A lovely reader of this blog sent me an email telling me she’d sent a note to Dennis Rainey based on the radio spot discussed here. She included the note she’d sent him and I’ve asked and received her permission to post it on the blog anonymously.
Two things strike me about it: First, it’s the measured, reasonable, gracious response I would have had if I were a — well, you know — measured, reasonable, gracious person. Basically, after reading it, I thought to myself, “Wow. Hm. I wish I’d written THAT instead.”
Second, that this lovely reader — a woman with many children herself — actually took the time to write this on behalf of childless couples everywhere. I teared up, I was so touched by that. So, to her, again, I say thank you — and thank you for letting me post this.
Here’s her letter:
Mr. Rainey,
Some topics are too wide, too deep, too important to be used
in a 90 second radio spot. This was one of them. Since when has it been right for anyone to comment on the number of children, the lack of children, the spacing of children, etc. in casual social environments? Sometimes, it is right to speak of such things…with close friends or when seeking counsel regarding a decision. Bringing it up to an anonymous radio with the obvious attempt to CONVICT people of some sin in their attitudes/thoughts/actions regarding children was inappropriate. I feel strongly about this, even though I am one who has been given a very full quiver. My convictions before God do not give me the right to try and convict everyone to believe the same way. Even in salvation, I can only share my beliefs and ask God to convict. Why can’t we extend the same grace of letting God do the convicting in areas of Christian liberty while we love and cherish, rejoice with, cry with, uphold each other in prayer? In short, the church needs to practice the “one anothers” and let the Holy Spirit do the convicting of actual SIN. God is more “big” on whether or not we are conformed to the image of His son, in whatever our circumstances, than than He is “big” on kids. I think you owe your listening audience an apology.
Yes. I still think that too.
A great letter. I’m just so touched.
Brilliant response; thoughtful and direct without showing the slightest bit a anger or spite.
Unfortunately, based on MY biased and spiteful opinion of this “man of God” this letter will most likely be ignored.
I just came from a retreat where five others and myself were planning the next years activities for our church youth groups (6-8th and 9-12th). We each shared our “faith” stories of how we got involved in the church. After a couple glasses of wine (okay, maybe a lot more). We begin discussing the subject of how many were Southern Baptists that had come to our church as a refuge from their more judgmental churches. (Then again, based on the drinking going on, maybe some just left the church so that they could drink “legally”). There are enough sins that we commit every day and need forgiveness for, that we don’t need a stranger or even a friend to judge what behavior is a sin or not.
I have NO USE for a preacher that needs to push their view of God’s law on me. As a Christian, there are only TWO commandments that should guide your life and I violate the spirit of those two “laws” enough to beg for God’s forgiveness and grace without another human telling ME what is sinful.
Sorry for the rambling, but it’s late here on the East Coast and this issue STILL bugs me.
Y’know, when I see folks in Church who don’t have kids, I just assume they haven’t had any luck… I don’t assume they’re trying not to unless they make a big deal about it. (and it seems like they always do…sigh)
I can’t think of anyone in my family that would assume a childless couple is childless by choice– mostly because when someone walks the walk and talks the talk of being folks you’d expect to have kids, but don’t, it’s because it just hasn’t worked. I can think of two different couples, off the top of my head, who would make WONDERFUL parents– and have a big hole in their heart because they just can’t, for no clear reason.
Maybe it’s because I’m a ranch kid– I KNOW how many things can screw up even an animal carefully bread to have the least trouble possible producing calves, months of planning, and decades of research into making JUST the right situation, weeks of work to make sure that stress isn’t a factor, bulls carefully chosen for the utter highest chance in every way…. and there are still cows that just don’t get pregnant.
If even with dumb cows with no other purpose in life it just sometimes doesn’t work, how on EARTH can we expect it to work perfectly with people?
