The Pill

[MIKolbe]

(taken from Mark Shea's blog)

[b]How the Pill Liberated My Mother . . . and Me[/b]

My father once told me that I was a "mistake." Not a mistake in the sense of: "We wish you'd never been born." But a mistake as in: "We didn't plan on having you."

There were probably better ways to have conveyed this message to a child. But my father grew up in mid-century Newark, N.J., the son of an Irish barkeep. He hailed from deep in the heart of Philip Roth territory and they didn't mince words back then.

Whenever I asked my mother if I was an "accident" -- as I did from time to time -- she'd fob the question off awkwardly. "You were a planned accident" she'd say with a chuckle, trying to reassure me. But her laughter belied the truth.

I remember once asking my mother when I was still fairly young what was the most important invention that had happened in her lifetime. I was expecting to hear something like penicillin or the atom bomb. Instead, the answer she gave surprised me. She said that it was the invention of the birth control pill.

I was probably 8 or 9 at the time and didn't even know what birth control was. She explained that it had liberated women by not forcing them to have children that they didn't want or couldn't care for.

I filed that idea away in the back of my head -- as children are wont to do -- but I didn't forget it.

I remembered it a year or two later when I came home from attending Mass with my father with an "Abortion is killing" bumper sticker. They were handing them out at the back of church. My mother took one look at it and burst into tears. I didn't know what abortion was, but her tears left a searing mark.

And I remembered it again a few years after that, when she finally explained the reason she'd left the Catholic Church in 1966, shortly after I was born. Before that, she'd been a devout Catholic all of her life, attending Catholic schools all the way through college. But, as she explained, after having four children in eight years, she didn't want to go on feeling obliged to have more kids. So she left the church and, as I subsequently came to learn, went on the birth control pill.

I doubt that many mothers today, myself included, would be as forthright with their daughters about these kinds of topics at such an early age. But that's a testament to just how important the pill -- which 50 years ago this month was approved by the FDA -- was to her as a symbol of so many different things: liberation from prevailing social norms, liberation from the strictures of her religion, liberation from the sexual politics of her marriage.

As with all forms of liberation, I suspect there was some ambivalence as well. Perhaps that's why she stored her pills in a nearly abandoned refrigerator in our basement, which I opened out of curiosity one afternoon in my youth. They kept company with a few bottles of old beer that nobody ever drank. Who knows? Maybe she just didn't want the kids asking too many questions. Or maybe it was just a way to avoid an ongoing source of tension with my father. But I've subsequently wondered whether the pills' ignoble, subterranean status in the bowels of our house spoke to some deeper sense of shame.

I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps I'll ask her. What I do know is that the pill, as it did for so many women of her generation, enabled my mother to take control of her own body and its reproductive function. And it's hard to understate just how revolutionary that was for women of her day.

And through her dogged insistence on the central importance of the pill to women's lives, she also passed those attitudes on to me. I think her early and vocal embrace of birth control had a lot to do why I was - and remain - instinctively pro-choice and pro-contraception, despite my own indoctrination in Catholicism through the age of 18. Birth control has always seemed to me not merely convenient, but also just and empowering.

So thanks for that, Mom.

And Happy Mother's Day.


Article [url="http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/05/06/how-the-pill-liberated-my-mother-and-me/?ncid=webmaildl8"]HERE[/url]

wow..just..wow

[goldenchild17]

not exactly the ending I was expecting. I don't really see how someone can come out supportive of BC after having that experience.

[MIKolbe]

In psychology, Stockholm syndrome is a term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein hostages express adulation and have positive feelings towards their captors that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims.

(that's what the tagline "A Leading Cause of Stockholm Syndrome" was for)

but yes, i read it and just shook my head.

[dominicansoul]

this would be a good article for the fuzzy bunny crusade to leave comments...

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='goldenchild17' date='11 May 2010 - 07:29 AM' timestamp='1273580987' post='2108578']
not exactly the ending I was expecting. I don't really see how someone can come out supportive of BC after having that experience.
[/quote]

Precisely how I felt. Mkolbe's use of the term "Stockholm Syndrome" drew me to the thread. I should have expected a different outcome based on the title. As the hero in "The gods Must Be Crazy" said, "It's really just an interesting psychological phenomenon."

