Un-Chartered Territory for Husbands

WARNING: The following post is definitly not for everyone

There are two real problems that I see with Natural Family Planning, and particularly the Billings Method.

The first is quite simple. A couple spends all of their time charting about the wife. For instance, every night as I am drifting off into dreamland my wife has to abruptly wake me up and tell me to get the chart. I then have to reach way down to find the chart (our bed is up high) and pass it to her, along with a certain coloured sticker, before I can go back to sleep. From a guy's perspective this is what NFP is all about. "Get the chart." "Pass me this sticker." "This is who I am." Notice that it's always about her and her body. And what’s with the stickers? It’s like teaching kindergarten, really: “Oh look at you! Here’s a sticker!”

The second problem has to do with the stickers themselves. You see, the NFP booklets contain a variety of stickers that mean different things. There are yellow babies, white babies (how racist… no black babies), plain red, plain yellow, green babies, and so on and so forth. Long story short, we don't actually end up using all of the stickers. For instance, our plain green, green babies, and yellow babies never get used. This is a great waste of stickers. I thought about taking them to school and letting the kindergarten teachers use these stickers as incentives for correct assignments, but I think I have a better solution. My solution solves both problems, actually...

Charting for men! That's right. Charting for men! Here's an explanation:

I work out roughly every day. On odd days I lift weights. On even days I do what is called a "Has-fit" workout which is more cardio and legs based (squats, burpees, etc.). Occasionally on Fridays I take a break (lest the fasting make me too weak). Well, I think it's only right that my wife know how my body is doing. Think about it. At night I pull out her chart, hand her some stickers, and then put the chart away. Well, afterwards she could pull out, from her side of the bed, another chart for me. Then she'd ask:

"What sticker tonight?"

"Give me a plain green, please."

"Oh great, you had a good workout then!"

You see, I would use up all of those plain green, yellow babies, and green babies. A yellow baby would mean I was too much of a baby to work out that night, and so I deserve to be labelled a yellow baby. A green baby would mean that I worked out (green means go), but that it wasn't a very good one. I was there, you know, but not trying hard enough. Hence, I deserve a green baby. A plain green would mean that I had a great workout. If I had a pretty good workout, but not a great workout, then I'd put a plain green with some spots to say I was spotty at times. You know, I took a set or two off before regaining intensity. After I would put the sticker on my chart, I would then write with pencil: MHF - meaning: My "Has-Fit," or MFW - meaning: My Free Weights. My wife would then know exactly how my body is doing. We could chart my own physical progress. Why should it be all about the woman? As a bonus, we'd put to good use all of those stickers that never make it to her chart (for whatever reason... I'll never know).

There you have it. Charting for men. Problems solved.

Theology of the Body, baby.

*kiss bicep*

Editor's note: picture from https://the-boss-baby.fandom.com/wiki/Jimbo

Editor's note (2): This post originally appeared on our family blog, March 16, 2013.