The boy in the poster

Welcome to the land behind the paywall! I'm delighted (and a little gobsmacked) that you're here. Thank you.

My parents were babies when they got married in 1975. My mom just 19; my dad fresh off his two-year proselytizing mission for the Mormon church at 21. They had me, a bicentennial baby with a red, white, and blue birth certificate, a year later.

The church was more outspoken against birth control in those days, issuing this statement) in 1969:

We seriously regret that there should exist a sentiment or feeling among any members of the Church to curtail the birth of their children. We have been commanded to multiply and replenish the earth that we may have joy and rejoicing in our posterity. Where husband and wife enjoy health and vigor and are free from impurities that would be entailed upon their posterity, it is contrary to the teachings of the Church artificially to curtail or prevent the birth of children. We believe that those who practice birth control will reap disappointment by and by.