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You have to be religious, right? This is the dream for us. We reverted to Catholicism after it became apparent that the secular world was incompatible with us,

You have to be religious, right? This is the dream for us. We reverted to Catholicism after it became apparent that the secular world was incompatible with us, then eventually found our way to a high fertility parish. It’s incredible. Kids everywhere. Average family size is 5-6 kids. Really hoping our kids choose to remain in this lifestyle and we get to enjoy dozens of grandkids.

pinkmuffinere 3y ago
I initially read this comment to mean “we wanted larger family, the secular world doesn’t do that, we became religious and we’re happy”. Am I understanding that correctly? If so, this strikes me as a very novel argument in favor of religion, and is more convincing to me than most others. I do wonder what I’d say if/when people question the fervor of my belief though, if I truly converted just for a community with larger families. I imagine “I believe in big families” wouldn’t cut it.
- shepherdjerred 3y ago
  > I do wonder what I’d say if/when people question the fervor of my belief though, if I truly converted just for a community with larger families. I imagine “I believe in big families” wouldn’t cut it. There's nothing wrong with that. Nobody should have a problem with you wanting to be a part of a church community, even if you aren't a "real" believer.
  - mihalycsaba 3y ago
    People just want to be part of a community. Most of the time the only available open communities are church communities, so that's better than nothing.
    - shepherdjerred 3y ago
      Yes, I totally agree. I'm simply saying that you don't have to be uber religious to be a part of a church community. A good church should make you feel accepted no matter who you are. There are perhaps exceptions, e.g. if you are intentionally trying to harm the church or members of it, but otherwise the church should accept you as you are -- "true" believer or not. In practice you will probably find a lot of "bad" churches, so you'll probably have to shop around a little bit.
  - pinkmuffinere 3y ago
    > Nobody should have a problem with you wanting to be a part of a church community, even if you aren't a "real" believer. I really appreciate this view, but certainly some people do have a problem with it. I think it would be especially awkward if you spend a significant amount of your life there, raise kids, etc, but never claim the religion is true. It almost sounds like a cringe-comedy movie
    - shepherdjerred 3y ago
      If your values and actions align with the religious community, and you're okay being around people who are religious/spiritual, I believe it can be mutually beneficial. If your values and actions don't align with the religious community, then you should still be accepted, but if you don't have belief, then it's unlikely you'll stay for long. ^ note: by "should" I mean that, at least in my view, a "real" Christian should be accepting and not judge others. In practice nobody lives up to this, but it can at least inform how you should feel, e.g. if you feel judged it's saying more about others than it says about you. ^ double note: "real" Christian is incredibly hard to define. The Bible can be interpreted any way you want. Ultimately what guides me is trying to do what I think is right, using the Bible as one source of information.
      - pinkmuffinere 3y ago
        Absolutely agree with everything you said. The biblical Jesus sets a high standard that is impossible to live up to. Even though I don’t believe now, I love people that try to live to that standard, and I aspire to as well
        paulryanrogers 3y ago
        Except the whole dooming most of humanity to external lakes of fire. And maybe terrorizing kids with the threat that they'll commit the unforgivable sin, and be destined for said lake of fire
        pinkmuffinere 3y ago
- toasterlovin 3y ago
