Another step deeper. Let’s consider the yaya angle. Same scenario. Parents working their butts off to provide for 10 kids. Three, four, five or more yayas and househelps are hired to care for the kids in their absence. Problem solved? Well, it may be a solution for the parents. But, consider the church’s argument that a sound economy is the answer. Where do the yayas and the househelp figure in all that? Will there be yayas and househelp, as we know them in Philippine culture, if it were not for the fact that there are people who are unable to finish their education (read: poverty) and thus end up with such jobs? Is the church, therefore, talking about a sound economy only for the middle and upper classes?
Finally, there is the scenario where, in a boom economy, the income of one parent can comfortably support the family. As far the church’s reasoning goes, this is the ideal scenario because the woman can stay home and care for the family. Well, that takes care of the needs of everyone except the wife-mother, doesn’t it? What happens now to her right to pursue her own interests and grow as a person? Is she doomed to a life of domesticity because she was born without a penis?
It is a sad fact that priests who, with the exception of a few, have never experienced parenthood, much less experience being parents to 10 children, should presume to think that they know better than parents in that very situation. It is even a sadder fact that priests–who have never experienced pregnancy, the pains of labor, breastfeeding, sleepless nights and the emotional and mental strain of caring for sick children 24/7–should presume to know the effects of having too many children on the emotions and psyche of a parent.
Enough said. For now.
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