The response from the “Life With Three Under Three” posts this week has been great. My email box is jammed. The only thing that would’ve generated more traffic is a post on birth control. Thanks for making me not have to go there. I have a theory on why the subject of living with lots of littles is interesting to so many. Let me explain, but first I have to back up.

Like the rest of the evangelical world, I picked up my prescription a few months before my wedding. We would wait the prerequisite 3-5 years, and then I’d have 2.1 kids. If I was lucky, I’d get a boy and a girl—in that order. The problem was that the low-dose pill made me throw up. I remember sitting on the floor with my hands over my knees in the bathroom two weeks before my wedding thinking that this was so unnatural.

Fast forward to last month. I’m in the church choir room directing a rehearsal. (I direct an 18-member children’s choir.) We’re finishing up, and on a whim, a young and free 20-something says that she wishes that she had my life. Say what. She didn’t say this in a Fatal Attraction sort-of-way, just matter-of-factly. I dismissed the children and went home in a hazy daze, only because I function with half my brain tied behind my back as a matter of routine.

A week or so later, my husband gets stuck in the Atlanta airport the day the Anna Nicole Smith saga broke. He couldn’t find a TV not carrying the story. When he called to tell me that he’d been bumped, he moaned, “Didn’t anything else happen in the world today?” Unsure of what the oogle factor was, I scanned news feeds for clues. Passing over all the speculation, I quickly zeroed in a friend of the family who quoted Anna Nicole Smith as saying, “If I had to do it all over again, I’d be back at the chicken store having lots of babies.”

It’s maternal instinct to desire and nurture babies. We’re created for it; it’s basic biology. The problem is that our culture suppresses the natural urge and calls it unnatural. This is why I messed with nature, took synthetic hormones, and hung over a toilet for months. If I said, “I’m getting married and hope raise a family soon,” I’d likely be labeled “irresponsible” by my evangelical brethren; for the more fortunate, it’s possible to escape with just being weird.

But there is a resurgence of women (that I’ve never noticed before—maybe I had my eyes closed or maybe the internet made it possible for them to band together) who are now saying, “Yes, I want to raise a family. I’ll agree that babies are good and can glorify God….but how?”

After a few babies, reality sets in and the Christian mom begins to think that maybe everyone had a good point. This is really hard. She is knee-deep in Cheerios. The laundry has an unnatural smell to it. She’s knows the theme song to every show in the PBS morning lineup. Her husband gets to talk to people that are taller than his waist during the day and she feels jealous. The kids are crying, but when it’s quiet she is left with the thought, “How does doing THIS glorify God? And how in the world do I do this?!”

Our 21st-century homes do not have front porches. Quilting circles are only found in books. And the hospital nurse at your last delivery? She was 20. Her coaching consisted of asking every few minutes if you were ready for an epidural.

Has it really come to this? And if so, is it OK?

I don’t think it’s OK. I also think many women agree with me. We weren’t meant to do it alone. We weren’t meant to take our cues from the broader culture. We want to know that it’s OK to cross-the-line and have Baby #3 (on purpose). We want to raise them to love Jesus and not lose our minds at the same time. We want to know that our sacrifice means something, and at the end of the day, our pursuit of God’s glory made a difference.