been rectified.
What are they implying, that there's no forgiveness of sins? Ridiculous and un-Catholic.
Some people are such piss-poor specimens of Catholicism that they can't feel good about themselves unless they're tearing others down. These same lame-excuses-for-human-beings probably judge a couple married for 5 years with a 6 year old in tow. Hello, they got married! They probably confessed their sin. What more do you want?
Atheists and unbelievers have more human decency than these hypocritical Trads. Fortunately, I think these horrible human beings are rare. But they do exist.
This is the confusing part though Mathew as your thread title is 'Johnny come latelys' which is a snide enough comment to make and yet you are giving out that they 'cheated' which is probably the case but why not afford them the same understanding as bolded above. You were specific in the Trad baby boomer generation, if they are receiving the Sacraments then its not for you to discuss.
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You're not understanding at all.
We are talking about two different things. You can't escape the realm of individuals (innocent, purified by the confessional, who charity demands be immune from our rash judgments) but I'm talking about macro-social trends and big picture generational tendencies.
Social scientists don't commit Rash Judgment when they uncover trends and tendencies among the various generations of people. To commit Rash Judgment there has to be a SOUL who was damaged or targeted. Talking about a generation means you're not attacking ANYONE. I suppose to some female minds, I am attacking each and every one in that generation.
Well, thinking something doesn't make it so. I can't control this or that person's ability (or inability) to generalize, abstract, or rise up to the realm of ideas. I will admit that's quite common and natural in the female sex.
What if there was a real, as in accepted by the mainstream, scare that the world was going to end. Combined with 75% unemployment among the youth. Say that in this milieu a movement arose that caused these young people to "shack up" in droves and have one or two children out of wedlock, as some kind of attempt to get some happiness and/or meaning out of an otherwise hopeless life.
Later on, this parents of this "baby boom" grows up and many of them join Traditional Catholic chapels. The ones at Trad chapels are presumably following the laws of God and the Church, so any sins would have been forgiven.
Are you saying it would be a waste of time, or not permissible, to discuss what happened in the past? Even though what happened would be affecting daily life in various ways?
No, it's quite permissible, and quite important. The truth never hurt anyone. You can't understand, much less deal with, the world unless you have the truth, and as much of it as possible. Truth is power. That's why philosophers spend so much time thinking about things and figuring things out. Truth is worth finding.
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Ok, moving on to the hundreds of RAMIFICATIONS of this social trend that we have observed.
Children of Baby Boomers born in Tradition, trying to do the right thing, are having much larger families than their parents now and meeting various problems:
1. B.B. Parents aren't particularly good with kids -- mothers went back to work after having each of their 3 children, they didn't have a large family, they sent their kids to public school, many didn't even breastfeed. So the children have to learn everything by trial and error for themselves.
2. B.B. Parents are often not especially inclined to babysit, or be sympathetic to our needs.
3. B.B. Parents don't understand the challenges of the large family.
4. Many B.B. parents assume that things are the same for us (plus or minus) as it was for them growing up -- except for a few things like airport screenings, cell phones, etc.
5. The things valued by B.B.'s, such as college education for each child, don't work at all when the # of children goes higher than 3 or 4.
Etc. Etc.
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Ok, moving on to the hundreds of RAMIFICATIONS of this social trend that we have observed.
Children of Baby Boomers born in Tradition, trying to do the right thing, are having much larger families than their parents now and meeting various problems:
1. B.B. Parents aren't particularly good with kids -- mothers went back to work after having each of their 3 children, they didn't have a large family, they sent their kids to public school, many didn't even breastfeed. So the children have to learn everything by trial and error for themselves.
2. B.B. Parents are often not especially inclined to babysit, or be sympathetic to our needs.
3. B.B. Parents don't understand the challenges of the large family.
4. Many B.B. parents assume that things are the same for us (plus or minus) as it was for them growing up -- except for a few things like airport screenings, cell phones, etc.
