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Having Children

For most of human history biological and romantic drives have produced children. While some may not have been able to have children, most were able to produce a surplus even with high infant mortality rates. There always have been those who either desire to avoid having children or once pregnant use whatever chemical or surgical means available to end a pregnancy. Some would even deposit their young children in an incinerator to placate a god Molech (Lev 18:21).

Only recently has the chemical technology been available to prevent pregnancy with oral contraceptives. However, while most think that this works by preventing ovulation, the abortive effects are not generally recognized. The bible describes children as “from the Lord” (Ps 127:3). Using contraceptives seems like telling God, “We have our own plans”.

Raising children is difficult, and can be painful. In a way we learn a little about how God must see us, selfish, ungrateful, and often filled with malice. Parents in the 1950s sought the ease of having children raised by schools, churches, and TV. Their neglect resulted in children raised even more poorly than they had been.

Mobility and technology allowed family life in the twentieth century to shrink in both breadth and depth. Passenger cars shrunk to comfortably hold only four people and the average home was more like a boarding house for four people each with their own work, school, friends, and activities. As regional, and ethic culture was replaced with consumer culture, the burden of raising children became more and more obvious. As a result the birth rate has dropped below replacement levels.

The individual effect of this path of avoiding having children is loneliness in old age. This has been mitigated somewhat by the various entertainment media. At a societal level, the decrease in native population usually creates a weakness that is often exploited by invasion. Cumulatively 75 million deaths through surgical abortion pales in comparison to what is probably over a billion abortions as a result of oral contraceptives. This results in what the bible calls “blood on the land” (Num 35:33). This might be seen as similar to what Israel practiced (Ps 106:38). Perhaps less immediately obvious is the judgment and wrath that accrues for a people as a result of killing children.

Man was told that as a result of sin he would face hard work (Gen 3:17). Woman was told that she would have multiplied sorrows regarding children. Both of these consequences were for the benefit of humans to keep us from the delusions, selfishness, and indulgences that destroy people as a result of prosperity, leisure, and self-focus. It should not be surprising that a nation that turns away from the burden of children would see its national character devolve.

The decision to limit children not only accrues the wrath of God for those who are disposed of, but also corrupts us by allowing our natural selfishness to lead us into all sorts of delusional, dissipative, and consumptive indulgences. One can deceive himself that he is being responsible, when he is indulging convenience. It is understandable that people might want to avoid having children when doing so often ends their own childhood.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. - 1 Corinthians 13:11

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