by Dan Masterton
In
an underrated later episode of The Simpsons, Homer almost converts to Catholicism. Bart gets expelled from public school, so his parents place him in Catholic school, which is a more affordable private school option that comes with great discipline (delivered by stereotypical Irish nun and priest). Homer goes in intending to scold the priest, but instead, he is quickly wooed by a pancake dinner, a bingo night full of prizes, and the opportunity for a clean slate through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
When he returns home, Marge suspects something, saying, “You’ve been out all night and you look like you’ve accepted someone as your personal something.” Homer admits he’s been at the Catholic church and likes what he found. Marge hears him out a bit, but she’s still mad about the incense at a recent Catholic wedding that ruined her pantsuit -- she swears she won’t be having another twelve kids. Homer reassures her he only means ten, tops, and slides her a pamphlet: Plop ‘til You Drop.
This is the low-hanging fruit of Catholic stereotypes. We are the faith that is simultaneously lampooned for being prudish and backwards with sex while also being prolific in having children (which, according to science, is the result of having sex). Chalk it up there with the Christological controversy at Chalcedon as one of the great paradoxes of our faith.
I am happily married to my beautiful, loving wife, Katherine. We were married when I was 26 and she was 24; our first child was born when I was 28 and she was 26. To us, that felt normal and just about the right timing; peculiarly, many people remarked that we were young, even though we didn’t feel like we were.
We have had and continue to have a strong relationship and have effectively practiced Natural Family Planning according to the
Creighton Model, which has naturally spaced our pregnancies right in line with our mutually discerned intentions. Now, with a two-year-old daughter and the hope and desire for more children, we’re living the increasingly full rigors of family life -- weathering the lean, late nights and reveling in the joy-filled good times.
But all of this wouldn’t be considered normal by most people, and I don’t just mean by non-Catholics or non-believers but by many fellow Catholics, too. Married at 24? Just enjoy your 20s and “settle down” later after you figure more of this out. Using NFP? Why do that outdated, unscientific stuff when birth control is available. Kids before 30? Get some more time and money under your belt first. Maybe some people would jump into these adventures similarly to how we did, particularly if their situations were different, but we certainly feel more like oddballs then mainstreamers. Why do all of this?
I was eager to start a family. My heart told me that waiting until we had more money, less student debt, a bigger home, etc. was attractive but perhaps not all it’s cracked up to be. Having entered a career with minimal earning power, and knowing what Katherine’s earning power would be following her terminal degree, I knew it’d get better financially, but not earth-shatteringly so. To me, my (our) youth, health, and energy were the greatest assets, more than any house, minivan/second car, suburban forever house, or other thing could ever be. Let’s invest that into starting a family now.
I knew we could bootstrap it as needed through our kids’ childhood, be smart and tactful as they grew up, and do our best to save toward our home, our kids’ education costs, and our retirement as we could along the way. The latter invited fidelity and humility while the former path felt abstract and potentially indefinite or even endless; the goalposts for “readiness” just felt like they could be moved and adjusted over and over again forever. Meanwhile, I wanted to invest my late 20s and 30s into my kids’ early years. I knew I could crawl and climb and carry with greater ease and trade the liberty of twenty-something life for the potential of an empty nest and grown kids to visit in my 50s. And ironically, having to discern all this through the constant reevaluation of NFP rather than the less complex equation of artificial birth control only affirmed the ideas we considered; the process can be challenging, but the open, regular dialogue has been a backbone of our marriage.
At its core, I simply felt called to fatherhood -- and not in general, not later, not sometime. Part and parcel of my discernment of marriage to Katherine and with Katherine was having kids and raising them with her. We both knew that the fullest sense of who we were made to be was waiting in our family, where we felt the ways we loved each other would be drawn even more strongly outward from us through our children. In fact, one of the handful of reasons I liked the name Lucy for our first child was that Katherine thought -- and I agreed -- that she’d come into her own as she became a mother, and the name Lucy shares root words with light, i.e. she is the light that brings who Katherine (and me) more fully to who she was made to be.
On a wider scale, I’m very ok with a mess. I’m a
minimalist, kind of anti-materialistic, and very ok with hodge-podge, beat-up, mismatched, used, repurposed, resourceful stuff. This comes from my not-quite-desert-ascetic but definitely Catholic spirituality. So when it comes to family life, I don’t need everything to be “ready.” Yes, I want a safe, secure, healthy family life. No, I do not need pristinely painted walls, matching new furniture, or frequent professional photo shoots, etc. (though, occasional photo shoots for sure). Give me Lucy’s used end table from the letgo app; give me wall art, pillows, and curtains handmade by Katherine and friends for the nursery/bedroom; give me my grandma’s old sitting chair from her living room.
