Posted on 06/28/2013 4:48:18 PM PDT by Morgana
Yup, it’s them again. America’s most charming couple is back in the news.
You remember, don’t you? We were introduced back in May when Albert Garland (a pseudonym), published a piece on Babble with the charming sub-headline: “My wife’s expecting twins — and I’m not happy about it.”
Things only went downhill from there.
Well, apparently the reaction to Albert’s piece was less than positive (who knew?), and now his wife has stepped forward to tell her side of the story in a follow-up piece on Babble.
“Mrs. Albert Garland” patiently explains, in their defense, that she and her husband only ordered one child (they got pregnant through IVF), and it’s really, really unfair that they got two. And just to be perfectly clear, they’re really (really) not happy about it!
“The twins are coming fast, and I don’t feel a sense of joy. Instead, I feel responsible. We only wanted one,” she writes. (Did I mention how charming this couple is?)
She goes on to wonder how much “strain” having two more children will place on her marriage and her older son, and explains that “like any family” they have dreams of “going to Disney, college, etc.” and are worried that now they will need a bigger car and a bigger house.
“Now, seven months into my pregnancy — and in therapy — I still feel remorse and am terrified of our future,” she writes. “When I chose to plant both embryos, I made a decision that forever impacted our lives, and not necessarily for the better.” (There’s that charm again.)
To be fair, Mrs. Garland does paint a picture of a very difficult pregnancy. Carrying twins is a very challenging thing for any mother, and it would take a very remarkable woman not to sometimes get down and a little discouraged during the process. Add onto that the fact that the couple’s first son had colic, and you can begin to understand why the couple may feel daunted at the prospect of twins.
But what this doesn't excuse is the choice to pen, and then publish in the public forum, a pair of such ridiculous articles. In the trials of their pregnancy, Mr. and Mrs. Garland may be excused for seeking pity and support - but it should be the pity and the support of each other, and of their close family and friends. What they hope to accomplish by airing their purile grievances for the world is unclear, except to re-affirm all of the most pernicious fallacies about parenthood that are currently so popular.
Indeed, what is so fascinating about this story is that it illustrates, in a nutshell, how just about everything that the modern world teaches us about parenthood, pregnancy and childbirth - all that stuff about “control” and “choice” and “responsible parenthood” and “self-realization” – is absolute rubbish, and, rather than making us free and happy (as promised), leads only to misery and a truly breathtaking narcissism.
The Garlands have clearly bought hook-line-and-sinker into these lies. They believed (because that’s what they were told) that they could have had absolute control over their reproduction. They thought they could put in an order for a baby, and have it delivered neatly wrapped with a bow on top. They thought they could have exactly what they envisioned as the "perfect" family.
But that's not how it works. When you get married, when you have sex, when you open yourself up to the possibility of children, you are opening up a Pandora's box. You are opening yourself up to life. And life is not within our control. It is way bigger and more mysterious than we are. Get all the scientists and screening technologies involved that you want. It doesn't matter. The only proper approach to parenthood is to simply open your heart and accept whatever comes as a gratuitious gift from God.
To become a parent is inherently to stretch ourselves. And if we sit back and allow ourselves to be stretched, we will find that our hearts are bigger than we ever knew. But if we hold on to our hearts, and say that they will stretch this much and no more, we only cause ourselves pain. And we will sink into self-pity.
The main difference between the Garlands and millions of other couples around the globe in similar circumstances, is that when the Garlands found out that they were getting something that they didn’t order, they found that they couldn’t stomach the notion of aborting their unwanted child. This is to their credit.
Click "like" if you are PRO-LIFE!
But this is exactly where all this talk of “control” has brought us – to more than 50 million aborted babies in the United States alone. To some 50 million heartbroken, spiritually scarred, empty-armed mothers and fathers, who believed that they could have their cake and eat it too, and who chose murder when that didn’t turn out to be true.
Love does not seek to control. Love opens its arms and embraces. Love finds a way. By treating our children as a commodity to be bought and sold, when, where, and however we wish, we have closed our hearts to the spontaneity of love.
If the Garlands would simply let go of that illusion of control, which has been hammered into them by the contraceptive, pro-abortion, “planned parenthood,” self-oriented culture, they would find the freedom to embrace their circumstances, to come out of themselves, and to find hope even in their most difficult moments.
They would see that going to Disneyland is not an important part of being a family; that you don’t need a large house to love three children; that while pregnancy is difficult, it is a difficulty with immense rewards; and that all of the hardships of parenthood oriented towards one of the greatest things any human being can ever do – bring new life into the world.
This doesn't mean that pregnancy won't be hard. That having twins won't be hard. But what it does mean is that even within the hardships, they will find their happiness and their joy.
The most hopeful part of the Mrs. Garland's article is the last line: "For anyone who is worried about me and my husband, our son brings us a ton of joy. We are always amazed by how much we love him, and I’m sure this indescribable love will extend to his brothers. But for now, I’m having trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel."