5. The things valued by B.B.'s, such as college education for each child, don't work at all when the # of children goes higher than 3 or 4.
Etc. Etc.
Wow, what a collection of generalizations. We are boomers who are in near-poverty, are great with kids, were blessed with more than three children, did not work until the children were grown, did not send our children to public school, did breastfeed, love to babysit, are very sympathetic to our children's needs. Most of our boomer friends are like us. And we are very supportive of large families, although God did not bless us in that way.
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Ok, moving on to the hundreds of RAMIFICATIONS of this social trend that we have observed.
Children of Baby Boomers born in Tradition, trying to do the right thing, are having much larger families than their parents now and meeting various problems:
1. B.B. Parents aren't particularly good with kids -- mothers went back to work after having each of their 3 children, they didn't have a large family, they sent their kids to public school, many didn't even breastfeed. So the children have to learn everything by trial and error for themselves.
2. B.B. Parents are often not especially inclined to babysit, or be sympathetic to our needs.
3. B.B. Parents don't understand the challenges of the large family.
4. Many B.B. parents assume that things are the same for us (plus or minus) as it was for them growing up -- except for a few things like airport screenings, cell phones, etc.
5. The things valued by B.B.'s, such as college education for each child, don't work at all when the # of children goes higher than 3 or 4.
Etc. Etc.
Wow, what a collection of generalizations. We are boomers who are in near-poverty, are great with kids, were blessed with more than three children, did not work until the children were grown, did not send our children to public school, did breastfeed, love to babysit, are very sympathetic to our children's needs. Most of our boomer friends are like us. And we are very supportive of large families, although God did not bless us in that way.
They are generalizations but that doesn't make them untrue. I've known a lot of young traditional Catholic mothers. I can't think of one of them who has not had a problem with a baby boomer in their chapel who misunderstands Catholic family life. I'm not talking about just Cincinatti or Kansas here, I'm saying this is something that happens in chapels coast to coast.
When I had no children and even just one, I was allowed in the room, so to speak when there was talk about parents. One of the most common complaints has been about homeschooled kids. The only ones complaining are of that generation. Now, I have met some exceptional gradnmothers who take it on themselves to homeschool their grandchildren and help their adult children, and currently, that number is 2.
There are plenty of things one could say that my generation will never understand, I might even be the first to make a list, but I could have also written a list similar to what Matthew wrote. There are also always exceptions.
One more thing I've noticed, is that Baby Boomers who come to tradition often have unmarried children who do not practice the Faith. They are steadfast in prayer and I know they have tried to bring about their children. If their children are married, they don't have more than two children each. It all makes it incredibly hard to relate.
I don't think I would be able to understand the complexities of homeschooling 8 children, if I had never breastfed, spaced my two children apart by six years, and used public schools. In some things, there is a generational gap even in traditionalism. Even now, we are just beginning to see the first parents, who have never attended the Novus Ordo, have children who will never hear stories of life before their parents found the Latin mass. There are just going to be differences in every generation, pointing them out isn't disrespectful, either.
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But that doesn't change the fact that they "cheated" in a way by not having the full number of children when they were younger.
This is what I find objectionable. The idea that it is a "fact" that "they cheated".
I daresay my parents don't count as baby-boomers, having been born in the '30s. But their children were born in the '60s and '70s. Three of us. They wanted six. God gave them three, and spaced us an average of five years apart. No cheating, and they had the full number of children allotted to them.
I'm aware of a family with six children, who were spaced using contraception! And another family of seven, each of whom was conceived while contraception was used. And here's a blog post (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rebeccafrech/2012/03/the-failure-rate.html) by a lady who used to use contraception, detailing the types she was using for each of her children! So you can't assume that parents of big families don't use contraception, just in case we want to increase the number of people we can assume the worst about!
I'm saying "they" cheated, which I define as "the baby boomer generation". The "they" pronoun doesn't apply to any person in particular.
