How did you know it was the right time to have your first child?


Lee
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5 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

If someone is mature enough to get married they are mature enough to have children. If they AREN'T mature enough to have children, they're not mature enough to get married.

Wow.  I'm so glad the rest of us don't have to live in your little fantasy world where people who are permanently incapable of raising children are deemed unworthy of having a partner.

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46 minutes ago, Lee said:

But I wouldn't and if I "abandoned" (which even if we divorced I wouldn't do) my wife when we had no children how is that as bad as abandoning a child? My wife could care for herself and move on to find another man. My child would never get over the rejection of a parent. You're just using hyperbole I don't believe for one second you actually think abandoning a child is the same as divorcing your wife. 

I'm not using hyperbole. You are simply translating what I'm saying to mean something different than what I'm trying to. I don't believe I used the words "the same as"...checking....yep. I said, "on about the same level". The words "about" and "level" have inferences that you are either disregarding or misunderstanding.

47 minutes ago, Lee said:

I don't get why it is such a debacle not to want kids straight away. 

I wouldn't call it a debacle. I would say it's simply not taking advantage of a blessing that one could take advantage of.

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11 minutes ago, NightSG said:

Wow.  I'm so glad the rest of us don't have to live in your little fantasy world where people who are permanently incapable of raising children are deemed unworthy of having a partner.

A. There are almost always rare and extreme exceptions to most rules/principles.

B. I am well aware that people think "having a [sex] partner" is the ultimate source of peace and joy. I am also well aware of what constitutes actual fantasy vs. where true joy comes from.

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1 hour ago, The Folk Prophet said:

A. There are almost always rare and extreme exceptions to most rules/principles.

Not all that rare.  Off the top of my head, I know two women, one man and a married couple with physical or psychological issues that render them permanently unsuitable for parenting, while otherwise no less functional than many, to the point that I've known one of the women and the husband in the couple for most of my life and only found out in the last few years why they never had kids.

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B. I am well aware that people think "having a [sex] partner" is the ultimate source of peace and joy. I am also well aware of what constitutes actual fantasy vs. where true joy comes from.

Well, not everyone feels so wonderful as you in only their own company.  We're stuck with merely a deity who must pale in comparison to even your reflection in a mirror, so we seek the companionship of another human for a myriad of reasons.  Sex is generally one of those reasons, but very rarely the primary one, or we'd all just marry the first attractive person willing to put out and be happy with them.

Edited by NightSG
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2 minutes ago, Vort said:

Haven't really seen any need to respond on this thread, but this just caught my eye:

Uh..........seriously?

Tell me why then ... ? If a married couple don't want kids or are unable to have children then should they not be married? Maybe you got married to have kids but that's your choice. I didn't marry my wife to have kids, I married her because I love her and even if she was unable to have kids I would still have married her and loved her. I can only assume you solely married your husband / wife to have kids.  

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On 4/5/2018 at 5:10 PM, Lee said:

Could you tell me some examples of where that council is given please

 

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“Marie and I had rationalized that to get me through medical school it would be necessary for her to remain in the workplace. Although this was not what we [wanted] to do, children would have to come later. [While looking at a Church magazine at my parents’ home,] I saw an article by Elder Spencer W. Kimball, then of the Quorum of the Twelve, [highlighting] responsibilities associated with marriage. According to Elder Kimball, one sacred responsibility was to multiply and replenish the earth. My parents’ home was [close to] the Church Administration Building. I immediately walked to the offices, and 30 minutes after reading his article, I found myself sitting across the desk from Elder Spencer W. Kimball.” (This wouldn’t be so easy today.)

“I explained that I wanted to become a doctor. There was no alternative but to postpone having our family. Elder Kimball listened patiently and then responded in a soft voice, ‘Brother Mason, would the Lord want you to break one of his important commandments in order for you to become a doctor? With the help of the Lord, you can have your family and still become a doctor. Where is your faith?’”

Elder Mason continued: “Our first child was born less than a year later. Marie and I worked hard, and the Lord opened the windows of heaven.” The Masons were blessed with two more children before he graduated from medical school four years later.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/10/children?lang=eng 

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Selfishness is an element that breaks and corrodes and destroys marriages as it destroys lives and all that is good. It is an act of extreme selfishness for a married couple to refuse to have children when they are able to do so.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1979/04/fortify-your-homes-against-evil?lang=eng

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President Ezra Taft Benson taught that young couples should not postpone having children and that “in the eternal perspective, children—not possessions, not position, not prestige—are our greatest jewels.

