Continued from July 6… read part 1 first 

I now have Two Little Miracles running around my house. Miss 4 and Master 2.
Miss 4 is much like Miss 3/6 from yesterday – Precocious. Outgoing. Inquisitive. Opinionated. My Little Firecracker.
Master 2 is Sweet. Smart. Creative. Observant. My Little Charmer.

Samantha (Miss 4) knows her story – she *loves* her story.
How Mummy and Daddy waited for her for so long. How we missed her, even before we had met her. She knows that we prayed and prayed, and asked God for her. She knows she has an older brother in heaven. She knows that we were excited when she was growing in my tummy, anxiously awaiting her arrival. We’ve told her time and again that even when people love each other very much and get married, they don’t always have babies.

But she still gets so excited when she sees a wedding. In response to hearing that my friend was getting married, she jumped up and down and proclaimed:  “Oh Mummy! They love each other so much and they’re getting married and they’re gonna have such cute little babies!”

Love + Marriage = Babies

It’s an equation that all kids take for granted. Years ago I thought I was dealing with some hidden judgment from Miss 3/6’s family – some institutional indoctrination from ultra conservative factions in the USA. I was so broken and incomplete that I figured everyone else felt the same way about my ‘condition’. Yes, there were times when my ‘fertile’ friends made stupid, uneducated comments that wounded me and damaged our relationship. But I’m now convinced that they were not training their kids to believe that a marriage without kids is sinful. They just didn’t understand the need to teach their kids other ways of seeing the world, or how to be sensitive to others.

Last night, Sean was reading a story where two skunks fall in love and get married. Here’s the conversation we had.

Samantha: Yay!!! They’re gonna have babies now!!! Yay!!!
Daddy: Not everyone who gets married has babies. Some married people can’t have babies because they’re sick.
Samantha: One day I’m gonna have babies!
Daddy: If you get married, then you might have babies.
Mummy: And Mummy and Daddy will love them the way that Nana and Grandad love you and Timmy.
Samantha: (horror and tears) But I don’t want to get married, because then I’d have to live with my husband. But I want to be with you forever and ever.
Daddy: Well, if you get married, then your husband can come and live with us, too.

Samantha: Yeah! Yay! Then we can all be together, forever!!! Yay!! (jumping on the bed).

Oh, if only she knew…. (a wink and a smile)
I think that God has put something intrinsic in kids, where they see the safest, most beautiful place for a child to be born is into the loving arms of a Committed Mum and Dad.

Committed to God. Committed to Each Other. Committed to the Child/ren.

The truth is that the purpose of sex is two fold – intimacy and procreation.

The reality is that some people can’t have children because of illness, and others chose not to have children for very personal reasons. 

I just hope I can raise my Miss 4 and Master 2 to be a little more aware and a little more sensitive to the pain, needs and decisions of people around them.