large family

(I wrote this about a year and half ago and though long, some needed food for thought, I think. Enjoy!)

The following comment on the post, “Divine Appointment:  Babies are a Part of the Gospel Picture” is a common concern and one I thought deserved its own post to accurately handle the different aspects of the issue (a little longer than usual, but needful to cover each point):

“I agree with you that the church should grow both biologically and not-biologically. I also believe that large families are beautiful, but I have a concern here.

I have realized that in very large families like Duggarts or Wissmans, the ones who de facto are taking care of the little ones are not the parents but the older siblings, including the schooling part. The parents are too busy because of having such a large family.

So, what is the point of having so many children if you cannot take care of them personally and have to put them in the hands of others -even if they are the siblings?…”

The Right Starting Point

I want to first address what I believe is our “starting point error”.  Notice the question:  “What is the point in having so many children”? which presumes that couples who give their fertility to the Lord have a motive other than just believing it is His domain and should be left to His sovereignty.  The “point” isn’t ours to figure out; God does with His creation what He wills and that is enough. The only point is what these couples feel is obedience to God. (By the way, very few families will have as many children as the Duggars, so we’re really talking about a hypothetical to use them as an example.)

Which brings me to the next point:  are we basing our decisions regarding life on pragmatism rather than principle or wisdom?

Conviction vs. Pragmatism

A couple who believes that God is the author of life and therefore the sovereign authority over when/how many/how often life is to come, doesn’t need to think about how that will play out practically. It isn’t irresponsible to obey what one feels is a directive from Scripture without thought of the outcome. (George Mueller comes to mind–a man who took thousands of orphans in, never turning one away, when often there was no food for the next meal.)

For example, if I have a conviction/belief that I am to honor my marriage vows, “for better or for worse”, I don’t take a pragmatic approach, drawing up a contract that allows me to recant in the case that financial hardship gets “too hard”.  I honor my vows with zero thought to whether or not we would be better off financially if we were divorced.

So, even asking the question, “but what if having too many children causes hardship” sounds odd to the ears of those who have committed to receiving their children.

And that brings me to the point of the question, “what if the older children have too much responsibility?”

God’s Design is Made to Work

Truly, we are a fallen people and there are parents who have asked too much of their children, or failed to love them as parents should, or failed to nurture them in the Lord.  This has always been the case, large or small families. The problem is not the number of children, the problem is sin and/or lack of wisdom.

But there are also factors playing into our 21st century mentality that cause us to view the balance of family and work inconsistently.  When we embrace ALL of what His word teaches us, the pieces of the puzzle fit together better.  But often wrong thinking from places other than that Word muddles our perception.

Entitlement Culture

We’ve all bought into it.  We are such a prosperous, free, recreational and entertainment-driven culture that we’ve cultivated a pervading attitude of entitlement, especially among our young people.  Anything more than a smidgen of responsibility is held in suspicion. The “normal” workload of families and children from centuries past would threaten to kill an adolescent of our day, and his parents would most certainly be questioned.

Older children helping younger children is a normal state of family.  Or should be.  But because families are so segregated, teens given so much free time and entertainment, the idea of it is abnormal to us.

Is there a balance between an older child “helping and raising”?  Of course there is.  But it may not look quite like we think it should.  The comment, for example, mentioned “older children helping with school”.  I think it’s not only acceptable, but preferable.  No exercise facilitates learning as well as teaching someone else.The best thing we could do for our older children is to require them to help the younger ones learn. I wish I incorporated this more into our schooling.

Raising Servants in a “Crown Me” Society

I’ve spoken at length about the counter-culture responsibility we have to raise servants of Christ in a world that screams the opposite.  Families are the training ground for servant-hood.  It is very easy in this day to raise children who carry a victim mentality, but it is crippling to allow it.  Again, balance must be present, but we teach our children that it is a command (and privilege) to serve each other (and Mom and Dad must demonstrate that serving); anything else is disobedience to the Word of God.

You want truly happy children?  Get this one thing through to them: We are here to serve, not to be served.

Will They Want Children?

