Tough question. One that I can't give much of an answer to, because I haven't the infertility struggle. I can try to put myself in your place though, and I suspect you must feel like you don't have much of a voice, or much credibility with the QF crowd....those 15kid families must look at you and say, "Quiverful? Well, they must not be doing it right then!" Actually, I've seen a lot of that sort of judgement passed from MOBFs...even felt a teensy bit of it myself when one QF mama told me, teasingly, that I'd better get busy since my natural spacing (due to ebf) is apparently longer than hers. And I once heard a QF mom say of another, "She needs to wean that baby (baby was 2.5) so that she can get pregnant again, but I guess she's enjoying the break too much!"
All that to say that yep, there's competition and judgement out there, even QF circles. And IMNSHO, it stinks!
: But we are all human and we all tend to this sort of pettiness.
We just need to strive to be aware of it and resist it.
I have for several years had some rather unkind thoughts about my eldest sister. She's 39, been married 20 years to a man 10 years her senior. When she first got married, she wanted kids, he didn't. She thought he'd change his mind. Then about 5 years ago, we had a conversation in which she said, "I still wish that I could have been a mother, but I've left that dream behind, because there's no sense dwelling on it. I wouldn't trade my life as it is for all the kids in the world!"
Well, I immediately judged her in my mind....I decided that what she was really saying was, "yeah, it'd be fun to play mommy for awhile, but OTOH I'm enjoying the "things" that we can do with 2 incomes and no "encumberances", and really, I wouldn't quite know what to do if I did have a kid now!" I judged her as sweet but self-centered, and not really willing to make the trade-off that parenthood would demand. I just categorized her as Childless by Choice, a great aunt (the FUN one!) and totally dismissed her! I think I may have even mentioned her here on MDC, in past QF threads.
Then this past fall--just back in August--I was thoroughly humbled when I learned that she had quit birth control back in 1994!! For over a decade, they have done nothing to prevent a pregnancy, and she has even tried to plan around her ovulation, to a degree. No babies in 14 years of leaving it up to the Lord.
: What a blow that knowledge was to my preconceived notions!! I probably don't have to tell you how small and wormish I felt.
She told me that they have never gone any further than her using a few ovulation kits (which indicated that she was ovulating) because they decided between them that fertility testing and interventions and all that was just too much....too much stress on them, on their marriage, too much potential for hurt feelings or blame-throwing or resentment. For them, they chose to focus on the blessings they've been granted, and trust that God has a purpose. I am SO HUMBLED by their faith!! And you know, maybe a teensy part of God's purpose in not opening my sister's womb is to teach me humility? Of course, I'm not so ego-centric as to think that is His whole purpose, but I don't need to know His purpose. And my sister has learned to find peace without knowing...that also is quite a lesson to me.
Anyway, that story is just to illustrate how easy it is to judge others when we don't know their struggle, even when we think we are above callous or shallow judgements. I've certainly resolved to be much more careful about the judgements that I make, and I hope that it will help me to avoid feeling morally superior to another person. Or at least maybe make me think twice next time I feel like I can so quickly and easily sum up and dismiss another person's struggle.
IMHO, what quiverful SHOULD be is simply one more way in which we express our faith in God. Not the only way by any means....not the most important way, or the best way. Just one more way to show the world (and to remind ourselves!!) that we truly and deeply believe that God is sovereign. That He is in control. That He truly knows best. That He knows us better than we know ourselves. That His purpose is perfect, even when we can't see or understand it. That His plan for our lives is far and away more wonderful than any plan we could imagine for ourselves!
It isn't--shouldn't be--about numbers. It's really not even about children except indirectly. What it's about is control, and grateful surrender. It's about keeping our eyes on the Captain of our ship, and realizing that the One who hung the stars is fully capable of directing our tiny little vessels. It's skydiving without a net, without a plan B tucked away somewhere. It's trusting that Someone you can't even see will catch you.
It's intoxicating, that utter faith!
And, IME, it's also quite fleeting....indeed (and I think my experience is not abnormal) it's really more a series of questions and doubts and fears and seeking God again and again, punctuated by brief but oh-so-incredible moments of clarity and confidence and perfect rightness. This is where I'm meant to be, even if I don't understand the full picture.
Although all that, from someone with 4 kids may not really speak to your heart....I could totally understand that. I think that QF people with few children (less than 5 for sure, although I think young families who are still growing--like mine--have an easier time in both realms) are largely invisible....they have no voice out in the world because they don't "look the part." And they don't have much of a voice within the movement, because the "wow factor" is missing. It's a unique perspective that i think the rest of us are missing, to our detriment. If you believe that children are a blessing from God, then it's easy to have faith when you have clear evidence of God's blessings in your life! It's harder to have faith when you see God blessing others around you with children, but your own blessings seem a bit paltry or unfulfilling by comparison.
I dunno, I think I'm rambling (blame it on the cold medicine!) but this is something that I've been thinking about a long time--since learning about my sister's silent struggle. I think we quite often miss the point as QFers. Every coin has two sides--on one side, QF means more kids than society deems "proper", and all the burden that goes along with swimming upstream. On the other side of the coin, QF means trusting God when children don't come, and living a quiet invisible pain that no one understands because gosh, you have one kid, and really that's "enough" isn't it? Most people who see you assume you planned it that way, you were smart and responsible and enlightened!
I kind of learned this lesson a different way with my second child. My first nursed until he was 3. He nursed through my pregnancy, drying up didn't slow him down at all! I tandem-nursed them for a full year, and then he self-weaned just after he turned three. I assumed my dd would be the same way, because I was an EBFer, a proponent of child-led weaning!! And I was humbly reminded by my daughter--at 16 months--that child-led weaning is a coin with 2 sides, also, and sometimes the child leads the mother sooner than she would wish!
Every coin has two sides, and each side is equally important, equally valid, equally real. The two sides together are balanced. If you ignore one side, you don't have that balance.
Sheesh. Sorry for the novel. I'm a dork--just skim through. Prolly only a third of all that makes any sense anyway!
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down to the question. As someone on the outside; while I realize and identify with the conviction behind being quiverful, it seems like it's all large families. Or that large families are the
to all the Mamas struggling here.
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They must have concluded that we were lying or something.