  > I initially read this comment to mean “we wanted larger family, the secular world doesn’t do that, we became religious and we’re happy”. Am I understanding that correctly? Kinda. We were open to believing in God. But the start of our journey was just realizing the secular world had nothing to offer us. Then we met a religious homeschooling family w/ 5 kids and they gave us a glimpse of what was possible. So we started swimming in that direction and it just kept getting better the farther out we swam. > I do wonder what I’d say if/when people question the fervor of my belief though, if I truly converted just for a community with larger families. I imagine “I believe in big families” wouldn’t cut it. Here’s the thing: if you’re not a militant atheist and you start spending a lot of time around sincerely religious people who you like, you’ll end up believing sincerely yourself. Since you’re secular, I’ll explain it like this: we’re evolved to cohere around a shared system of belief and the appropriate mental machinery will kick in as part of becoming embedded in a religious community. And that’s what I used to believe. But now I know those were just the breadcrumbs I needed to find my way.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    Oof, my experience is the exact opposite. I was raised Catholic, and my family attended mass every week. I realized I didn't believe in god in my early teens. For many years after that I really wished I could believe, tried to believe. My parents had me enrolled in CCD (for those of you not Catholic, that's basically the Catholic version of what's colloquially known as "Sunday School") through 8th grade. I participated in some of my church's youth groups, and was friends with quite a few religious people. But it just didn't work. I wasn't a militant atheist; I just questioned things, and was frustrated when my elders would shut me down and hand-wave my questions away. I gave up in my early 20s. That was 20+ years ago. I'm still an atheist. I don't have a problem with religious people, unless they try to force their beliefs on others (especially when they try to use the political and legal process to do so). But most folks seem to just want to live and let live. But I no longer think there's something wrong with me, or long to be "normal" like my peers and believe in a god. I can't imagine ever believing, regardless of what communities I find myself a member of.
    - 3y ago
- navane 3y ago
  It's the strong believers that create schisms. Just hang around and nod -- those are your favorite believers.
tlivolsi 3y ago
I take it you attend a FSSP or ICKSP church?
- toasterlovin 3y ago
  Naw, just a reverent parish. Mix of English and Latin. Somewhat conservative, but not super conservative.
incompatible 3y ago
Not necessarily. My parents also both have quite a few siblings, and aren't particularly religious. They were born in the 1930s when it wasn't unusual. I may have a couple of dozen first cousins, I don't really know, but they are geographically distant. I haven't met one since childhood, and I can't remember getting along with them very well.
djha-skin 3y ago
Yes, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
up_o 3y ago
this is a funny question. Avoiding tangents, for all intents and purposes, I'm secular. Though I've only had two children with no intention of having more, I was raised Southern Baptist, the oldest of six. I love our big family. My mother was one of seven, and all her siblings have many children as well. I look back fondly on our holiday gatherings and miss them dearly. my aunts were guardian angels through so many difficult times. But as much as I want those big family gatherings and the overall dynamic, I couldn't imagine going back to Southern Baptism as a means to see them perpetuated. It would be nice if there were a natalist "movement" (for lack of better word) that was more or less secular (without being self-aggrandizing and delusional ala effective altruism).
- toasterlovin 3y ago
  Yeah, wanting a secular natalist movement is where I was for a while. But then the truth of it hits you at some point: it will never exist. The secular way of life exalts the individual, but raising a large family is about subduing your own desires and devoting yourself to something more important than yourself. Well, guess who already does that: religious people.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    > The secular way of life exalts the individual Wow, that is not my experience at all. I think in some ways that's perhaps a very US-centric view, even though I'd still consider that a flawed way at looking at secularism in the US. Most of the developed world is fairly secular (even among those with religious beliefs), and extreme individualism is not as common as you seem to think. I do wonder how common your attitude is among religious people, though. If it's common, that would explain a few things...