Basically, give me a mess. I’m good with the mess. I enjoy the mess. Two kids will make it crazier? Let’s go. God wired me to be a multi-track thinker; it certainly makes contemplative spiritual life tricky, but it puts family management in my wheelhouse. I can think through the household chores as I wind Lucy down for a nap, so that I can get clothes to the washer, pay the bills, move clothes to the dryer, do some dinner prep, catch up on some writing and editing, retrieve and fold the laundry, and then get some milk and a snack for Lucy as she wakes up. Thank God I’m 30 as I take a bite out of this life. It’s uniquely tasty.
But when you zoom out on our social life, looking to our close proximity, most of our similar-aged friends and family are on different tracks. We have friends whose early adult lives were or are stacked up with graduate studies, medical school and residency, moves for career and school, moves for relationship discernment, assertive career pursuits and paths, and more. Looking at about our 15 closest friends and family members/couples in Chicago, two-thirds are married or engaged to be married soon, and only three have kids. The interesting thing is that almost all of these people are faithful, mass-going Catholics -- so this trend of delaying marriage and family (whether personally chosen or thrust upon them circumstantially) or not pursuing one or both at all isn’t just outside the Church but within it, too.
As a result, despite my personal vocational security, I often find myself frustrated. Why are we so often on an island with our daughter? Our friends are wonderfully loving and patient with her, but why don’t they have kids of their own yet so they can all play together? I don’t linger long on accusatory angst over differences of disposition; instead, reality pulls me back to earth with reminders of what people without kids may be facing or thinking -- infertility or trouble conceiving and sustaining a pregnancy, career challenges and discernment, personal issues with physical or mental health, interpersonal marital challenges, and Lord knows what else.
I always hope our marriage and attempt at parenthood is an accessible, realistic, gritty example for our friends and family. And most of all, I hope others would be comfortable inviting us to accompany them through any and all of their discernment, whether thick or thin. Ultimately, I try to live my marriage and family like I live my faith according to an old “garden analogy” -- if I tend to my faith and my family and my marriage with diligence, and if my garden blooms and grows in beautiful ways that others can witness, then I hope others would see it and ask me about it.
* * *
One of the realities any couple has to face is that falling completely in love with someone means
both that they will love you profoundly
and that they will hurt you profoundly. Deepest love can only be given and received with authentic vulnerability. By opening oneself wholly to another, one also becomes vulnerable to potential hurt.
Love perfects as a decision, and making the decision to love your significant other invites the possibility of serious hurt as well as amazing, joyful love. It’s a reality we embrace as we dig into the depth of marital love. I would offer that this same reality is true of having, raising, and loving children. It should be a decision integral to the marriage, and it should be a decision of love, which inevitably makes one vulnerable to both pain and joy. My daughter drives me up the gosh dang wall when she obstinately refuses things we ask, when she is selfish and won’t share, when she’s inconsolably awake in the middle of the night, and more; my daughter also brings my heart its greatest consolation when she spontaneously gives hugs and kisses, when she learns new words to express herself (current highlights: “thank you” and “ta-da!”), when I witness her learning in real time, and much more.
If you have the courage to say before God and the Church that you commit yourself to marriage, then that same love that binds you and your spouse can flow forth from you to your future children. The light of our faith shines through the Sacrament of Marriage on into our weary parental hearts and conveys the Love of God forward from parents on to kids.
I am home with my 2-year-old most of the time, and screens are a constant battle. Any screen anywhere anytime will captivate her and steal her attention. Shedd Aquarium with tank after tank of fascinating sea creatures? Nah, I'll just noodle on these educational tablets instead. Shelves and toy chests full of books and playthings? Nah, I'll look above it all to the TV. Enjoying my self-driven playtime with this toy I picked? Nah, I'd rather sabotage the call you just received on your phone. I try to be very diligent. We used to allow her one episode of a show per day, plus whatever residual TV watching she might do during the two hours or so that we might park it in front of the TV; now, we've gotten her a tablet with interactive apps that we can limit to 30 minutes total to replace that one episode per day. We also wrap our day up by cuddling with one episode of TV at the end of the evening. Yet here, the WHO recommendation is even tighter than that. It's going to be some serious uphill sledding for millennial parents as we grapple with the long tentacles of technology while raising kids.
Catholics stink at feasting but are weirdly good at fasting. Did you know after forty austere days of sacrifice for Lent, we're supposed to feast for FIFTY days of Easter!? We're not so observant of this, and Jess Kimmet has some goods to make our Easters feaster. You may also enjoy this archival post of the old TRH on Easter from a few years back!
Finally, our most recent series on how normal Catholics can/should/ought to be wrapped a few weeks ago, and I just wanted to reshare my piece from our series. As a few of my friends move and tackle adult logistics and evaluate and reevaluate career choices and transitions, it continues to ring true to me that it's quite the puzzle for millennials to tackle in 2019 and beyond. I enjoyed trying to articulate my discerned rationales for taking the various plunges of my adult life. Check it out!