Foxfier — Well, for me, I generally feel so what? if a couple is childless by choice. That’s their choice. And if they talk about it or make a big deal about it, who cares? Every parent I know talks about being a parent. I wouldn’t expect them NOT to talk about it although many do to the total exclusion of other equally valid topics of conversation. So why can’t a childless-by-choice couple talk about that? Maybe I’m misreading your comment and if I am, please set me straight, but there seems to be a little bit of irritation here for childless-by-choice couples. I’m curious as to why you added:
/(and it seems like they always do…sigh)/
I don’t understand. I don’t understand the “sigh” included in that or even why that entire phrase was included. I’m just wondering, why are you sighing? Why do you seem bothered by these people talking about their choice not to have kids when so many people with kids talk about them all the time?
You know, my very best friend and her husband are childless by choice. I understand what her reasons are — they’re emotional and traumatic and not mine to share here — but I understand them and, no, she doesn’t make a big deal about it. Actually, she rarely even speaks of it.
I’m trying to understand where you’re coming from. Can you please clarify to me what you mean?
Tracy – Funny, I was going to ask Foxfire a similar question. I don’t really get it.
A couple of years ago, our local statewide rag had an article in the LifeStyle section about the “childless by choice.” They interviewed several couples and on the whole they sounded like nice, rational people. They made different choices than I did (obviously), but hey, diff’rent strokes!
But it drove my boss FREAKING NUTS. He went on for DAYS about “don’t they know what they’re missing?” and “how selfish can they be if they think a trip to Paris means more than a CHILD?!” I tried to tell him that if one thinks a trip to Paris means more than a child, then maybe one *IS too selfish for children, or maybe, you know, PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT PRIORITIES THAN YOU DO. Ack. I told him that I thought they were less than selfish because they knew their limitations, knew that they didn’t want to have a baby just for the sake of having a baby (or to shut people like him up), and he looked at me like I had grown two heads. He just. didn’t. get. it.
But really. I don’t know nor care what everyone’s baby-making situation is unless they want me to know and/or care. (I do, however, am like Hannah of old when it comes to you and MB, Tracey. Pray pray pray all the time.)(And have you considered getting hooked on meth? It seems to work better than Clomid. Maybe have MB beat the crap out of you, too. That practically guarantees twins!):)
Would you not sigh when the people whose social security is going to be paid for by your more-than-two-children accuse you of genocide-by-proxy, sometimes in those very words?
Foxfier — I’m still not following you. Could you please elaborate? “Genocide by proxy”? Again, not understanding what you’re trying to say.
Lisa — /And have you considered getting hooked on meth? It seems to work better than Clomid. Maybe have MB beat the crap out of you, too. That practically guarantees twins!):)/
Hahahahahaha. We could give it a try. “Babe, after dinner, will you beat the crap outta me? Thanks.”
And, you know, having kids doesn’t seem to guarantee UNselfishness. I know plennnnnnty of selfish parents. Ooodles. Tons. Loads.
We had a DHS case once where Mom & Dad were hooked on drugs and alcohol, lived in squalor with forty-leven other people in a single-wide trailer, yet bred like rabbits. We were constantly having dependency/neglect hearings because they were constantly having babies.
My court reporter came out of the fourth or fifth D/N hearing and said, “Why aren’t THESE people ever infertile?”
‘Tis a mystery.
Foxfier,
My brother and sister-in-law are one of those couples that purposely don’t have children. They are far from selfish as they have set up college accounts for their two nieces and one nephew. (Ironically, both my sister/brother-in-law and my wife and me wanted MORE children than we have, but are EXTREMELY thankful to God for the ones we have.). As a DINK couple, they also pay much more in taxes than I and will never get back what they put into SS.
You MAY want to re-analyze your position both from a conservative and Christian point of view.
JFH-
You may want to re-read and find where you’re getting the notion I called anyone selfish.
Odd, for a bunch of folks talking about how folks attack you, you sure are reading and willing to attack someone who was sympathetic.
I think it’s a matter of manners. People are all in each other’s business, in the most private of matters – and it’s extremely rude.
I don’t care how you vote, frankly. If you’re rude, you’re rude.
The contempt I have been shown for not having a mate at my age, and how breezily people say cruel things, or make ridiculous assumptions about me (I must be “self-involved”, or my life must somehow have less “substance” than theirs) – it’s unbelievable to me. I bite my tongue – OR i gently remind so-and-so that their comment is based on an incorrect assumption – and usually that handles the situation – but it takes ME to handle it. I don’t run around sniffing and pooh-poohing other people’s choices – or how they handle the misfortunes that come their way.
