I Have A Say Thanks to My Mom and Dad!!!

Being the oldest of 11, I am so thankful, especially now, for my Mom and Dad saying "yes" to life! Growing up, we never had a ton of money. My Dad was a high school chemistry teacher and my parents decided from the beginning that they wanted to have one of them home with us. My mom gave up her teaching career, and raised me, followed by 10 others! My Mom also taught all 11 of us at home for part of our childhood before we would head off to Nativity Catholic Grade School. My Dad worked long hours, eventually earning other degrees so that he could first become dean, then principal, and finally, when I was a sophomore, he was named Roncalli High School's first president. My Dad and Mom both sacrificed SO MUCH for us.

I remember, even as a young person, getting stared at by people, and I remember the comments they would make. I can still hear a dental receptionist asking my Mom "Are these all yours? You know how children are made right?" followed by a real insidious but ditzy chuckle, followed by a secretarial gum crackle. My Mom and Dad were always tight budget wise, and I'm sure at times ached with a desire to not have to take bags of clothes from other families so that we could have clothes. I'm sure my Mom and Dad had desires to simply go to Nordstrom and buy us and give us all our own new clothes and Gameboys and Reebok Pumps etc. I'm sure they at times really wished they could just get a new car and not have to drive a fifteen passenger van around. I'm sure at times they wanted really badly to just go to a restaurant and sit back and enjoy a big expensive meal instead of having to cut coupons and craft together economic meals on the stove.

But they chose life for us, and they chose sacrifice for themselves.

I often think about that ditzy secretary now when our family gets together almost every weekend for dinner to laugh and hang out. Some of the siblings might be out of town or busy with other obligations, but inevitably, all weekend long, every weekend, our family gets together. Sometimes, when we're out at a restaraunt, I see the couples who are alone with each other. They hardly talk to each other and the loneliness is palpable. A part of me feels bad that we're having so much fun with our 8 tables shoved together, telling stories, laughing good hearty and healthy laughs. Sometimes I wonder if one of the couples sitting in the restaurant quietly and solemnly is that dental secretary - who now has piles of money and can eat wherever she wants, but doesn't have hardly anyone to share it with. My heart breaks for the people who are alone, especially the ones who are alone because, when they could have been having children, they instead bought into the contraception lie and lived for themselves only.

I have a say today, and so do my ten younger brothers and sisters, because my parents chose life. Mom and Dad - thanks a million!!!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Rose Tenney Has a Say - Abortion is NOT Health Care

How I would like to take back my stupidity and selfishness of 29 years ago – I am one of the women who foolishly believed the lie of Planned Parenthood and a woman’s health center.

My first sin was participating in sex outside of marriage. Then when I ended up pregnant, I was frightened but excited at the thought of becoming a mother. However, the father of that child insisted that I not have the baby, and even convinced me that I would never get over giving up that child for adoption. That’s when I learned he was selfish and I was a fool. In anger and in fear, I allowed him to pressure me until I gave in and went to the “health center” where for $200 a harsh and insensitive doctor cut my child into pieces and turned his back on me, asking the nurse what was wrong with me. I clung to the nurse’s hand and cried. This was not what I needed, and I realized at the moment I felt the instruments inside me that what I was doing was wrong. All I had left was a vast emptiness which quickly was filled with self-hatred.

I never saw the father again. For the next few months, I went through the motions of living and even planned my suicide because I didn’t think I deserved to live. One of my friends, an angel of the moment, realized what I was planning and convinced me that I was wrong to think I didn’t deserve life and love, even though I’d done such an awful thing. At that moment, the long path of healing began for me. Eventually, I married a man who loves me and I love him – he even accepted that I had had an abortion and not told very many people about it.

After several years of marriage, we were not getting pregnant and that was our dearest wish – to have children. I went to a mission at my parish and after several evenings of sermons and invitations to penance, I finally, after eleven years, went to confession and laid it all out to that wonderfully understanding priest. Although I was terribly distressed, he absolved me of my sin and introduced me to the graces of the Rosary.

Today, many years later, I am humbled to be the mother of four children, and you can be certain I am teaching them to value life and to love themselves enough not to indulge in selfish sins. I do not know if I will have to tell them about my past; even my mother does not know the truth about what I did so many years ago, although she may have suspected it.

I pray for all other women who went through my experiences and hope that they too will seek God’s forgiveness. Please pray for all of us.

Thank you for letting me have my say. Abortion and birth control are lies. They are not health care. They cause more trouble than they prevent.

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