I Was Wrong About LIFE

This is me. Sitting on a park bench with the baby. Watching the middle boys play on the playground.  As the toddler tries to keep up.  While the oldest chooses to sit alone in the van.  And Jeremy is at work.  

I had these ideas about LIFE.

LIFE was the thing we were working towards for the first ten years of our marriage.  It was a plan that we were dreaming up, a set of values and principles we were drawn to.  Our vision of a good life, and a life that was Good.

LIFE was what we were going to do together.  How we would spend our days when we had children, had a job, had a house, had cash instead of credit.

I failed to realize the manner in which real life gradually unfolds and moves along and changes and is different for each participant, and it's taken me almost two years to figure out where I went wrong. There is never going to be a point where this LIFE I had been planning for my family would "begin," and when we would all "do" or "live" it together just as I had imagined.

In reality, my oldest is about to turn eleven--his childhood is practically over-- while my baby has barely begun to interact with the world and people around him.  The way in which he is experiencing our daily events is completely different from his brothers.

I want Peter to have the type of LIFE for a young child that I dreamed of, yet now I'm realizing that Owen is "aging out" of that particular phase of LIFE.

Additionally, I failed to fully account for the proportion of Jeremy's time and effort that would provide for the LIFE we wanted.  Jeremy and I have been blessed to develop a common vision for our family over the years, and yet, I failed to realize how little he would actually participate in it.

So while I had this plan for our "LIFE as a family," I've now realized that I was wrong.  My whole underlying premise was inaccurate.  So now I'm just trying to figure out--where do I go from here?

How can I provide for Peter and Rory the childhood of my dreams, with plenty of unstructured play, outdoor time, and Wonder, while I try to honor the changing needs of his older brothers in terms of expanding social circles and developing skills and talents outside the home?  How do we include Jeremy in our days while the majority of his time and energy is spent in the consecrated activity of breadwinning (and another large portion in church service)?  How do I pursue personal development and goals (on my own or with Jeremy) in my adult life?  And finally, how do I come to act on the realization that, as the manager of our home, and nurturer of the children, most of the responsibility--to see that any of this happens--falls on me?

I Dream of Cows

The Cow 
Robert Louis Stevenson

The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
 To eat with apple tart

She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day;

And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.

*   *   *   *   * 

The other day I went to the grocery store, for just a quick trip.  We already had produce from our co-op basket, and staples in our home storage, so I loaded my cart with a few gallons of milk, a pint of cream, a tub of yogurt, a block of cheese, and a quart of ice cream.

"I need a cow." I said to myself. 

And I laughed, because I'm really serious.  Because that wasn't the first time I've had that thought.  I've been thinking about it more and more.  (And even looked at dairy calves on Craigslist!)

Beyond the issue of how much dairy we use, the biggest draw for me is the quality of "homegrown" dairy products versus what is available in the stores.    Particularly the difficulty in finding grass-fed dairy.

 I recently found out that I could get "grass-fed" butter at our grocery store.  Kerrygold, "pure Irish butter", half as much butter for twice as much money as the store brand. 

It's delicious bright yellow butter.  But it's shipped from Ireland!

The ecologically-minded side of me doesn't think that's a very responsible purchase to make.  But it makes the capitalist side of me wonder. . .  why is there a market for expensive butter shipped in from Ireland?  Why don't commercial American farmers realize that there is a market in the US for grass-fed dairy products, and they are letting the Irish farmers capture that market and all the profits?!

A local dairy here started selling their own butter recently.  That's great, and I'd love to support a local dairy--but still the product is not really what I want.  Their cows are completely grain-fed.  Some of it grown by the dairy itself, which is admirable, but still, a cow's body is built specifically for digesting grass, and has a really hard time on grain. And in turn, the milk that comes from cows fed on a diet of "minimum input for maximum output" does not contain the same nutrients as milk from grass-fed cows.

It's fine, people that don't mind don't mind.  All I want is the choice to eat the food that I want.  And I'm just realizing with more and more things how difficult it is for me to find what I want in the grocery store. 

(Even venturing out further doesn't quite give me everything I want. We bought milk off the farm for a number of months last summer.  It was a 15 minute drive each way, we could only get 4 half-gallons at a time, they were in nice milk bottles, which look great, and make for easy pouring into glasses, but not for easy cream-skimming.  And, frankly, very expensive.  I believe a cow will be expensive to have as well, but it would provide for all our dairy needs, and maybe for bartering for other needs beyond that.)

Add to the lack of what I want being found in the grocery store, my growing family size compared to package sizes in grocery stores and it's making less and less sense (or cents) to buy there.  I think the time is coming (and I'm excited for it), when I will get my produce by the bushel, my grains in 50lbs sacks, and my dairy products straight from the (very generous) backyard cow.     

My future as a milk maid is waiting for me. 

img. Forgotten Household Crafts, by John Seymour

Are You Done Yet?

Since we decided to send the boys back to school this year, we've had the interesting opportunity of seeing people that we know reasonably well casually, but for the most part haven't seen for a whole year.

Surprise!  There's one more of us now!

That mental re-counting on the part of others has given rise to the question: "So are you guys done now?" or "Are you done yet?" or "Aren't you done yet?" or something along those lines.

I'm not offended by questions of fertility and family planning as a whole.  Although I believe the decisions of "how many and when" are made in private--there's a lot of discussion that among friends can be helpful and uplifting, and even allow us the opportunity for greater compassion and prayers on behalf of our sisters.

So it isn't that the question itself bothers me--though sometimes the tone of the question does--but recently the question has really made me stop and think.  Particularly the word "done."

In The Family: A Proclamation to the World, the Prophet and Apostles proclaimed:

"We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force."

So, really it's that simple.  We believe in having children.

We love our children, they bring joy to our lives.

We definitely weren't where we thought we'd be this summer when Rory was born.  I don't know where we thought we'd be, but it definitely wasn't still here, with no job, and no prospects, feeling useless, feeling like we were never going to get anywhere in life.  But Rory showed up right in the middle of it all.  A gift from God.  He brought us renewed purpose, and joy, and something to bring us together as a family during an otherwise difficult time.

The truth is, I'm only 30.  I have another decade of fertility to look forward to.  Who knows, we had four kids in ten years, maybe the next ten years will bring another four.  Or, once we're settled down with a job and a cow, maybe we'll end up with many more than that (though my pregnancies naturally space themselves at least two years, and I was pregnant six times in the last ten years, not four).

But then again, maybe the Lord will let us know that our earthly family is complete before then, through inspiration or natural laws of health.


But not only do we believe in the commandment first given to Adam and Eve to multiply.  We also believe that as children of Abraham that we are heirs to God's covenant with Abraham, specifically in this context, that our blessing for being righteous covenant-keepers will be eternal increase.  Increase like the sands of the sea or the stars of the sky. 

So knowing that we are striving to be worthy of exaltation which includes the blessing of a "continuation of seed" I don't know that we will ever be "done".  At some point our earthly family will be complete (until the grandchildren come along!) and then we will continue in faith of the blessings promised to us as Abraham's progeny.

So, as for right now, the answer is simply: no, we don't feel done yet.  I don't know when the next one will come, or how many more will come.  But we love our children, each one brings something new and different into our family.  We pray for help in raising them, we pray for them to love each other, and we trust in God.  And until or unless he lets us know that his will for our family is moving in a new direction, we will continue to follow his commandment to multiply and replenish the earth.

*    *    *    *    *

I wrote this post as another blog hop entry for celebrating The Family: A Proclamation to the World.  Find the blog hop here.