In a perfect world, your friends, family members and even your physician would be cheering you on in this particular pursuit of godliness, of being open to life, but that will more than likely not happen.
Peer pressure doesn’t only exist for young people.
But this time the stakes are higher. Are family members voicing their opinions about you either having a baby too soon after you’re married, spacing your children too closely together, or deciding to have more than the national average of less than 2 children? Or, if you’re further along than that with more children, the comments like: “you have your hands full”, “you must be rich to have all those kids”, or “do you ever get time to yourself?” are starting to get old and tiresome to hear and you’re tired of being the odd-one-out.
Here are some things I recommend:
Limit who you talk to about your family size, birth control, or anything related to your immediate family that will stress you out. Limit the amount of time you spend with friends who live the contraceptive/sterilization lifestyle (you will know them by their words and deeds, especially in the way they treat their offspring). It was difficult to pinpoint the reason we felt so out of place at the time, but now that I know so many other “open to life” couples, the differences are staggering – and refreshing.
Find couples and families whose lives are correctly prioritized. When you have a child-rearing question or just want a listening ear, these are the people to whom you should be confiding. I was amazed to find that by limiting the topics of conversations related to children with those who didn’t get it, the amount of unnecessary tension I had been feeling was greatly reduced.
You need to be wise enough to discern the difference between a wise counselor and just another person with an opinion.