~Sternhauser

[HisChildForever]

If I was told that I was a "mistake" I would be traumatized.

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

[quote name='HisChildForever' date='11 May 2010 - 08:15 AM' timestamp='1273583706' post='2108601']
If I was told that I was a "mistake" I would be traumatized.
[/quote]

My mother told me many times when I was growing up that she regretted having children at all. And, she meant it. [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/shock.gif[/img] She only changed her mind when the grandchildren came along! [img]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/public/style_emoticons/default/cool.gif[/img] Yes, it was very traumatic.

Edited May 11, 2010 by IgnatiusofLoyola

[MIKolbe]

[quote name='HisChildForever' date='11 May 2010 - 09:15 AM' timestamp='1273583706' post='2108601']
If I was told that I was a "mistake" I would be traumatized.
[/quote]
That is one of the things that REALLY struck me, and saddened me. Not only the fact that her parents told her she was a mistake, but evidently (in a way) she agrees!!! As she has now be 'liberated' in the same manner as her mom, by the pill.

which begs another question... liberated from [i]what[/i] exactly?

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='MIkolbe' date='11 May 2010 - 08:22 AM' timestamp='1273584165' post='2108608']
That is one of the things that REALLY struck me, and saddened me. Not only the fact that her parents told her she was a mistake, but evidently (in a way) she agrees!!! As she has now be 'liberated' in the same manner as her mom, by the pill.

which begs another question... liberated from [i]what[/i] exactly?
[/quote]

One of the intrinsic ends of marriage. So, liberated from reality, really.

~Sternhauser

[MIKolbe]

then i wish to be a slave.

[CatherineM]

Since my mom wasn't supposed to have kids, we were all accidents. Actually, I was probably more of a miracle.

[MIKolbe]

All children are miracles

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='MIkolbe' date='11 May 2010 - 09:22 AM' timestamp='1273580525' post='2108576']

My father once told me that I was a "mistake." Not a mistake in the sense of: "We wish you'd never been born." But a mistake as in: "We didn't plan on having you."

Whenever I asked my mother if I was an "accident" -- as I did from time to time -- she'd fob the question off awkwardly. "You were a planned accident" she'd say with a chuckle, trying to reassure me. But her laughter belied the truth.

I was probably 8 or 9 at the time and didn't even know what birth control was. She explained that it had liberated women by not forcing them to have children that they didn't want or couldn't care for.

I filed that idea away in the back of my head -- as children are wont to do -- but I didn't forget it.

I remembered it a year or two later when I came home from attending Mass with my father with an "Abortion is killing" bumper sticker. They were handing them out at the back of church. My mother took one look at it and burst into tears. I didn't know what abortion was, but her tears left a searing mark.

But that's a testament to just how important the pill -- which 50 years ago this month was approved by the FDA -- was to her as a symbol of so many different things: liberation from prevailing social norms, liberation from the strictures of her religion, liberation from the sexual politics of her marriage.

But I've subsequently wondered whether the pills' ignoble, subterranean status in the bowels of our house spoke to some deeper sense of shame.

And through her dogged insistence on the central importance of the pill to women's lives, she also passed those attitudes on to me. I think her early and vocal embrace of birth control had a lot to do why I was - and remain - instinctively pro-choice and pro-contraception, despite my own indoctrination in Catholicism through the age of 18. Birth control has always seemed to me not merely convenient, but also just and empowering.
[/quote]

The last statements seem to contradict the general vein of the first. She notes that she was an "accident" that her mother didn't plan for and in the same breathe praises the pill for liberating women by not forcing them to have children that they didn't want or couldn't care for. Where does she fall into this definition? She is both mother and one of those children that wasn't planned for. This author wants to embrace sexuality and divorce it from fertility except for when it is convenient and chosen. Interesting article, I don't know that she fully understands the implications of the first part of what she said.

