So I was talking to my wife the other day about a coworker of hers that is a member of TSCC and how they are financially strapped (which causes her to bitch and moan at work). They have 4 kids and we talked about them not having any more unless they can financially support them, etc. Her husband works at BYU and apparently, BYU insurance doesn't cover birth control until after the fifth child... So 5 kids is the "celestial" number?

wow. that's all I can say. wow.

too damn

Even though my father wasn't a Mormon, my parents had 12 kids: 6 boys and 6 girls. I'm the youngest. Two of my older TBM siblings had 9 and 8 kids. My parents had about 60 total grandchildren.

Even though I was a TBM during our child-bearing years, something occurred to me in those days back in the 1980s: the first presidency during my heyday of church activity was Spencer Kimball, Eldon Tanner, and Marion Romniy. I noticed that all three of those guys only had 2-4 kids (can't remember the exact number.)

Upon realizing that, I felt no obligation to keep popping out babies, especially when we were middle-class people and couldn't really afford it. (Most of my TBM siblings who had a lot of kids struggled financially, so we didn't want to follow their poor example.) So my wife and I stopped after four. We have two great boys and two great girls. That's plenty for us.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2016 02:14PM by randyj.

Same here. Eight children in DH's family, nine children in my family. We are, both, the second to youngest. Our older, TBM siblings have huge families! And now, their TBM children also have huge families while all of the ex-mo family members typically only have three children.

I had also noticed that many prominent leaders had small families, or they hadn't served missions. Many of the women leaders had also had full time careers. These blatant contradictions of what was preached always bothered me.

DH and I also settled on four - boy, girl, boy, girl - for us, it is just right!

Five PLUS

The more the hungrier - they are for madness.

I thought they want you to have a quiver full.

On the Mormon mommy blogs, 5 seems to be the magic number these days - and all too often, it's 5 children in 5 years.

Doctors recommend at least 2 years between pregnancies. It’s safer for babies (a too close interval carries increased risk of placental abruption, placenta previa, low birth weight, preterm birth, stillbirth, etc.) and for mothers, whose bodies need time to recover from a pregnancy.

What’s more, having too many children (and especially too close together) puts tremendous financial and other stresses on parents.

But no one is trying to talk Mormon parents out of this madness, that I can tell.

A young couple in the ward I used to attend- they both came from large families. Large as in 9+ siblings in each family. The young man was my home teacher. As soon as they got married they started popping them out one after the other. They slowed down after the fourth kid. He literally had no idea what PMS was until their 4th year of marriage. I know this because he asked me about it. She was always either pregnant or nursing for that long!

As of a few months ago,

"[t]he church's own insurer, which covers all LDS Church employees — including BYU faculty — does not cover family-planning devices or medication."

http://www.sltrib.com/home/2905259-155/byu-health-plan-no-longer-complies


(I researched this because the no-birth-control-until-five-children rule seemed unlikely.)

I thought all plans under the ACA had to cover birth control 100%. Is the church trying to dump their student health coverage? Why would anyone pay for this coverage AND the ACA penalty that will be increasing in future years? Is this only the student plans? I don't think they could get away with offering this to their employees.

My parents had 6. Among my mom's siblings that was light duty where they regularly pumped out 2 or 3 more than that. Among me and my siblings, it goes 2, 2, 4, 6, 6, 3. for an average of less than 4.

5 is the magic number for most of my TBM friends. Why, I ask them. They all reply that's how many fit in a minivan, I kid you not. No one wants to be that family who has to take two trips to church anymore I guess.

11 is the number...

"do not limit your family as the world does. I am wondering now where I might have been had my parents decided arbitrarily that one or two children would be enough, or that three or four would be all they could support, or that even five would be the limit. for I was the sixth of eleven children."

$5 dollars to anyone who can remember who said this and where! lol...

Spencer W. Kimball, New Era, June 1975. But I cheated. I googled.

One could argue that the world would have been a whole lot better off if "The Miracle of Forgiveness" had never been written.

interesting. my sources say a BYU devotional from 1978 later published as a little book for newly weds called Eternal marriage and also found in the oh so popular book "faith precedes the Miracle." Kimball may have said it in different places.

If only there was an organization for women to help them 'plan' their parenthood, that would help them get birth control when they needed it.

+1

I'm not saying organizations shouldn't and don't help with family planning, but the responsibility rests squarely on the individuals.

More organizations? They won't help unless individuals choose to seek their help and they actually might do harm.

Definitely not one. One-child families seem to feel the full force of the Ward gossip and unsolicited advice.

My bro has one kid who's turning eight years old soon (they're very unlikely to have any more at this point) and people actually look down on them for that.

It's a smart idea for them, though. They're already low income and think it's more important to provide their kid with a decent living than having more babies they can't afford.

Are condoms really that expensive?

Teen-agers seem to find a way to afford them.

"Marriage is for the bearing of children. Now that you are getting married, your first child should come right away and then you should have as many children as the wife's health will allow"

That was the inspired counsel given to my fiance and me before our wedding, 1982. Yes, he was a total dick head.

He also told my friend who got married around the same time, that god saves mentally handicapped children for parents who use birth control and wait to have children.

His reward for being such a tool was a promotion from SP to Mission President.

He also told my friend who got married around the same time, that god saves mentally handicapped children for parents who use birth control and wait to have children.

He needs to be drawn and quartered for that statement.

So you have to have kids before you are allowed to not have kids...

I certainly hope this couple will spend a few dollars a month on condoms or something. It's insane to have unwanted children because insurance won't cover them.

Now that I think of it I've never has insurance coverage for birth control. Anyone who is having sex needs to stop doing it if they can't afford such a minor cost.

Back in my TBM days, after just getting married (1980s) my wife felt it was some sort of sin to use birth control. Like a good Morgbot I asked my bishop for advice. He simply said that none of the GAs have 15 kids so they must have exercised birth control at some point. A reasonable observation, I suppose. However, it was equally clear we were to be popping out babies as soon as possible.

The Affordable Care Act requires insurance to cover birth control. Perhaps BYU didn't use to cover it, but surely they have to now?

Oh, come on. Walmart has birth control on their "$9 for 90 day supply" prescription list. Birth control is cheap. Tell the insurance company you went for a pap smear and collect a damn prescription while you have the ob-gyn's attention.