Quoting from a pamphlet apparently not available online https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/mothers-who-know?lang=eng

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My, what sound counsel! Any of us who have gone through the educational process can only endorse the counsel of our prophet. It will take sacrifice and perhaps extending one’s education longer than planned by having children as you complete your degree, but you will find, as others have, that those years were among your happiest because you had to struggle.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1975/04/a-time-for-every-purpose?lang=eng

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One can have all the blessings if he is in control and takes the experiences in proper turn: first some limited social get-acquainted contacts, then his mission, then his courting, then his temple marriage and his schooling and his family, then his life’s work. In any other sequence he could run into difficulty.

After marriage young wives should be occupied in bearing and rearing children. I know of no scriptures or authorities which authorize young wives to delay their families or to go to work to put their husbands through college. Young married couples can make their way and reach their educational heights, if they are determined.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1975/02/the-marriage-decision?lang=eng

 

4 hours ago, Lee said:

I care for my wife but that is very different to having a child, if necessary marriage is reversible.

I can't remember when I last read something as disturbing as this on here. I'm hoping you don't mean it the way it's coming across and you have some extreme limitations for when it does become necessary. But if you are even remotely considering divorce as a possibility with no indications of adultery or abuse, then as I said, very disturbing. I suggest studying the following talk and maybe speaking with @anatess2 about her views on marriage.

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If couples understood from the beginning of their romance that their marriage relationship could be blessed with promises and conditions extending into the eternities, divorce would not even be a considered alternative when difficulties arise. The current philosophy—get a divorce if it doesn’t work out—handicaps a marriage from the beginning.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1984/04/marriage-and-divorce?lang=eng

 

47 minutes ago, Lee said:

Also, what is with marriage and having children being so intertwined?

:confused: Are you LDS?

On 4/5/2018 at 11:18 PM, NightSG said:

When she's been carrying it for 9 months, and you've been putting up with pregnant woman gas for most of that, you'll know it's time to have the baby.

I was hoping for a response like, "My water broke." It looks like this is the closest I'm getting.

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2 minutes ago, SilentOne said:

I can't remember when I last read something as disturbing as this on here. I'm hoping you don't mean it the way it's coming across and you have some extreme limitations for when it does become necessary. But if you are even remotely considering divorce as a possibility with no indications of adultery or abuse, then as I said, very disturbing.

Children don't even get those exceptions, though; if one's child becomes abusive prior to adulthood, there's really very little that can be done apart from having them institutionalized, and even that depends on having far more clear evidence than simply divorcing an abusive spouse.

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5 minutes ago, NightSG said:

Children don't even get those exceptions, though; if one's child becomes abusive prior to adulthood, there's really very little that can be done apart from having them institutionalized, and even that depends on having far more clear evidence than simply divorcing an abusive spouse.

Because I may not have been clear, if he is thinking, "I can divorce my wife if things don't work out," and the wife is not abusive or committing adultery, then I am concerned.

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Just now, SilentOne said:

Because I may not have been clear, if he is thinking, "I can divorce my wife if things don't work out," and the wife is not abusive or committing adultery, then I am concerned.

I'm not seeing how "things not working out" and abuse or adultery are somehow exclusive of one another.  Those are pretty much the main reasons things wouldn't work out in a marriage that's made it past the first couple of years.

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30 minutes ago, Lee said:
36 minutes ago, Vort said:

Haven't really seen any need to respond on this thread, but this just caught my eye:

1 hour ago, Lee said:

Also, what is with marriage and having children being so intertwined?

Uh..........seriously?

Tell me why then ... ?

Because having children requires sex. Because sex is (or should be) a sacred act between a husband and a wife. Because being husband and wife means that you're married.

From an LDS point of view, marriage and having children are intimately, inextricably intertwined. I assumed this was self-evident. That's what I get for assuming.

34 minutes ago, Lee said:

If a married couple don't want kids or are unable to have children then should they not be married?

If pigs had wings, would we pick buckshot out of our bacon?

35 minutes ago, Lee said:

Maybe you got married to have kids but that's your choice.[...] I can only assume you solely married your husband / wife to have kids.