The single most important factor I see in how older siblings view the prospect of their own children is the attitude of the home and the attitude toward children.  Children who grow up in a happy home, balanced with work, love, play and affection have little reason to dread their own home full of that joy.  The quickest way to rob my oldest daughters of their joy is to separate them from their younger siblings.  They delight in them, despite that a busy home does require us all to work.

Furthermore, the analogy would seem ridiculous in another comparison:

Suppose the family grows its own vegetables.  Each year, the Lord blesses their garden and it becomes more and more prolific.  We all know that a blessed garden requires hard work.  Some of it is fun, some is drudgery.  But the fruit of the harvest makes it all worth it.  If a family is working together, praising God for His blessing, balancing work and rest, and enjoying the fruit, then the children grow up with a healthy sense of “how life is supposed to be”.

I submit it is the same if the Lord chooses to bless with a large family (which He doesn’t always do.)  The fact is that if we *couldn’t* choose, these discussions would not exist.  We would simply do what the Lord gives us to do, to the best of our ability and thank Him for life. Children wouldn’t be considered a burden, but a reality.

Our very ability to choose has clouded our reasoning and caused us to question what should be a natural occurrence.

Once upon a time children came and people figured it out.  Simple.

What are We Training Them For?

A pastor (I can’t remember which one!) said, “If someone asks you ‘What do you do’, you answer, ‘I’m a husband and a father or a wife and a mother‘. It is a tragedy that we no longer view these roles as roles at all.  They are so secondary on our life’s to-do list.  And yet, they are actually foundational, making all else we do secondary.

Given that fact, what should we be MOST concerned with in the upbringing of our children?  Preparing them to be husbands and fathers, wives and mothers! If I were training for a profession, my professors would likely want me immersed in the field.  Why then do we fear immersion in the care of precious siblings? Whether our children marry or not, the most important thing they do in life will involve relationships with other people.  Preparing them in a life of loving and serving others should be something we seek, not avoid!

Principles Hinge on Principles

Lastly, I would submit that a family who commits to doing the best they can with all the principles from Scripture, will find that things take care of themselves.

If a couple believes God should open and close the womb as He sees fit but ignores the principles of training up their children in obedience and love for the Lord, they bring hardship into the family and that will burden the older children.  It’s not loving to my oldest children to receive children from the Lord, then ignore my parental responsibility and expect them to have to deal with the consequences of that.  That IS a burden.

It’s taking the whole counsel of Scripture and putting it into practice in our homes. God hasn’t created us for a purpose and left us clueless as to how to carry it out.

Balance. Work, rest, love, joy, service, humility, laughter–a proper sense of what God has created us for will instill in our children what they need to carry the torch with their own families.

At the close of a sweet day, I just sit quietly, glance around the room at my different children, as my husband and I chat about tomorrow’s plans.

I saw a family picture earlier today. The kids were all so much younger, but it seemed so short a time since the picture was taken. That reality. That time is passing quickly, their baby faces growing more mature and very soon, they will be men and women. Ah! It stings a little.

When I only had two children, I never dreamed it would be like this to have nine. To keep loving so deeply. I guess I thought they’d all run together, that the “thrill” of it would weaken with numbers, and “too many children” would just be a chore.

I had no idea how wrong I was. I had no idea the thrill each one would give me–not just the day they were born, but every day. I still get giddy over the baby testing out his first sounds, like a new mother.

I can’t stop staring at their faces, they’re so beautiful to me. Oh we have days when I’m mad at them and they frustrate me; I’m not talking about rainbows and marshmallow days, no, we have real days like you do. But I see the gift in them. Every one of them.

And I am in awe of this realization tonight at the close of Valentine’s Day: God has given us these children as physical reminders and rewards of our marriage-love. And they help hold us together as we see that love–His love–reflected in each face, each personality, each embrace.

Most people think we just have too many children from some careless lifestyle or extreme religion. I think we have just the right number because it’s the number He has given us and He doesn’t count like we do.

To Him, they are people, not numbers–souls, babies becoming men and women, each another glory-reflection.

“We are childless by choice”, an old acquaintance–a believer–told me. “We just love our lives.  We travel a lot and enjoy going out and we’ve never really wanted children”.