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

This thread has gotten me curious. What is the teaching of the Catholic church with regard to a couple who knows before they get married that they are not able to have children together, e.g., one or both parties are sterile, or the woman has already gone through menopause? (I knew a woman who went through menopause in her 30's.) Can the couple still be married in the church?

Edited May 11, 2010 by IgnatiusofLoyola

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='MIkolbe' date='11 May 2010 - 03:10 PM' timestamp='1273587007' post='2108627']
All children are miracles
[/quote]
Amen.

[add]

see: [url="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html"]HUMANAE VITAE[/url]

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='IgnatiusofLoyola' date='11 May 2010 - 10:34 AM' timestamp='1273588440' post='2108630']
This thread has gotten me curious. What is the teaching of the Catholic church with regard to a couple who knows before they get married that they are not able to have children together, e.g., one or both parties are sterile, or the woman has already gone through menopause. (I knew a woman who went through menopause in her 30's.) Can the couple still be married in the church?
[/quote]
Yes, I believe so as long as the are open to the possibility of life.

[virginiancatholic]

Yeah...that was a really unexpected conclusion.

It's so sad to think that so many women considered themselves liberated when then had really embraced a form of bondage...a woman thinks "now I can control my body" but is she really controlling it? Her body is (most often) in a cycle of normal processes which are free and unconstrained, a cycle of fertility, degeneration, and renewal. Instead of explaining to women about their cycles and educating the masses in how to avoid pregnancy if necessary, or how many ill effects artificial means of so called "control" there are, they simply pass it out and market it under an oversimplification: no worries, no strings, no bother. It isn't liberation...it is enslavement. A woman reigning in her body and forcing it into a socially acceptable machine, available for pleasure without the potential for life. One of my biggest pet peeves is the allowed oblivion of women who have misconceptions or even no clue about their own bodies and are left in the dark by well meaning folks who don't take the time to give proper informed consent. Most women are only fertile for about 3 days out of their cycles...and they have to take bc pills for every single day at the same time or, if one is a little late on day, they could conceive while on the pill and then there are worse problems.

Nevertheless, we mustn't forget the subjective situation in which many of these ladies found themselves...most often overwhelmed and desperate.

My mom wasn't supposed to have any more kids after her stillbirth...medically unable rather than inadvisable. six live births later...we are bustin at the seams in this house! But happy.

[mommas_boy]

[quote name='IgnatiusofLoyola' date='11 May 2010 - 10:34 AM' timestamp='1273588440' post='2108630']
This thread has gotten me curious. What is the teaching of the Catholic church with regard to a couple who knows before they get married that they are not able to have children together, e.g., one or both parties are sterile, or the woman has already gone through menopause. (I knew a woman who went through menopause in her 30's.) Can the couple still be married in the church?
[/quote]

Sterility is not considered an impediment to marriage, because the couple is still able to consummate their marital vows. Impotence, however, is considered such an impediment, because it makes the consummation impossible. However, in the modern day and age, the number of medical and technical options available (from Viagra/Cialis to electrical stimulation) makes me question whether or not impotence is truly a relevant consideration anymore, granted that the couple obtain these means with a reasonable assurance of success before they are married.

Basically, the one requirement is that the couple be able to engage in the marital embrace.

For the sterile couple, they are effectively practicing NFP, but with every embrace, they are in a sense praying for a miracle with their bodies. As such, they are still open to the possibility of conception (however miraculous), and so the moral requirement is met.

Edited May 11, 2010 by mommas_boy

[zunshynn]

I was waiting on a big birthday party once, and the lady who's birthday ir was started to tell this story about how after he'd had his vasectomy one year on his birthday or something a year or two later, as a joke, she gave him this card that said "Honey you know that jar in the garage? It didn't work. Happy Birthday!" (Apparently he kept it... whatever they remove... in a jar? in the garage? I wonder why?!)

Then he was like, what do you mean it didn't work!?

And then she told him she was only kidding.

It was so sad to me how nonchalant it was... not to mention the fact that this woman's daughters, who were about my age, were in the room too. And like... they laughed with everyone else... but seriously, when you really sit and think about that... how could that be no big deal to you?