No offense, Lee, but you are unusually bad at assuming. You might better avoid public humiliation by not broadcasting your assumptions.

35 minutes ago, Lee said:

I didn't marry my wife to have kids, I married her because I love her and even if she was unable to have kids I would still have married her and loved her.

How unusual! Why, I bet there are only maybe five hundred people on this site who did the same. Bully for you! Such the romantic! Way to choose the road less traveled, to brave the unbeaten path! Marrying because you love the person, and not solely to reproduce with them? Why, who ever heard of such an exalted attitude?

I don't know about everyone else, but my hat is off to Lee. What a guy!

13441.jpg

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6 minutes ago, Vort said:

 

Because having children requires sex. Because sex is (or should be) a sacred act between a husband and a wife. Because being husband and wife means that you're married.

From an LDS point of view, marriage and having children are intimately, inextricably intertwined. I assumed this was self-evident. That's what I get for assuming.

If pigs had wings, would we pick buckshot out of our bacon?

No offense, Lee, but you are unusually bad at assuming. You might better avoid public humiliation by not broadcasting your assumptions.

How unusual! Why, I bet there are only maybe five hundred people on this site who did the same. Bully for you! Such the romantic! Way to choose the road less traveled, to brave the unbeaten path! Marrying because you love the person, and not solely to reproduce with them? Why, who ever heard of such an exalted attitude?

I don't know about everyone else, but my hat is off to Lee. What a guy!

13441.jpg

@Lee  Is a new member of the forum, give him a break.

Look he and his wife waited, he wants confirmation that now is the right time to have kids. 

Some people wait, some jump right in on the kid thing I don't think either way is wrong. 

It's his life, his decision to make and he will bare the consequences if any with regards as to how long they did or didn't wait to have children.  It is between him, his wife, and God.

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8 hours ago, Vort said:

Because having children requires sex. Because sex is (or should be) a sacred act between a husband and a wife. Because being husband and wife means that you're married.

From an LDS point of view, marriage and having children are intimately, inextricably intertwined. I assumed this was self-evident. That's what I get for assuming.

Erm pretty sure that you haven't a clue about anything. I believe you should be married to have children, I don't believe you should have children just because you're married. 

 

8 hours ago, Vort said:

If pigs had wings, would we pick buckshot out of our bacon?

Sorry I don't speak whatever that is. 

 

8 hours ago, Vort said:

No offense, Lee, but you are unusually bad at assuming. You might better avoid public humiliation by not broadcasting your assumptions.

8 hours ago, Lee said:

ooooo did I touch a nerve?? 

 

8 hours ago, Vort said:

How unusual! Why, I bet there are only maybe five hundred people on this site who did the same. Bully for you! Such the romantic! Way to choose the road less traveled, to brave the unbeaten path! Marrying because you love the person, and not solely to reproduce with them? Why, who ever heard of such an exalted attitude?

 

Well who knows and who cares? All I know is my wife and I didn't need to reproduce to show everyone we had a good marriage and we were good Mormons.  

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8 hours ago, SilentOne said:

I can't remember when I last read something as disturbing as this on here. I'm hoping you don't mean it the way it's coming across and you have some extreme limitations for when it does become necessary. But if you are even remotely considering divorce as a possibility with no indications of adultery or abuse, then as I said, very disturbing. I suggest studying the following talk and maybe speaking with @anatess2 about her views on marriage.

Why is it disturbing? Divorce can be necessary for many reasons, if we grow to resent each other and we're unhappy then we should divorce. No point being unhappy when you could find happiness again. I could meet someone I am more in love with and want to marry, in that case divorce would be necessary for me to marry my new love. Many reasons for divorce besides adultery or abuse. 

Obviously, I have no desire to ever divorce my wife, she is the perfect woman. However, if things change then I won't be bound to marriage because I made vows to her years ago. 

Also, yes I am LDS and don't question my religion again.

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10 hours ago, Vort said:

If pigs had wings, would we pick buckshot out of our bacon?

Only if we're such utter fools as to ruin the best meat and torture the animal with such a poor hunting technique.  Headshots with rifles would still be the only humanely efficient way to dispatch a pig for food.

1 hour ago, Lee said:

Erm pretty sure that you haven't a clue about anything. 

That much is apparent from his Nickelback Fan Club Life Member t-shirt.

