BellaOnline Forums Relationships Married No Kids cf and religion

hi! i was helping out at church one evening(i'm catholic but luckily my church is pretty progressive)and to make a long story short one of the clergypeople made a comment on my husband and getting financially secure so we could start a family soon or something like that. my husband and i just looked at each other and she then said "you're planning on starting a family soon? right" and then i just said we'll see. i hate when i do things like that. instead of just being honest i hedged b/c i felt uncomfortable. i was just wondering if other cf have any of the same issues concerning being cf and their religion. just curious. luckily after i answered she didn't press us about it which was good.
indigo

I haven't had any problems at church regarding our choice to not have kids except few people seem to be able to comprehend why we wouldn't want them. We joke sometimes that they put something in the water at church because women pop out babies so much. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

What tends to get me excluded from things is the fact that I don't LIKE children. I won't work in the nursery *shudder* or lead a childrens Sunday School class, nor do I care to hang out with a group of women whose topic of conversation is always their children/grandchildren.

I used to get depressed about it, but as I get older I've come to accept that I really am more of a loner anyway and am perfectly happy not being involved in women's groups. I'll make my contributions in more behind-the-scenes ways.

I actually haven't had much concern with this. I know that so many people see the whole reason for getting married is to have children and reproduce. I think that's absurd and wouldn't mind saying so.

However, I do remember something brought up here in the witty comebacks post.

You are going against God!
If God wanted me to have kids he'd've given me less of a temper and need for my sleep, more patience, the actual desire to have kids, and I wouldn't feel called by him to do things that kids would only get in the way of.

So don't be afraid to admit that your CFBC. Marriage is about more than just reproducing, and Lord knows the last thing we need on this earth right now is more people!

I consider myself an agnostic and have often wondered if I had been brought up Christian if I would have a different viewpoint on having kids. It does seem to me that Christianity and other religions 'push' reproduction (of course - there ends up being more followers that way!)

It's hard enough being a "freak" agnostic and then adding CF on top of that just makes me the antiChrist! :-)

I'm glad to see there are religious CFers out there as well. We are a diverse group!

The only group I would be terribly surprised to see be CF would be the LDS. I'm pretty certain that having children is part of their faith, but you'd have to ask a mormon to be sure.

One of our pastors and his wife are CF, and although I'm not real sure what his view is, she IS NOT having any kids anytime soon! And you can't drag her down to the nursery. But she's excellent with the youth. There are so many areas of ministry; senior citizens (especially widows and widowers), missions, discipleship, etc. Just because someone's not crazy about working with kids doesn't mean there's nothing to do!

thanks for all the input!it was very interesting to see the posts! i'm also glad that there are other people like me out there or at least understand the religion thing.i'm not overly religious (i don't go to church everyweek and i certainly don't believe in everything the catholic church preaches) but i do like the church i go to very much. my husband and have discussed this and he said at one point" that if god wanted us to have children he would have made us want them!" i thought that was good. i'm really curious what religion the CF pastors are. that is really cool!
indigo

Hello, I'm new here, I just registered. I consider myself a devoted christian. My husband was a Baptist pastor at one time. I have always felt like an outsider around many "church" folks because we have been married 30 years and never had kids. Years ago at one church soon after we joined I saw my name in the bulletin as nursery worker for the following Sunday. I never volunteered for this, I discovered that it was "customary" for women to work in the nursery. I told them I wasn't customary and would not be working with children. That's when I first felt odd about being childless by choice. No one ever said anything and actually they were all quite nice to me, but that one incident made an impact on me. Later when my husband agreed to be interim pastor until a permanent pastor was found for a little Baptist church, it was explained that I would not be getting involved with children. He ended up as pastor for just over a year. Usually these little churches consider the pastor's wife an automatic kids sunday school teacher or permanent nursery worker. Considerering the median age of these dear folks was about 68, I didn't have much to worry about. But still I felt weird about it. The reason I felt weird about it is that besides being childless by choice, I'm a night owl. Im at my best at about 2:00am and am rarely asleep earlier than 3:00. Christian folk tend to be morning people and have kids. I have never met another believer that had no kids at my age(50) and was a night owl. I am so glad I discovered this forum,in the 21 years since I got serious about God I have not met a single christian who had no children on purpose or who was a night owl. However, what I thought was written in stone has now got a wrinkle, I wish I had an adult daughter with whom I could have the relationship I had with my mother. She died 2 years ago and I have been unable to function since. Sometimes I find myself wishing I had grandchildren, then I slap myself out of it! Anyway I'm so glad I found this forum, as this is turning into a novel I will quit now.

hi! i'm sure there are young women out there who don;t have mothers or aren;t close to their mom that would love to have a "foster mom" like you. you sound like a wonderful person. as an only child i have developed friendships with people who i consider family. maybe you could do the same thing. family to me doesn't just consist of people you are related to. just me two cents.
indigo

I believe an acceptable 'catholic' answer to the question would be: 'the Lord has not called us to that cross'. atleast that is how I answer and who would dare contradict the Lord?

that's a really great "catholic" answer. for a while i was wondering if i could even stay catholic and cf. after much soul searching and realizing that there are other progressive catholics out there including a few friends of mine i decided i don't necessarily consider myself catholic in the traditional sense but more just a member of a liberal catholic church. thanks for the input. i never thought about it in those terms but it does make perfect sense and you're right i would hope noone would question that one!
indigo