Schrödinger’s Family: An Open and Closed Case for Family Discernment

When our first son was born, we received hand-made stockings with our names on them for Christmas. I loved these stockings. They were well made and just the style I would have chosen. So when we found out that I was pregnant with our second son the next year, you can imagine how I panicked. Could I get another stocking? Would it match the others? What if it looked differently? This new baby was a monkey wrench thrown into my Type A Christmas decor planning.

If you’re worried about how it turned out, we were gifted another matching stocking and the crisis was averted. Looking back though, it’s quite embarrassing. I was so concerned with having a “complete” set of stockings on the mantle that I forgot about the family members they belonged to. This question of numbers and completeness kept bothering me. How many children would we have? When would we have them? What did God want from us and when? Just how many stockings would I need?

I’m not the only one to have lost some sleep over this. There is a sense of anxiety and an urgency to either have your family complete or to know exactly the plan to complete your family. As soon as someone has a new baby, people begin to ask if there will be any more. Friends have posted on social media, “With this new baby, now our family is finally complete!” I’ve seen painted on nursery walls, First we had each other, then we had you, and now we have everything, which boasts this sense of wholeness. People comment to a friend with three little girls and a new baby boy, “Now that you got your boy, you’re set!” This impulse to be “complete” and in total control is understandable.

In a way, we can even say that this desire is an echo of Jesus’ command in Matthew 4:48 to, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We desire a fulfillment and meaningfulness in our hearts, and in the married life, establishing a family can provide that kind of affirmation.

Even so, placing our family or our family size as the nucleus of our meaning and purpose is unfair to them, to ourselves, and to God. We will not find our ultimate worth and meaning in life by means of any person or worldly pursuit, even good ones like marriage and family. Only in the pursuit of Truth and a relationship with the Lord will we find the fulfillment we see. Living the vocation of marriage doesn’t mean that we find meaning in this perfect spouse and create some idyllic family. It means that we spend each day seeking holiness. We experience the sacrificial love of Jesus in each other. We help each other along the way to Heaven in every big and little action, word, and decision.

But what does this have to do with the mistake of thinking that we can “complete” our family? How can we quell this anxiety we might feel when we think about where we are going and what we should be doing? We might consider Schrödinger’s thought experiment as a guide. Take a moment to consider that you and your family are simultaneously complete and incomplete, perfect and being perfected, on the journey and at your destination.

Maybe you’re newly married and have no children yet, or you may have 7 children and counting. You might be struggling with infertility. You may be postponing a pregnancy, even indefinitely, for any number of reasons. No matter what age you are or what situation you are in, your family is complete. Be confident that if you are consciously striving to live as a disciple of Jesus and are prayerfully discerning God’s will for your family, that you are fully living your vocation and you are complete in where you are and what God desires for you.

At the same time, remember that you and those in your family are incomplete. Even if you have a spouse whom you love and children you adore, even if you have the perfect job, hard but wonderful days, and a perfect set of Christmas stockings on your mantle, you are not complete. You are still traveling the road toward becoming perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, and you are not there yet.

If any of this resonates with you, pray and meditate on the words that Saint Paul wrote to the Philippians, “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” Don’t be anxious and afraid that you are not “complete”. Don’t be content to stay as you and become stagnant. Be dynamic, be joyful, and be confident that God will work in your own completely incomplete, and perfectly imperfect heart.