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You know the decision of when and how many children to have is strictly between a married couple and God. I found numerous examples of this statement but this particular version comes from Elder Andersen in the October 2011 conference.

"We go forward in faith—realizing the decision of how many children to have and when to have them is between a husband and wife and the Lord. We should not judge one another on this matter.”

Now I agree that having children is an incredibly important part of marriage, most of Elder Andersen's talk is on the importance of having children, and on the commandment to multiply and replenish the Earth still being in force. But it's important to understand that each couple has the right and privilige to start their family when they see fit, not when everyone else tells them it's time. I was not ready to have a child when I first married my wife, and yet the Lord inspired us to get married anyways.  I don't believe every new couple is immmediatly ready to have children and that's ok according to the prophets of God. That being said, it should be something you strive to prepare yourself for. A few years after we got married, both of us had a revelation during General Conference that it was time for us to start trying to have children. That was a sacred experience for us. Unfortunately, we realized something was wrong and it took 6 more years after our initial decision to start trying for us to conceive. Now I have a beautiful baby daughter who I love with all my heart and as tired as I am (all parents can relate to that feeling☺) she is the best thing to happen to me since I got married, and I am grateful we have her. So I would encourage the OP to counsel with the Lord and seriously consider starting his family, but the decision is up to him and his wife.

 

Edited by Midwest LDS
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6 hours ago, Lee said:

I could meet someone I am more in love with and want to marry, in that case divorce would be necessary for me to marry my new love.

I hereby revoke my earlier post, and suggest not being kids into what sounds like a self-proclaimed marriage of convenience.  If I’m reading you right, your divorce decree is (figuratively) half-drafted already.  All that’s missing is a hotter/more charismatic woman who’s willing to have you.  

If you’re interested in another approach to relationships, I’d recommend https://www.lds.org/ensign/2000/10/agency-and-love-in-marriage?lang=eng.

Speaking more generally:  I think that when a person values a spouse less than a child, they’re usually running a risk of losing the spouse.

Also, contra some of the statements above:  yes, kids can be relinquished.  I deal with it professionally almost weekly; and before then I dealt with divorce daily.  I’m not convinced that either action is less inherently catastrophic or damaging than the other.   

Finally:  it is, of course, none of my business whether an individual couple has kids or not.  But the doctrines of the Gospel are what they are; and if a couple seeks my opinion according to the Gospel I’m going to advise them according to the Gospel.

And in that light, I’d simply say:  at the final judgment, when you walk up to Jesus and demand that He give you your thrones and dominions according to all that was promised in your sealing; don’t be surprised if He replies:  “You schmuck!  Your dominions are your family—your kids and and grandkids, through eternity, worlds without end I can’t give you anything you have already refused to claim.”

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

hereby revoke my earlier post, and suggest not being kids into what sounds like a self-proclaimed marriage of convenience.  If I’m reading you right, your divorce decree is (figuratively) half-drafted already.  All that’s missing is a hotter/more charismatic woman who’s willing to have you.  

Maybe that is my divorce decree, I don't know will have to see what happens in the future. Although, it wasn't a marriage of convenience there were probably lots of women it would have been more convenient to marry. Also, I am 100% dedicated to my wife for now unless something changes.  

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50 minutes ago, Lee said:

, I don't know will have to see what happens in the future.

Your future is not something that happens! It is what you cause to happen.

51 minutes ago, Lee said:

I am 100% dedicated to my wife for now unless something changes.  

That sentence is self-contradictory.

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I feel this talk may apply to the topic of marriage and divorce:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/04/divorce?lang=eng

As for when to have kids, I believe there are many considerations, but ultimately it comes down to when you are married and have sufficient faith and commitment to put someone else first for the rest of your life. My wife and I had some challenges bringing children into our family so from my perspective the lord still has the ultimate control over whether a child comes or not. Obviously, there are decisions we can make to influence that outcome - but people can still have kids while trying not to and can try hard to have kids to no avail.

I would also add that now that I have two daughters my life has never been more fulfilling.

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5 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

What a lucky woman. 

Yes she is lucky to have me as a husband. 

 

5 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

I stand by my view. Some people are definitely too immature and selfish to have children, and those same people are definitely too immature and selfish to be married. 

We could have a child we aren't immature or selfish. We have been caring for our 8 year old nephew for a few months whilst his mom is in hospital, we both know how to put someone else first. 

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