I replayed the conversation.  I’m not supposed to even think anything of it. Children are now in the category of “option without stigma”. That is, it is politically incorrect to even suggest that parents *should* want children.  After all, we all have the choice.  Choice is King.

But something nags me…

And I realized what it was.

Before the socially acceptable option of choosing life, children were in a category of “spiritual, supernatural, miraculous”.

And rightly so. The Bible calls them a “heritage from the Lord”.  A heritage is an immaterial, intangible gift passed down.  It’s an inheritance the GIVER chooses and over which the GIVER has control.

But now that we are in control of this once supernatural gift, children have moved to a category of “possession”–things that can be acquired or not. And not just that, but possessions often seen as liabilities.

A possession is altogether different from a heritage.

A possession is temporal and usually measured by its immediate value. Decisions about acquiring possessions are mostly based on short-sighted variables and measured according to their benefit to the possessor.

A heritage can only be received, at the benevolence of the one giving. It is thought of in far-sighted terms.  Long-term vision causes us to covet a heritage, even if we must share our resources to maintain it in the present.

Our children, though plenty valuable even in the present (if only we could see it through all our distractions), are gifts only properly understood with a far-sightedness–inheritances that gain value over time.

We have lost our long-term vision.  And we have stopped seeing children as part of that vision.

I don’t think God ever meant for us to think of His heritage so flippantly, to refuse, altogether, the eternal gifts He would give in exchange for more vacations and a richer lifestyle.

He desires godly offspring.  He longs to give us a full, rich inheritance. Let’s not allow our short-sighted ability to control rob us of our heritage.

Shouldn’t I be bothered by it?  Shouldn’t we all?  I know I talk about it a lot.  I know there are other matters in the spiritual realm besides our ideas about children.

But somehow, this one is blaring to me, and big, and wrong.

It is my plea that if you are an older woman who desires to be a “godly older woman”, then you MUST echo the things of God, you must speak out of His Word–otherwise, you’re just old…and a liar (professing to believe His Word and speaking things opposite what is there.)

I couldn’t help overhearing the cashier behind me, I wasn’t eavesdropping. She was checking out a sweet-natured, older couple, chatting with them about her new marriage and how her mother was wanting grandchildren.  (I can’t vouch for the couple’s salvation, but I know they were members of a church because they were “buying on the church’s account”.)

The cashier said, “I do NOT want to have children right now…”

The older woman said, verbatim, “And you don’t need to; you need to enjoy life.” (“Children are a gift from God..the fruit of the womb is His REWARD.”)

It echoed in my ears all the way home.  I wish I had had the courage to say something, but I didn’t want to meddle in someone else’s conversation.

I asked the questions…

“What does a statement like that say about the way we view children?”

“What has happened among believers to make us think that way?”

“Did women say this to younger women before birth control was so acceptable and convenient?”

“If not, isn’t that cause for us to at least be cautious about the subject?”

“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.”

She lied to that young wife.  She told her that children would cause her unhappiness.  That children were trouble.  That children would rob her of joy.

She also told her that we are entitled to our own, personal fulfillment in life, even at the expense of other people.

She lied about the character of God in that statement because everything the Bible has to say about the fruitfulness of the marriage covenant is directly opposed to that comment.  Without exception.

This is the only reason I tend to be so black and white on the issue of birth control–NOT because I’m legalistic or seek to add to the Word of God.  But because I see an almost constant discrepancy in the two positions.

Is it possible to hold in one hand the belief that BC is good and useful for preventing children according to our own determination, and hold in the other the idea that children are something to welcome and not desire to prevent in marriage?

Is it possible to embrace the idea of preventing children and still think that children bring joy to one’s life, not hindrance?

Comments like these affirm that the general population cannot hold the two together.  And when that occurs, I’m prone to choose one and reject the other because two diametrically opposed positions, when the Bible DOES speak, cannot both be right.

(I’m not interested in a debate about hypotheticals here, please hear what I’m saying.)

God help us to speak truth about Him and about the magnificence of His most beloved creation–US.