As recently as last night, a woman wrote who'd been in the audience at a lecture and reading I gave and told me she'd heard "negative comments" about the fact that I have seven children.
Why, pray, is this a sin?
Our children don't drain away opportunities or resources from anyone else. They don't eat meat more than twice a week. They don't do harm in the world. They may drink more than the usual share of milk, but we pay for it. Why does the size of our family offend people's sensibilities, especially given that four of our seven children were adopted and therefore helped the society out, if you will, rather than harmed it?
A second comment, posted last night, childed me again for "not getting the proper signatures" and "not knowing the law" relative the legal problems surrounding the birth through surrogacy of our newborn son! The same individual also accused me of portraying people from Kentucky as ignorant hicks!
I've never done so.
Our surrogate is a highly educated, well-spoken, thoughtful and creative woman. The laws in Kentucky say nothing about the righteousness of taking away custody of a woman's children in a custody action because she chose to be a surrogate mother for a couple in another state! In itself, it's my surmise that being a surrogate is not proof of lack of fitness to be a parent to one's own children.
The frozen embryo that resulted in our son was conceived and implanted in WISCONSIN, and the baby is not a biological relation either to surrogate Arletta Benschneider or her estranged husband, Jack.
Moreover, ALL THE PAPERWORK was correctly, carefully, and legally executed by both married couples involved. The Benschneiders' marital problems are not of our doing. If we care about those problems, it is only out of the natural compassion of one human being for another. Our family's size and how it got that way is no one's business but our own; and we sought no attention from any media about our son's birth. In fact, we tried our best to dodge it.
If someone is clinging to ignorance, it certainly is not I.
Jackie Mitchard