I believe it's against the Catholic Faith (the virtue of charity, as well as justice) to rashly judge individuals.
I'm judging and blaming a GENERATION, for which there is plenty of evidence. This isn't about individuals. It's called philosophizing and talking about the big picture. Macro-social trends, if you will.
So your attempts to "excuse" this or that couple is a wasted effort. You're attempting to block a bullet that was never fired.
Like I said before, I don't know if they used NFP, abstinence, something in the water, or birth control. All I know is that Baby Boomers rarely had more than 4 children. I'm one of those children -- I know how many of my peers come from big families. Virtually none.
So help my feeble female mind then. If you don't know if they used NFP, abstinence, something in the water, or birth control, then how do you come to the conclusion/fact that they "cheated"?
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Simple. Because any other cause that was not a deliberate act of their will, such as something in the water, would apply to the entire water drinking population. Thus the curve of family size distribution would be an even shape and reflective of the fact that a small minority of women find in difficult or impossible to conceive, a small minority conceive very easily and readily and a majority don't fall into either camp.
It is called a bell curve.
If the shape of the bell curve changes through an external agent affect all parties in a population then the entire curve shifts to the left or right. If one part of the curve shifts but the other stays static then it must be due to a wilful act of a subset of the population.
There are simply too many mature completed families of say 4 children or less to be put down to minority involuntary external causes such as something in the water, low fertility, infertility or a legitimate application of NFP
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The baby boomers grew up in a time of the sɛҳuąƖ revolution, of great rebellion against traditional Church mores, of civil rights and loosening of what is right and wrong.
It is not at all surprising that baby boomers are of the world, and along with their parents are to blame for the mess they left the generation we have now. Had it not been for the baby boomers' values of change and lack of common sense neither would we be the nation we are now, with all of the jobs shipped overseas, nor would we ever had elected Bill Clinton or Barack Obama.
The problem with the baby boomers is that they were spoiled by the "Greatest Generation" and did not know hardship or war and were the generation with the greatest education and wealth. This lead to a lack of morals and lack of sense amongst this generation.
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People always blame the Baby Boomers but it was the "Greatest Generation" and the "Silent Generation" that laid the groundwork for the cultural revolution.
People born between 1946 and 1964 are considered Baby Boomers. Most of them would have been very young when Vatican II went down. Baby Boomers should be known as the first indoctrinated. Patient zero.
Some couples struggle having children . There are many natural reasons why couples might not be able to have a large family. Small families existed before birth control. How do we know for certain ?? Secondary infertility happens. I doubt many women would want to talk about it.
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The problem with the baby boomers is that they were spoiled by the "Greatest Generation" and did not know hardship or war and were the generation with the greatest education and wealth.
They did not know war? There was a draft for the Vietnam War, so unless they dodged the draft, many members of the baby boom generation knew all about war in Vietnam.
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They did not know war? There was a draft for the Vietnam War, so unless they dodged the draft, many members of the baby boom generation knew all about war in Vietnam.
Yes and what did the baby boomers say about the war? They said that the Vietcong were the real heroes, that Amerika was a racist, imperial superpower, that it was a dirty, immoral war, etc. I realise that baby boomers did serve in Vietnam and would "grow up" so to speak but it is the generation's Woostock values that rule the era these days as the counter-culture is the dominant culture.
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People always blame the Baby Boomers but it was the "Greatest Generation" and the "Silent Generation" that laid the groundwork for the cultural revolution.
I don't disagree with that. One can blame World War II for the mess we are in right now, which destroyed Western civilization. The "Greatest Generation" also spoiled their children, the baby boomers, which lead them to have utopian and naive views about the world.
To be honest one can keep going back and see vile aspects about every generation, whether it is the French Revolution of the 1790's, to the "mortal blow that ruined our civilization" World War I, to today's generation.
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So help my feeble female mind then. If you don't know if they used NFP, abstinence, something in the water, or birth control, then how do you come to the conclusion/fact that they "cheated"?