Rude, rude, rude.
To me, it’s not a matter of “correct” conservative or Christian viewpoints.
It’s a matter of knowing your manners.
Foxfier — Honestly, I am simply trying to understand you. I don’t know you well at all; you’ve commented only infrequently here, which is fine, but that leaves me at a disadvantage that I may not feel with some of my more regular commenters and that is this: I simply don’t know enough about you to know where you’re coming from.
I’m not sure where I’ve attacked you, Foxfier. I’ve asked for clarification, which I’m still seeking.
I don’t understand — in all honesty — your “genocide by proxy” comment.
I’m hoping you’ll expound so there won’t be a misunderstanding here.
sheila — Yes, kind of along the lines of what I was just discussing with you. People like you and me — with obvious “lacks” by society’s standards — are at the mercy of rude people everywhere. Someone rude enough to barge into your personal life and leave you breathless and crying and feeling a wreck isn’t likely to apologize. You’re the one left to pick up the pieces of the mess they made for you. You’re the one who has to put yourself back together while they skip off oblivious.
And I personally have more dignity (perhaps I’d call it pride) than to stride around and tell everyone, “This is how you just offended me”, or “This is how you were just insensitive.” I don’t need the entire world to somehow line up with what MY needs are. So what, I get offended. Whatever. I can handle it.
I’m an old pro at picking my battles.
I try not to pick battles with the culture at large, because again, that is a waste of my energy. Like being furious at the very CONCEPT of Valentine’s Day. In my opinion, life is too short to get mad about that. I try to see it as amusing. It’s not always easy, but that is what I try to do, because I would like my “selfish” “self-involved” life to be, you know, as pleasant as possible.
But blatant insensitivity and barging into what could be a very painful topic for me with some rude comment full of incorrect assumptions based on ignorance and judgment?
I will definitely clock someone’s bad manners in that situation.
And you know what? Most people don’t MEAN to be insensitive. They just operate from their narrow scope of experience (like the boss in Lisa’s story) – and we all do that sometimes, and we need to be reminded that there are other choices, other ways, and maybe we don’t understand – but it’s not FOR us to understand. Why should someone else’s personal grief or personal choice be up for ME to dissect and “understand” (unless it’s a dear friend or someone I’m close to or I’m asked for advice).
I guess what I don’t get is the real busybody nature of this kind of stuff.
Who cares someone’s reasons. Who cares even if they give an answer that you don’t like or you don’t “approve” of?
Who made you a judge?
Just mind your manners. Go home and live your life and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing.
Sheesh.
Although – I think the glee that this radio d-bag felt at the thought of childless people also being given a prize at a family-friendly restaurant – is deliberate cruelty based on total ignorance but also: he’s somehow THREATENED by people with other choices (even if they aren’t childless by choice, even if they are just dealing with the blow that fate handed them). I can hear his threat in his words. He doesn’t “get it” – it doesn’t fit with his rigid little worldview – so he cackles with glee at … the thought of other people, who might already be shattered and trying to find some comfort in, oh, loving their cats and loving each other … being uncomfortable?
Shame on him.
But again, these people (in my experience) are the ones who sleep well at night.
It is those they hurt that are left with the wreckage.
Word up, sheila. Well said.
sheila — /It is those they hurt that are left with the wreckage./
Yep.
Foxfier — I’m not sure if you’re gone or what, but I would still be interested in trying to understand what you said earlier. Obviously, with online communication, true intentions and meanings can get lost in translation so I’m trying to encourage you to explain what you meant. I’m not playing or being deliberately obtuse; I genuinely don’t understand what you meant by that phrase.
That was a really nicely written letter! Thanks for sharing that with us, Tracey & Anonymous. Even the first sentence–that was the most succinct and diplomatic “Don’t go there” I think I’ve ever read.
I think that these are great letters from you and anonymous.
I’m left wondering if the radio show host has said anything to address the responses he is receiving due to his words. Any idea?
Kathi — To the best of my knowledge, he has not.