In the midst of challenges and uncertainty and suffering it can be hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But fortunately for the Garlands, because they a sufficient moral sense to rejected the possibliity of abortion, they will be given the opportunity to see that light - to welcome their two children, and to learn how to love them as the treasures that they undoubtedly are.
And hopefully whenever (if ever) they unintentionally become pregant again, they will have learned their lesson, and won't write any more such ridiculous articles for ridiculous publications.
I’m very sorry about your daughters’ health issues. God bless them and you, too.
whether they realize it or not, they are two straight people living a homo lifestyle - a lifestyle focused on self-centeredness and narcissism and shallowness, and doing whatever you want whenver you want and damn everything else especially if it might inconvenience me.
This was posted to yahoo. This woman, as far as I could read, was universall panned by the commenters. No sympathy at all whatsoever.
Back in the 80’s and 90’s were those not called “yuppies”?
Bless Mr. and Mrs. Garland’s little hearts. It’s quite special that they are putting out there, in permanent form, how unwanted one of their children will be. Will they give one child a name meaning misery or something similar to let the little ones know which one was the extra, or will they let the little ones guess, or perhaps play them off against each other to “earn” Mommy’s and Daddy’s love?
I would, like many decent people, happily take the unwanted child from these spoiled brats. My guess is that it’s a values problem with two liberal parents raised to feel entitled, and there will be nothing wrong with either child - at birth. I would feel sorry for the one they kept though.
yuppies were not upset at the thought of having kids because they’d negatively impact them just by their existence. they may have delayed having them awhile, but they weren’t against kids altogether.
yuppies stood for young urban professionals. that didn’t mean they didn’t want families or thought kids were going to destroy their lives.
bttt
“Mrs. Albert Garland” patiently explains, in their defense, that she and her husband only ordered one child (they got pregnant through IVF), and it’s really, really unfair that they got two.”
As soon as I read the first sentence of this article, I just knew that it would come out that these people were part of the IVF brigade. It’s disgusting to talk or think about children like they are commodities to be purchased or ordered off a menu, but it seems symptomatic of a whole crowd of people choosing that road nowadays. Children are not accessories, or lifestyle choices, but human beings, and your own flesh and blood - a gift from God.
I feel sorry for these children and hope that they never have the bad luck to encounter these articles on the internet years from now to see how their own parents though so little of them before they were born.
What is even sicker, in my opinion, is that a lot of the people who go for IVF not only implant multiple embryos expecting some to die, but if too many survive, they abort the “extras”. This couple didn’t have the nerve to get their hands that dirty, I guess.
Well done article.
“Breathtaking narcissim” will be repaid many times over in their later years with their children. They will richly deserve it.
I think it goes beyond just the homosexual lifestyle. You can trace it back to the sexual revolution and birth control “liberating” people from needing to worry about real commitment or intimacy before they hopped into bed. Us heteros can’t absolve ourselves for responsibility for that part of the equation.
When people get accustomed to a lifestyle of casual sex, it’s not so easy to get them to transition to a monogamous, loving, and lasting relationship. As long as we as a society keep tolerating wanton fornication like that, then we’re going to keep having to put up with these broken people as a consequence.
what do you think the essence of the homosexual lifestyle is? liberation from what sex traditionally meant, responsibility, monogamy and children, and thus nor being able to whatever, whenever, wherever you want.
Yes. Spot on. As with most of these IVF babies, they plant a crap load of babies, hoping a crap load will die. Makes me really sad. And sick.
What a fun couple. The kids will grow up wondering which one wasn’t wanted. I can hear it now: It’s your fault we can’t go to Disneyworld. No it’s your fault. No yours.
Sure, but the homosexuals are not responsible for the sexual revolution or women’s lib. We managed to mess up our sexual morality just fine without their help, while they were still a marginalized group that nobody in our culture cared to emulate. Nowadays, they are helping accelerate the downward trend, but we started the ball rolling and don’t seem to have much intention of trying to stop it.
what i am saying is that heteros were corrupted by the homo lifestyle. it’s the same. we’ve turned heteros away from the traditional lifestyle and der the guise of liberation made them desire to live just like the homo lifestle - no responsibilities, not growing up, party all the time, indulge any sexual urges anytime, anywhere, with anyone, casual sex, and because they’re heteros and could make babies, give them ways to take care of that unwanted outcome....
Send me one or both. I’d be more than happy to love and raise them.
Absolutely. They should be taken AWAY from these scumbags.
Mrs. Element & I had trouble having kids. Came from families with 4 kids; hoped for something similar. 10 yrs to get the first. Went the assisted fertility route as we approached 40. Didn’t work. Tried again. Quadruplets.
Best. Thing. That. Ever. Happened.
Frightening? Yeah. We worried they would come early and have problems. And it would have been our fault. By God’s grace, they are healthy.
Lots of work? You bet. Expensive? Yeah. Can’t think of anything I would rather have more. Stressful for me and the Mrs.? Yeah, but life is stressful, and God is good.
It is truly sad the Garlands’ can’t see beyond themselves for a moment. There is joy and blessing here, and they are letting it slip away from them.
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