Without placing blame on anyone in particular,
There seems to be a genuine epidemic of small families among Baby Boomers (both Trad non-Trad -- the Baby Boomer culture/values/choices seem to extend into all religions)
What would you call it? Broadly speaking, as a group most of them "got out of" the normal struggles that life normally throws at a young married couple on this earth. Having a small family of 3 or 4 children in public school is a WHOLE DIFFERENT ANIMAL than having a larger family and homeschooling them.
If they had become Trad/informed Catholics sooner, they would have had a chance to make permanent changes. But when you happen to convert after childbearing age, then it's "too late". Not saying they waited on purpose to convert either -- that's just how it happened for the majority of that generation.
Having a large family just doesn't seem to be part of Baby Boomer values.
Their values included insuring everything, college education for each child, and wanting their children to "have it better than they did" -- but that "better" was to be measured in strictly material terms. They also placed a high value on "doing what everybody else does" and in general they invented the concept of the American Dream. They place an over-emphasis on homeownership. My mother (for example) thinks that apartments are for druggies, alcoholics, and those who have declared bankruptcy one or more times in their low, low lives.
Anyhow, those that converted to (or discovered) Traditional Catholicism can move on with their lives, and even save their souls. But there are permanent consequences, for all parties. These permanent consequences and realities are worth drawing attention to and discussing. It will result in better understanding.
We are left with the aftermath -- the massive social reality that we all are affected by, that countless 50-65 year old Catholics just don't understand and can't relate to their children as far as living a normal (Traditional) Catholic lifestyle.
How many Catholics of child-bearing age today have Baby Boomer parents that just don't understand? Parents that can't give any advice about what we're going through? How many of these children of Baby Boomers have followed in their parents' footsteps out of trust or filial devotion, only to be burned by it (for example, the value that "college education = success")?
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Some interesting facts here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723861/
I can't read much of it right now, but this note about Mormons replacing Catholics was interesting.
Starting in the 1970s, demographers docuмented convergence in Catholic and Protestant birth rates, the “end” of Catholic fertility (Mosher and Hendershot 1984; Westoff and Jones 1979). With this convergence, the focus of the demographic literature on religion shifted. Other religious groups with pro-natalist doctrine, such as Mormons and conservative Protestants, gained attention for higher than average levels of fertility.
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What would you call it? Broadly speaking, as a group most of them "got out of" the normal struggles that life normally throws at a young married couple on this earth. Having a small family of 3 or 4 children in public school is a WHOLE DIFFERENT ANIMAL than having a larger family and homeschooling them.
You focus too much on difficult aspects of a larger family when you use phrases like "cheated" or "got out of".
They also "missed out on" the joys of being surrounded by many, happy children. They, sadly, will never know the blessing of 20+ grandchildren. If you ask me, they were "cheated" by a society that told them there was a better way than letting God direct your family.
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What would you call it? Broadly speaking, as a group most of them "got out of" the normal struggles that life normally throws at a young married couple on this earth. Having a small family of 3 or 4 children in public school is a WHOLE DIFFERENT ANIMAL than having a larger family and homeschooling them.
You focus too much on difficult aspects of a larger family when you use phrases like "cheated" or "got out of".
They also "missed out on" the joys of being surrounded by many, happy children. They, sadly, will never know the blessing of 20+ grandchildren. If you ask me, they were "cheated" by a society that told them there was a better way than letting God direct your family.
To me, that all goes without saying.
I'm strictly talking about the material "goods" of life: free time, material wealth, etc.
They made choices influenced by their generation.
I say the Baby Boomers "cheated" in the same way I say that some converts "cheated" by choosing a spouse before they converted to (traditional) Catholicism. But we should all recall my posts about this -- that you don't get something for nothing. Sure, when you choose from 1,000,000 rather than 1,000 you MIGHT get a prettier catch, but what if she believes in divorce or birth control?