    - cooper_ganglia 3y ago
      I was raised in a very religious household, but I left the fairly young. I spent the next couple decades around a large amount of both religious and secular people. It’s been my anecdotal experience that religious people are exponentially more likely to volunteer and donate to help others. I’ve seen yards cleaned, homes rebuilt, soup kitchens hosted, mobile laundry services and free shoes/clothes for the homeless, church closet giveaways (basically a free yard sale for the community), hundreds of doctors filling a convention center volunteering their time and money to treat people for free,… I don’t doubt non-religious people are doing these things, but I don’t think it’s at the same scale, and the secular nonprofits that are offering this kind of help often skim a lot off the top to pay beefy corporate salaries.
throw_siblings 3y ago
Err, yeah I'm a little skeptical of parents who want lots of children. I'm in my twenties now, but I was raised Catholic, I have twelve siblings, and I was homeschooled until my senior year. There were several issues: - Me and my siblings all feel like our parents loved the "identity" of being parents and having lots of children, but when it came down to the brass tax of actually caring for our emotional needs, they were entirely absent. This was such a large rift that almost all of us intentionally don't have close relationships with our parents. - On top of emotional neglect, there was inevitable physical neglect. One brother clearly had autism but our parents never had the time or finances to get him treated appropriately. Two siblings weren't able to get the braces they needed for their teeth as kids and had to get jaw surgery as adults. Two of my siblings were injured in severe accidents growing up that would've been avoided if a parent had been watching out. - The parents of these families go around narcissistically glowing with all the social credit for being "superhero parents" when realistically the majority of the labor falls upon the oldest siblings. Me and my two sisters effectively raised all of our younger siblings with our mother being pregnant so often, and father working full-time. Our parents never recognized how much work we put in, and as we transitioned to adulthood it took a lot of work to establish healthy relationships with our younger siblings where we didn't feel taken advantage of (the younger siblings had parental expectations of us for years afterward). - The lack of socialization from being homeschooled really came back to bite us in the ass. Some of my siblings got (cyber) bullied after transitioning to the real world. Some simply never were able to make the adjustment to talking to normal people, and some are still really struggling. I was able to get "socialized" and now appear like a normal SWE at a large tech company but I'm very lucky. So....be very careful around these families and their values. A lot of times having lots of kids are a narcisstic vision from the parents, rather than a true desire to take care of a lot of people.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  *brass tacks, but I like this take on it too
- toasterlovin 3y ago
  Yeah, that's def not our plan (nor is it even possible at this point). But, for what it's worth, I don't see many families with > 6-7 kids, so I think your notion of what is meant by "want a lot of kids" is skewed by your experience.
698969 3y ago
Out of curiosity, what is the ballpark of your and your spouse's income and net worth?
- toasterlovin 3y ago
  I’m game but tell me your hypothesis first.
  - 698969 3y ago
    No hypothesis, just trying to gauge at what point could/would someone willingly consider that lifestyle.
    - toasterlovin 3y ago
      I'm not sure money really matters that much. Most of our friends are well-educated but solidly middle class. If two income families were more common, then most of them would probably be upper middle class. Our family is upper middle class. I am self employed but don't have significant net worth other than my business.

