A reader writes:
I was wondering if it is wrong to use nfp to space out pregnancies to be 3 years apart. I want to enjoy each child’s babyhood. On one hand having many children close together would not be good for my emotional state. I really admire women who are not fazed by the strain. I seem to not be able to handle much stress. But the biggest reason is wanting to give each child as much of my attention as I can offer so I know each baby. I’m not saying that mothers who have children close together do not know their babies. But they seem to be made of something I am not. Trust me on this! My mother had her kids one after the other and acted like she wished she hadn’t had all of us. She also said she regretted not "knowing" her youngest because she was too "busy," that she didn’t have the time.
When I read my reasons they sound stupid, like I am making lame excuses for myself. I just want the baby to be more independant before I get pregnant again. What do you say? Do I have "Just Reasons" to use NFP?
The Church does not have a list of what counts as acceptable reasons, so I can’t simply go to a Church doc and tell you what it says.
What the documents do is speak in more general terms about the kinds of reasons that can be sufficient, and they allude to physical, psychological, and economic reasons. Obviously, trivial factors falling into these classes would not suffice, but is some significant human good is being protected.
The reasons that you cite are of a psychological nature protecting the human good of yourself (by not being overstressed) and the children (by being able to better mother them due to not being overstressed). These are significant human goods.
Whether they are sufficient is a decision for you and your husband to make based on your own knowledge of yourselves and your family situation. The Church does not propose a cookie-cutter solution to such questions as it recognizes that different people are different and are able to handle different numbers of children at different times in their lives. If your conclusion is that y’all are not able to have children closer together without unduly burdensome strain, the Church respects the choice to use NFP to space them.
One factor that may be of use in making your decision: In prior ages when breastfeeding was universal, usually for the first few years of life, then (given the diets people had) many women would frequently (though not always) end up with kids two to four years apart anyway.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for not having the kids too far apart. If they are sufficiently far apart then (a) it’s like having a series of only children as they have fewer contemporaries to interact with and (b) it prolongs the amount of time that you have to take care of infants.
Three years apart is not enough to create the fullness of effect (a), but it will have effect (b). Regardless of how many children you have (2, 5, 10, 15), if they are spaced three years apart then you will be involved in the care of infants and toddlers for three times as long as if they are spaced one year apart. By contrast, if the kids are bunched up then it means more work initially but less work later on.
I don’t know whether you have children or not yet, but whether or not you do, the best thing to do may not be to try to keep to a strict schedule, which will be hard to implement anyway. (E.g., if you wait 2.25 years after baby #1 before trying to have baby #2 and then it takes a few months to have baby #2 and then baby #2 miscarries then it will be more than three years before baby #3 can be born.) The prudent thing to do is likely to re-evaluate the situation after each baby rather than trying to implement an ideal plan.
20
March 11, 1513: Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici is elected pope and takes the name Leo X.
Literally!