Betraying the Past
Recently, the subject of the choice to be childless has come up in public debates. As I have been researching history, some thoughts have come to me on this topic that I thought I would share.
First, though, I want to emphasize that anything I am saying here applies only to those who choose not to have children.
There are many good, large-hearted people who wish to have children but, for whatever reason, children have not come. They have done their part. I pray that God bless them as he did Sarah and Hannah, and that if he does not, he finds other ways for them to serve Him and His glory.
There are many good people who would love to have a family who, despite sincere desire to do so, have never found a spouse. Again, this does not apply to them.
But people who are choosing not to have children is an entirely different matter.
Some years ago, a family friend had two grown children who both decided not to have children. I asked her one day why this was. A great look of sadness came over her face as she said, “I guess we raised selfish children.”
At the time, I did not really know anyone else who had chosen not to have children, and I was shocked that she had done such a good job raising interesting young people and yet, she felt that they had turned out selfish.
Now, however, that selfishness is in danger of becoming an epidemic. Young childless couples star in ads bragging about how they can eat snacks any time they want because they are childless.
As if people with children don’t get to eat snacks? I don’t get it.
That aside, on the subject of selfishness, I recently came upon this:
As a student of history, I spend a great deal of time studying other time periods. Striving to marry and have children is a major part of nearly any historical period. People worked very hard to find proper husbands and wives for their children and urged those children to do the same for their children.
These people lived and worked in circumstances we would not even want to be in. They strived and sacrificed and suffered, because they understood that passing on your family legacy is extremely important.
These families worked and strove to bring their children into the world, raise them, and marry them off…
…only to have their entire family line, hundreds of generations of effort, maybe thousands or millions—we don’t know how far back humanity goes—cut short because their modern descendants are too lazy and too selfish to sit in a narrower seat on an airplane.
Worse…
I think we owe it to our ancestors, who worked so hard to get us here, to do our best to make sure their effort was not for naught.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, (Genesis 1: 26)
3 Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127 3-5)
Its just one more sign of the times. James 3:16 sums it up quite nicely: "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing."
Of course, there have been other periods of gross licentious in history - we read about the Greeks, the Babylonians, the Romans, not to mention the Israelites and the people of Judah in the Old Testament, even some of the European courts and right up to how some people acted in recent centuries (think Lord Byron, the Hellfire Club, etc) - but I think the difference is that in those days, they could not prevent pregnancy or diseases. They may have well wanted to live childlessly, but had no reliable means to prevent it. Of course, you then saw what you do see today as well when folks who want to be selfish and self centered have children - child abuse, child abandonment, child neglect.
And these same selfish, self centered people are the same ones who wish to ignore their elders as well, to stuff their parents and grandparents in nursing homes and forget about them because it would cramp their lifestyle to care for them - it won't stop with just not having children. They don't want to have to care for anyone but themselves, and you'll notice that the same people who demand abortion for nay reason at any point in pregnancy will also be the people starting the conversation about euthanasia - it will start with talks about voluntary, but never stops there.
Society cannot continue like this - and it won't. History well proves that. It will all collapse soon enough, and indeed it already is in other countries. These selfish young folks are only thinking about today, not about tomorrow and what will happen when they are 70, 80, or even 90 years old and looking back at their lives and the fact that they are alone, with no one to care about them.
I couldn't imagine it any other way. We take pains and make sacrifices for our children. It hurts at times, but what would you do? Can you honestly say that having a better car is worth one child? My soul literally hurts at that kind of thought.
God has blessed us with our sixth child just last week. We're dirt poor because of it, on paper, but have wealth because we own our things outright, and have much love and laughter in the house. Unlike most Americans, we are forced to plan, and we could survive a good bit of financial pain if it came down to it. We wouldn't have it any other way.