pinkmuffinere 3y ago

I initially read this comment to mean “we wanted larger family, the secular world doesn’t do that, we became religious and we’re happy”. Am I understanding that correctly? If so, this strikes me as a very novel argument in favor of religion, and is more convincing to me than most others. I do wonder what I’d say if/when people question the fervor of my belief though, if I truly converted just for a community with larger families. I imagine “I believe in big families” wouldn’t cut it.

shepherdjerred 3y ago
> I do wonder what I’d say if/when people question the fervor of my belief though, if I truly converted just for a community with larger families. I imagine “I believe in big families” wouldn’t cut it. There's nothing wrong with that. Nobody should have a problem with you wanting to be a part of a church community, even if you aren't a "real" believer.
- mihalycsaba 3y ago
  People just want to be part of a community. Most of the time the only available open communities are church communities, so that's better than nothing.
  - shepherdjerred 3y ago
    Yes, I totally agree. I'm simply saying that you don't have to be uber religious to be a part of a church community. A good church should make you feel accepted no matter who you are. There are perhaps exceptions, e.g. if you are intentionally trying to harm the church or members of it, but otherwise the church should accept you as you are -- "true" believer or not. In practice you will probably find a lot of "bad" churches, so you'll probably have to shop around a little bit.
- pinkmuffinere 3y ago
  > Nobody should have a problem with you wanting to be a part of a church community, even if you aren't a "real" believer. I really appreciate this view, but certainly some people do have a problem with it. I think it would be especially awkward if you spend a significant amount of your life there, raise kids, etc, but never claim the religion is true. It almost sounds like a cringe-comedy movie
  - shepherdjerred 3y ago
    If your values and actions align with the religious community, and you're okay being around people who are religious/spiritual, I believe it can be mutually beneficial. If your values and actions don't align with the religious community, then you should still be accepted, but if you don't have belief, then it's unlikely you'll stay for long. ^ note: by "should" I mean that, at least in my view, a "real" Christian should be accepting and not judge others. In practice nobody lives up to this, but it can at least inform how you should feel, e.g. if you feel judged it's saying more about others than it says about you. ^ double note: "real" Christian is incredibly hard to define. The Bible can be interpreted any way you want. Ultimately what guides me is trying to do what I think is right, using the Bible as one source of information.
    - pinkmuffinere 3y ago
      Absolutely agree with everything you said. The biblical Jesus sets a high standard that is impossible to live up to. Even though I don’t believe now, I love people that try to live to that standard, and I aspire to as well
      - paulryanrogers 3y ago
        Except the whole dooming most of humanity to external lakes of fire. And maybe terrorizing kids with the threat that they'll commit the unforgivable sin, and be destined for said lake of fire
        pinkmuffinere 3y ago
toasterlovin 3y ago
> I initially read this comment to mean “we wanted larger family, the secular world doesn’t do that, we became religious and we’re happy”. Am I understanding that correctly? Kinda. We were open to believing in God. But the start of our journey was just realizing the secular world had nothing to offer us. Then we met a religious homeschooling family w/ 5 kids and they gave us a glimpse of what was possible. So we started swimming in that direction and it just kept getting better the farther out we swam. > I do wonder what I’d say if/when people question the fervor of my belief though, if I truly converted just for a community with larger families. I imagine “I believe in big families” wouldn’t cut it. Here’s the thing: if you’re not a militant atheist and you start spending a lot of time around sincerely religious people who you like, you’ll end up believing sincerely yourself. Since you’re secular, I’ll explain it like this: we’re evolved to cohere around a shared system of belief and the appropriate mental machinery will kick in as part of becoming embedded in a religious community. And that’s what I used to believe. But now I know those were just the breadcrumbs I needed to find my way.
- kelnos 3y ago
  Oof, my experience is the exact opposite. I was raised Catholic, and my family attended mass every week. I realized I didn't believe in god in my early teens. For many years after that I really wished I could believe, tried to believe. My parents had me enrolled in CCD (for those of you not Catholic, that's basically the Catholic version of what's colloquially known as "Sunday School") through 8th grade. I participated in some of my church's youth groups, and was friends with quite a few religious people. But it just didn't work. I wasn't a militant atheist; I just questioned things, and was frustrated when my elders would shut me down and hand-wave my questions away. I gave up in my early 20s. That was 20+ years ago. I'm still an atheist. I don't have a problem with religious people, unless they try to force their beliefs on others (especially when they try to use the political and legal process to do so). But most folks seem to just want to live and let live. But I no longer think there's something wrong with me, or long to be "normal" like my peers and believe in a god. I can't imagine ever believing, regardless of what communities I find myself a member of.
  - 3y ago
navane 3y ago
It's the strong believers that create schisms. Just hang around and nod -- those are your favorite believers.

tlivolsi 3y ago

I take it you attend a FSSP or ICKSP church?

toasterlovin 3y ago
Naw, just a reverent parish. Mix of English and Latin. Somewhat conservative, but not super conservative.

incompatible 3y ago

Not necessarily. My parents also both have quite a few siblings, and aren't particularly religious. They were born in the 1930s when it wasn't unusual. I may have a couple of dozen first cousins, I don't really know, but they are geographically distant. I haven't met one since childhood, and I can't remember getting along with them very well.

djha-skin 3y ago

Yes, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

up_o 3y ago

this is a funny question. Avoiding tangents, for all intents and purposes, I'm secular. Though I've only had two children with no intention of having more, I was raised Southern Baptist, the oldest of six. I love our big family. My mother was one of seven, and all her siblings have many children as well. I look back fondly on our holiday gatherings and miss them dearly. my aunts were guardian angels through so many difficult times. But as much as I want those big family gatherings and the overall dynamic, I couldn't imagine going back to Southern Baptism as a means to see them perpetuated. It would be nice if there were a natalist "movement" (for lack of better word) that was more or less secular (without being self-aggrandizing and delusional ala effective altruism).

