Annie, a reader who is age 23, writes:

I am expecting baby number three! My husband told a friend from work, a young man in his late twenties, and do you know what he said? “Oh, and your wife’s a Catholic, so she doesn’t believe in abortion, huh?” “NO” was my husbands firm reply, with a disgusted, angry look in his intimidating, Sicilian eyes. Can you believe that is the response you get for having a third baby in Boulder? Unbelievable! Like we’re idiots because we don’t want to murder one of our children!

Laura writes:

Congratulations to you. That is wonderful.

I am not surprised at the response of your husband’s co-worker, as revolting as it was. People hesitate to have children today not just because of the economic burden, but because of an active disdain for the disorder and unpredictability of family life. Children are spoiled today and yet so despised. They are not machines. And, that’s the problem.

It’s amazing that some people still believe overpopulation is a problem. Westerners commit cultural suicide by not replacing themselves yet some consider it noble to withold the fruit of their loins. Westerners travel the world to procure children whom they believe are uncared for and yet when someone produces a large family here, they say, “That’s going too far!”

A female reader writes:

I am a Catholic, married 20 years with six children, all of whom were conceived in God’s love. People never fail to amaze me. When I was pregnant with my sixth child ( mind you, with the same husband, no government assistance, no handouts from anyone), a strange woman overhearing my conversation in the supermarket, about how I was about to have a sixth child, had the audacity to exclaim, “Wow, you need to learn how to keep your legs closed!”

Laura writes:

How can a society in which people feel free to express this kind of open contempt for motherhood and children survive?  

I was standing in a store once with my newborn son when a middle-aged woman struck up a conversation, looking somewhat repulsed the whole time. Then she said to me, glancing at my son, “Better you than me! I thought my children were such a bore until they were a year old.”

Katy writes:

For the reader who was told (by a complete stranger, no less) “Wow, you need to learn how to keep your legs closed”:  I am curious whether she replied “Wow, you need to learn how to keep your mouth closed”? If there is an appropriate response to such unspeakable rudeness, other than stony silence and a look of withering pity, I think this is it. Hoping for a large family of my own, I am already practicing.

 Laura writes:

Ha! I was trying to think of the best response for her. You nailed it!

All this reminds me of another incident described by a commenter at Lydia Sherman’s Home Living blog. A woman had five well-behaved children with whom she regularly appeared in church. Then she started appearing with, I think, her sixth. One day, after the service, a middle-aged woman with a steely glare followed her out to the parking lot. As the mother was packing her children into the car, the woman came up to her and said, “You need to stop doing this.”

The mother said, “What do you mean?”

The woman said, with bitterness, “You need to stop having children. This is not right.” She went on to give a speech about overpopulation or some such nonsense.

All the time, the children stood there in earshot of this.

Brenda writes:

I always think it’s so sad, these comments that some parents have to put up with at the hands of the supposed “enlightened” folk of the world. I have to say, I never really did suffer this when my own were little. In fact, people seemed so kind when I was out and about. I remember one incident when I was shopping, and not having the best of days, I might add! And although I was managing to keep it together, I remember that I felt sooo tired, and a tiny, older woman must have noticed this and said, “My dear, you will be so glad someday that you had them close together.” And she smiled like an angel and moved on. I felt so encouraged by her words, so I can only imagine that women (and men!) who hear so much negativity concerning their own procreation must feel pretty discouraged! 

Our societal attitude is so skewed. Children are a blessing, plain & simple. When we behave as though they aren’t, well…..we certainly are reaping the consequences, aren’t we?

Laura writes:

We’ve been focusing on the negative because in any normal society, people who held such anti-family views would not express them. But I think many of us have also experienced the good will Brenda mentions. It often comes in the form of a kindly, older woman who shines rays of benevolence on young mothers.

A female reader writes:

I am 23 years old, expecting my first child. I was babysitting my friend’s two children one day, a four-year-old girl and a one-year old boy. We stopped at the grocery store and while in the check-out line the little girl was going on about “when the baby comes.” A woman in the next line, clearly horrified, exclaimed, “You’re pregnant? Was it planned?” The little girl gave her this puzzled look and said, “God plans everybody on purpose.” The woman said slowly, “That’s very true,” and minded her own business after that!

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