A couple months ago, I stumbled onto an older thread where I saw another view of NFP.
I think the poster was Herman the Cherusker, but I don’t see that name still on free republic. Anyway, he was saying that, according to most moral theologians, NFP is fine as long as you contribute a suitable amount of children to society. If I remember correctly, he also said that they estimated the suitable amount of kids for present-day America to be about 5 or so.
Do you have any comments on that? Was what he was saying correct at all?
The Church has never said any given number is the “right” number. Therefore I would never assert that any amount of children was right or acceptable.
That being said, I do wonder if there’s a deeper meaning to what he was saying. My SIL talks about hitting a wall at five, and just feeling completely overwhelmed at that point, could also be because her last two were 17 months apart and super active little boys. At church, I’ve noticed that many families seem to stop at six, or at least there is a significantly larger gap between children after six. I’m sure part of that is maternal age, but there might be something to having five or six kids transforms the family a bit and they have to regroup, for lack of a better term.
So maybe he intends to reassure families who have grown quickly that it is ok to take a breather and that feeling overwhelmed isn’t a selfish feeling.
But I would never say X amount of kids is ok or you can close off yourself to life after that point.
Actually, he had solid doctrinal statements to back up his assertions. I thought his views on the subject were very cohesive and convincing, from a Natural Law perspective.