What of age as a factor, when people live longer than before?
A 50yo may be virile & healthy & economically sound, but the prospect of offspring leaving home at age 70 is daunting.
DP and I plan to move straight from our current house to our Independent Living apartment. When our youngest child is 20, he’ll be 69 and I will be 65.
A lot of those 50 yo “virile, healthy, economically sound” men face that conundrum having dumped the mother of their children just as she’s hitting menopause, in favor of the 20-something trophy wife.
Barbie wants a baby that’ll be grown before SHE hits 50.
But when tthe wife is still fertile and neither spouse wants more children, the Catholic solution is still NFP— Natural Family Planning.
Although a lot of women develop (wink-wink) health problems necessitating a hysterectomy in their late 40s on.
“What of age as a factor, when people live longer than before?
A 50yo may be virile & healthy & economically sound, but the prospect of offspring leaving home at age 70 is daunting.”
A wife in this age range is not likely to get pregnant. A younger wife is likely to desire children because it is the nature of being female.
And the apostles gave instructions that are relevant when it comes to marriage and having children. For example:
1 Timothy 5:14
Therefore I desire that the younger women marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
I can certainly understand someone who is older wanting to marry for companionship, but God attached sex with responsibility. Not everyone can have children, but those who can and are married should at least be open to having them.
There are always reasons to fearful of what might happen to our children if we follow the will of God. The Israelites were afraid to obey God and go into the promised land because they said their children would become prey to the inhabitants who were giants. As a result God let the adults wander in the desert for 40 years until they were all dead and then led these same children into the promised land as He promised He would.
Parents cannot know if something might happen to them even if they are young and healthy, and that could result in children having to grow up without one or both of their parents. But God promised to be the Father to the fatherless. He cares for the orphan and widow.
Bottom line is that a willingness to have children can be an act of faith. Unwillingness is a symptom of not trusting God or not seeking His will first.
“when people live longer than before?” ???
How old was Abraham when he had Ishmael or Isaac?
How long did many people in the early part of the bible live to? Many other nonbiblical people lived plenty long. In recent centuries they skew numbers to make it seem people in older times lived shorter and somehow our modern time people are living longer, but it’s not true.
Especially when you factor in all the abortions - which obviously current statisticians don’t count as real people needed to be acounted for in the longevity numbers..