toasterlovin 3y ago
Yeah, wanting a secular natalist movement is where I was for a while. But then the truth of it hits you at some point: it will never exist. The secular way of life exalts the individual, but raising a large family is about subduing your own desires and devoting yourself to something more important than yourself. Well, guess who already does that: religious people.
- kelnos 3y ago
  > The secular way of life exalts the individual Wow, that is not my experience at all. I think in some ways that's perhaps a very US-centric view, even though I'd still consider that a flawed way at looking at secularism in the US. Most of the developed world is fairly secular (even among those with religious beliefs), and extreme individualism is not as common as you seem to think. I do wonder how common your attitude is among religious people, though. If it's common, that would explain a few things...
  - cooper_ganglia 3y ago
    I was raised in a very religious household, but I left the fairly young. I spent the next couple decades around a large amount of both religious and secular people. It’s been my anecdotal experience that religious people are exponentially more likely to volunteer and donate to help others. I’ve seen yards cleaned, homes rebuilt, soup kitchens hosted, mobile laundry services and free shoes/clothes for the homeless, church closet giveaways (basically a free yard sale for the community), hundreds of doctors filling a convention center volunteering their time and money to treat people for free,… I don’t doubt non-religious people are doing these things, but I don’t think it’s at the same scale, and the secular nonprofits that are offering this kind of help often skim a lot off the top to pay beefy corporate salaries.

throw_siblings 3y ago

Err, yeah I'm a little skeptical of parents who want lots of children. I'm in my twenties now, but I was raised Catholic, I have twelve siblings, and I was homeschooled until my senior year. There were several issues: - Me and my siblings all feel like our parents loved the "identity" of being parents and having lots of children, but when it came down to the brass tax of actually caring for our emotional needs, they were entirely absent. This was such a large rift that almost all of us intentionally don't have close relationships with our parents. - On top of emotional neglect, there was inevitable physical neglect. One brother clearly had autism but our parents never had the time or finances to get him treated appropriately. Two siblings weren't able to get the braces they needed for their teeth as kids and had to get jaw surgery as adults. Two of my siblings were injured in severe accidents growing up that would've been avoided if a parent had been watching out. - The parents of these families go around narcissistically glowing with all the social credit for being "superhero parents" when realistically the majority of the labor falls upon the oldest siblings. Me and my two sisters effectively raised all of our younger siblings with our mother being pregnant so often, and father working full-time. Our parents never recognized how much work we put in, and as we transitioned to adulthood it took a lot of work to establish healthy relationships with our younger siblings where we didn't feel taken advantage of (the younger siblings had parental expectations of us for years afterward). - The lack of socialization from being homeschooled really came back to bite us in the ass. Some of my siblings got (cyber) bullied after transitioning to the real world. Some simply never were able to make the adjustment to talking to normal people, and some are still really struggling. I was able to get "socialized" and now appear like a normal SWE at a large tech company but I'm very lucky. So....be very careful around these families and their values. A lot of times having lots of kids are a narcisstic vision from the parents, rather than a true desire to take care of a lot of people.

selimthegrim 3y ago
*brass tacks, but I like this take on it too
toasterlovin 3y ago
Yeah, that's def not our plan (nor is it even possible at this point). But, for what it's worth, I don't see many families with > 6-7 kids, so I think your notion of what is meant by "want a lot of kids" is skewed by your experience.

698969 3y ago

Out of curiosity, what is the ballpark of your and your spouse's income and net worth?

toasterlovin 3y ago
I’m game but tell me your hypothesis first.
- 698969 3y ago
  No hypothesis, just trying to gauge at what point could/would someone willingly consider that lifestyle.
  - toasterlovin 3y ago
    I'm not sure money really matters that much. Most of our friends are well-educated but solidly middle class. If two income families were more common, then most of them would probably be upper middle class. Our family is upper middle class. I am self employed but don't have significant net worth other than my business.