I remember running into a Hallmark card once which congratulated the recipient on a pregnancy. The inside read, "Thank you for not telling us you were 'trying'."
I despise "trying" as a concept and a casual conversation piece. It is freakin disgusting. He who has ears, let him hear: anyone with potential reproductive function who is not celibate is "trying;" those who use contraception are actually trying to pretend they aren't trying (as any parent of an "unplanned" child or any Christian fornicator can testify, although you'll probably have better luck with the former). Neither is wanting or not wanting a qualifier for "trying" or "not trying." This was all covered long ago in a galaxy far, far away.
What the existence of "trying" means is that anyone who's not pregnant must be not trying, and anyone who wants to be pregnant and isn't needs to try harder, and what could be evident through the modest disclosure of nature is instead an incessant topic of indiscreet and tasteless dialogue. Like all sin, it cannot but be confessed, and where there is no private confession, it must be shamefully public.
verb (used with object)
1.
to engage in sexual intercourse without use of contraception with the intent to achieve pregnancy: We're trying!
8 comments:
OK, I see your point and I myself have laughed discreetly at the phrase "Trying" for wanting to conceive, however, to put it in a Christian light of couples that are not using contraception, there is a difference between husband and wife enjoying their marriage vows as it happens to fall and husband and wife paying attention to where a woman is in her cycle and attempting to allow it to fall MORE in a certain time of the month out of excitement and joy in receiving more of God's gifts of children. Now of course any couple would hopefully know that timed or not timed does not mean the out come will be one way or another and that only God creates life when and where He pleases. And yet there is something to be said for a couple that, even knowing all the work and hardship parenting can bring, still joyfully desires their family to grow. And so in this situation "trying" could simply be the woman's way of confiding in a dear sister in Christ that she is so overjoyed by God's gifts that they are paying closer to the science side of things to see if God will bless them.
Again, I get it, and I myself have not had the desire nor taste for that phrase since I conceived my second, but at the same time I think it would be sad for a genuinely excited mother to feel like a schmuck just because she uses that word to express her eagerness to embrace more children. :)
Melrose,I think I hear what you're saying and I appreciate the kind nuance you are trying to add here--and I think that the word your hypothetical would-be mother is looking for is "hoping" rather than "trying"--a little better in terms of acknowledging the true source of life, and a lot less icky :P
Hey, if Hallmark keeps coming out with cards like that, I might have to improve my opinion of them ;)
Yes, hoping. I too, thought of the word hoping, before I even read down to Reb. Mary's comment. I like hoping. Words are important. Hoping is a good word for the subject at hand.
Yes, hoping is good. In my naivety I remember confiding to my closest friends when my first was near a year old that we were really wanting another baby and I remember using the dreaded "t" word. ;) I used it because it was what I had heard everyone else use. But yes, hoping, much less vomit inducing.
"What could be evident through the modest disclosure of nature is instead an incessant topic of indiscreet and tasteless dialogue."
A nice high school friend who married young (19) announced to all her (unmarried, also 19-ish friends) that she and her husband conceived on their wedding night (wedding night, mind you, not honeymoon). Also, her parents conceived the same month, so they could have babies together.
Indiscretion is present in all circles, even the PP ones (these friends are Romanists, the pre-VII kind).
It's worse when a husband talks about "trying." In mixed company. Ick. My husband has all kind of one-liners for those situations, (but he doesn't really use them, because one discretion can't cover another discretion).
Not to nitpick, BUT...isn't that a Yoda quote? Not Dumbledore? :)
I meant indiscretion (x2) in the last sentence.
I hear about trying all the time from people I love, and it doesn't make me hate them. I just hate it that "not trying" is now normal such that "trying" seems like a normal way of talking. Agree also with Katy that there are people of all stripes who will just talk about absolutely anything with absolutely anybody, God bless 'em!
Yoda, yes, and not in Gandalf gear either. ;)
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