No Longer Quivering
So if you’ve read Lori Alexander’s book ‘The Power of the Transformed Wife’ or spent much time lurking at her website The Transformed Wife you will notice that occasionally Lori busts out an idea with zero basis in reality. This idea is one of those! She thinks it is feature of non-Christians , that unbelievers regret having children. While good Quiverfull believers welcome in every single child.
What does she base this idea upon? Some apocryphal story from her short years teaching. From the teachers around her. First, I shudder to think that there are folks teaching small children that regret having small children. Second, a tiny slice of life experience and a few throw away conversations does not translate into a worldwide hard and fast rule!
Do people realize how much easier their lives would be if they had chosen to be child free? Sure, but that does not mean they regret their choices or do not love their children. I think Lori is mistaking temporary parental burnout for some sort of self-invented longing to be childfree.
It’s normal, in or out of Quiverfull, to have those moments when your mind is saying to you ‘If I didn’t have to do x with the kids I could be doing y” I remember the year I was driving my very ill four year old daughter to and from the University of Virginia hospital every few days while making sure my second grader was occupied and my teenage daughter’s needs were being met. I frequently had ‘Calgon, take me away!’ moments where I thought about how it would be awesome if I was childfree on a beach somewhere with a Mai-Tai in one hand and a book in the other with zero responsibilities. That time passed, I loved my children even if I sometimes had thoughts of running away for a few days. Zero guilt about it even now.
That is the real danger of Quiverfull. They demonize normal reactions and thoughts into the ‘Worst Sin EVER!’ instead of acknowledging it’s not all roses and moonlight, endless joy. Let’s face it, slogging along through some parts of parenting isn’t always joyful, Christian or not, and stop shaming each other.
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