Long story short, I don't envy any group that made ANY permanent life choices (choice of spouse, how many children they would have, etc.) before they were in full understanding of Catholic doctrine.
I consider the Faith and the sweet yoke of the Gospel to be a blessing, not a curse. Being "trad from birth" and having the Faith is the ultimate blessing.
The things God forbids He forbids for our own good.
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People always blame the Baby Boomers but it was the "Greatest Generation" and the "Silent Generation" that laid the groundwork for the cultural revolution.
People born between 1946 and 1964 are considered Baby Boomers. Most of them would have been very young when Vatican II went down. Baby Boomers should be known as the first indoctrinated. Patient zero.
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I agree. I went to Mass at a church in the middle of nowhere, where the V2 revolution struck much later, thank God.
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So help my feeble female mind then. If you don't know if they used NFP, abstinence, something in the water, or birth control, then how do you come to the conclusion/fact that they "cheated"?
The various possibilities (NFP, abstinence, ect) applies to the individuals.
His description of "cheating", applies to the group as a whole.
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They did not know war? There was a draft for the Vietnam War, so unless they dodged the draft, many members of the baby boom generation knew all about war in Vietnam.
Yes and what did the baby boomers say about the war? They said that the Vietcong were the real heroes, that Amerika was a racist, imperial superpower, that it was a dirty, immoral war, etc. I realise that baby boomers did serve in Vietnam and would "grow up" so to speak but it is the generation's Woostock values that rule the era these days as the counter-culture is the dominant culture.
Ordinary people who lived through it did not feel that way, that's the propaganda you get from modern media. It was a small cadre of agitators who, like the rudder of a ship, steered the media in that direction. Ordinary people questioned the morality and validity of the war, which is something that needs to be done about any war, but they never said the North Vietnamese were heroes.
Marsha
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Some couples struggle having children . There are many natural reasons why couples might not be able to have a large family. Small families existed before birth control. How do we know for certain ?? Secondary infertility happens. I doubt many women would want to talk about it.
Some do struggle.
Most couples don't.
Most couples have the biology and reproductive health to have children perfectly fine, one after another, if they don't interfere with nature or have long periods of abstinence. If most families were large in the past and now most are small then there can only be one explanation for that in terms of the general population.
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Simple. Because any other cause that was not a deliberate act of their will, such as something in the water, would apply to the entire water drinking population. Thus the curve of family size distribution would be an even shape and reflective of the fact that a small minority of women find in difficult or impossible to conceive, a small minority conceive very easily and readily and a majority don't fall into either camp.
It is called a bell curve.
If the shape of the bell curve changes through an external agent affect all parties in a population then the entire curve shifts to the left or right. If one part of the curve shifts but the other stays static then it must be due to a wilful act of a subset of the population.
There are simply too many mature completed families of say 4 children or less to be put down to minority involuntary external causes such as something in the water, low fertility, infertility or a legitimate application of NFP
But, again, the graph you posted earlier showed that the average American woman had 3.5 children in 1950. This was before the Baby Boomer generation was even old enough to have children. Based on the comments in this thread you would think that the number of children in 1950 were way higher and then the Baby Boomers ruined everything with substantially smaller families. But the numbers don't prove this out.
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People always blame the Baby Boomers but it was the "Greatest Generation" and the "Silent Generation" that laid the groundwork for the cultural revolution.
People born between 1946 and 1964 are considered Baby Boomers. Most of them would have been very young when Vatican II went down. Baby Boomers should be known as the first indoctrinated. Patient zero.
Some couples struggle having children . There are many natural reasons why couples might not be able to have a large family. Small families existed before birth control. How do we know for certain ?? Secondary infertility happens. I doubt many women would want to talk about it.
This is in line with the point I made earlier. My parents were born in the early 1930's. They had 3 children. Their parents, born in the early 1900's, had 2 children each. I'm not sure why the focus on the Baby Boomers. It seems to me that large families haven't been in vogue for a long time.
