Open to Life

As I’ve written previously, I was raised Catholic and tried most of my life to get the right answers so I could be an outstanding one, but that wasn’t the end goal. The end goal was to get to heaven, and I figured that I would achieve it by following the rules laid down by the institution that had ostensibly cornered the market on God’s plan. One of these rules, of course, is no contraception. My husband and I followed it, and we were blessed with six wonderful children, but “no contraception” is not really the best way to put it. “Be open to life” is a better iteration, and it’s the way Dennis and I always thought of it.

I can’t remember if I shared my mostly negative experiences with, and feelings about, a Catholic homeschooling group I was part of for many years. In a nutshell, it was a hive of mimetic rivalry in which every member was constantly comparing herself to the most Catholic (self-proclaimed in one way or another) of the members and never measuring up. In the online discussion group (and in other online Catholic homeschooling discussion groups), the subject of contraception inevitably came up, and the conversation could get heated. One of the terms bandied about in these forums was “contraceptive mentality,” a term used when speculating about couples with only one or two children, as in, “They are probably using natural family planning with a contraceptive mentality.”

But what no one seems to understand is that sex is not all there is to it.

I remember learning in the graduate course on Native American literature I took long ago that in the world of indigenous peoples, speaking creates reality, so a lie is a foreign concept. I was young and impressionable then and took this teaching at face value. Now, I see it differently. Now, whenever I hear something like, “For non-Westernized peoples, speaking creates reality,” I kind of laugh and think, “Yes, them and everyone else.” Don’t we all have a tendency to believe what we hear, especially when it’s what we want to hear? But saying something does not make it true, even when the person saying it thinks they believe it.

To get back to the Catholic Church and contraception: I learned (and read over and over in one form or another) that using contraception in marriage is like telling your spouse, “I give you all of me, except for my fertility,” and I used to be so proud of my husband and myself for getting this right. Except that we didn’t. “I give you all of me”? I don’t think so. I didn’t give him my innermost thoughts and feelings. I didn’t stop trying to protect myself whenever we got into an argument about money or sex (the usual suspects, but it was mostly money). I didn’t press on and on until he heard me and finally understood me. Instead of risking vulnerability, honesty, and real emotions, I would simply stop arguing and tell myself that I needed to try harder. That would work for a while, until the dam broke and dishes got smashed. In the meantime, it was my children who suffered the most, because it was my children who had to deal with my sour moods, silences and/or snide comments. It was my kids who were learning that their feelings weren’t valid if someone with an air of authority refused to recognize them.

No, a contraceptive mentality has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with convincing yourself that all the hours you put in for the company, all the traveling, the worrying and fighting about money is the best way to show your wife and kids that they are more important than anything else. A contraceptive mentality means putting parameters around friendships and family relationships that define what subjects are okay to talk about and which ones absolutely need to be avoided. A contraceptive mentality looks like a wife escaping with a book, a friend, or a cup of tea, and a husband riding off on his motorcycle or closing the door to his home office long after he’s finished work for the day. A contraceptive mentality is what drives the person so concerned with what everyone else thinks to always tamp down her feelings unless she can explain away letting down her guard with, “I was drunk” or “I was PMSing” or “I just needed to vent.” A contraceptive mentality lets the mild mannered guy down the road lose his temper and express some of the anger bottled up inside only when he can blame it on his favorite team losing the game.

A contraceptive mentality is a life-directing lie, it leads to an existence without passion, and I wish it on no one.

I needed to get the Catholic Church out of my life, but I will always hold onto the incredibly important reminder to be open to life. You’ll find no memento mori skulls in my house. I choose memento vivere: remember to live.