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But, again, the graph you posted earlier showed that the average American woman had 3.5 children in 1950. This was before the Baby Boomer generation was even old enough to have children. Based on the comments in this thread you would think that the number of children in 1950 were way higher and then the Baby Boomers ruined everything with substantially smaller families. But the numbers don't prove this out.
I looked that up as well, and I had the same question.
I think the answer is: the Catholics at least kept a more "normal" family size up until the Baby Boomer generation.
Hey, look. I'm not trying to crucify you or any other Baby Boomer. If you find a way to exonerate yourself and all your friends, great. But I'm not looking to judge or condemn in the first place.
I'm looking to get to the bottom of things. I'm looking to figure things out; to find the truth. I'm looking for a deeper understanding between the cultures. And then to move on with a solution.
Many of the problems faced by young families today stem from their isolation -- their dissimilarity -- from their parents' generation. That's my point.
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But, again, the graph you posted earlier showed that the average American woman had 3.5 children in 1950. This was before the Baby Boomer generation was even old enough to have children. Based on the comments in this thread you would think that the number of children in 1950 were way higher and then the Baby Boomers ruined everything with substantially smaller families. But the numbers don't prove this out.
I looked that up as well, and I had the same question.
I think the answer is: the Catholics at least kept a more "normal" family size up until the Baby Boomer generation.
Hey, look. I'm not trying to crucify you or any other Baby Boomer. If you find a way to exonerate yourself and all your friends, great. But I'm not looking to judge or condemn in the first place.
I'm looking to get to the bottom of things. I'm looking to figure things out; to find the truth. I'm looking for a deeper understanding between the cultures. And then to move on with a solution.
Many of the problems faced by young families today stem from their isolation -- their dissimilarity -- from their parents' generation. That's my point.
The thing is I'm not looking to exonerate myself nor my friends. It is you who keeps making this personal for me. I'm not a Baby Boomer nor are my friends. I'm a Gen X'er (and I'm sure that there are people out there who have a certain negative view of Generation X as well). My friends are also Gen X except for one friend who is a Baby Boomer, but she is single and never married. And even if there are other folks I know that are BB, I just don't focus on their generation. I focus on them as individuals.
I'm also looking for the truth. I just can't seem to buy into what you're saying. I will admit that I don't think this affects me personally like it does you, so my interest isn't nearly as great as your own interest. Perhaps it is yourself who is more attached to this emotionally than I.
Having said that, if this is now solely about CATHOLIC families, then it certainly wouldn't be fair to call out a whole generation, would it? I would be more inclined to believe this about Catholic families as a whole, but I would still want to see numbers.
I am of the mind that even if this is true about Catholic families, it's the past. These Catholic families made mistakes and some of them are in our chapels. There will always be people we can not relate to because we did things differently. Heck, I'm a convert who has no children. Do you think it's easy for me to relate to most of you when it comes to having ANY children? I just accept that and get to know them for who they are and where they are in their current state. Regardless of past life circuмstances, choices, etc we are now all supposedly on the same page. If we're all on the same page with the Catholic Faith, that is where our focus should be.
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Ordinary people who lived through it did not feel that way, that's the propaganda you get from modern media. It was a small cadre of agitators who, like the rudder of a ship, steered the media in that direction. Ordinary people questioned the morality and validity of the war, which is something that needs to be done about any war, but they never said the North Vietnamese were heroes.
Marsha
Um pardon me but by the time of 1968 the anti-war demonstrations suddenly started to march with Vietcong flags, flags of the same people who were killing American soldiers. Look I think Vietnam was obviously a war started over the lie called the Gulf of Tonkin that LBJ used to get us into the war but there is a big difference between disagreeing with Vietnam because it was unwise and misguided and calling it a dirty, immoral war and to celebrate with the NVA like "Commie Jane" Fonda.
The counter-culture at that time period was a child of the cultural Marxism of Georg Lukacs, Antonio Gramsci, and Herbert Marcuse.