It's not often that a company asks you to "go make babies," but Chicago's National Public Radio Station, WBEZ, is imploring listeners to "Do it. For Chicago." Their surprising marketing campaign, called the 2032 membership drive, also prompts their audience, saying "Hey Interesting People, get a room already. And then put a crib in it."
But NPR may have failed to do their math. In her New York Times essay, "Opting out of Parenthood with Finances in Mind," Nadia Taha estimates the cost of raising a child at a whopping $1.7 million. At that amount, if WBEZ listeners follow the station's advice, they wouldn't have much left for philanthropic contributions.
Recognizing the potential economic disadvantages of starting a family, Taha and her husband decided "that the single decision that can best help us achieve [our financial goals] is one that many newly married, affluent young adults don't usually consider: Don't have children."
Money talks. Money decides. Although we may not follow Taha's extreme advice, we too can be tempted to let finances decide the size of our families. However, as Christians, we need to challenge the uncontested assertion that money should act as the primary factor for making such decisions (acknowledging, of course, that our ability to conceive isn't really up to us).
I grant there are economic considerations to having children. Days after I discovered that my surprise pregnancy was a twin pregnancy -- we already had three children at the time-- my actuarial husband worked to reconfigure our college savings spreadsheet. It didn't look good. If we hoped to send our children to the private Christian college we'd both attended, we'd need to start saving more money than we earned.
I can sympathize with families who ask, "Can we afford more kids?" and "Where would we live if we did?" We aren't the Duggars, but as a family of seven, we struggled to secure a place to live when we recently moved to a large city (Toronto). Buying a house is expensive, and renting isn't so straightforward. "Too many children," one landlord insisted.
We can't add up the costs of a big family without acknowledging the advantages, though. Having more kids, which necessarily divides a parent's attention, forces children earlier into roles of responsibility.
In her essay for The New Yorker, "Spoiled Rotten," Elizabeth Kolbert writes that Americans are raising "a generation of kids who can't, or at least won't tie their own shoes." Her essay is a haunting look into the way American parents baby their children, and a quick panorama of some new parenting book titles-- The Price of Privilege, The Narcissism Epidemic, Means Moms Rule, A Nation of Wimps-- suggests we have a new crisis on our hands: parents expecting less of their children at home, and kids mastering fewer and fewer life skills.
Not in my house. "Conscientious" is a word my husband and I consistently hear applied to our children, though we wouldn't credit ourselves for this. Our children simply have to remember their lunch boxes, field trip money, and gym shoes because it's unlikely we will. Moreover, their contribution to the household in the form of consistent chores is necessary and needed.
Sally Koslow, author of Slouching Toward Adulthood, suggests, "The best way for a lot of us to show our love would be to learn to un-mother and un-father." Maybe it's regrettable that my husband and I can't do more for our children... but maybe our "un-mothering" and "un-fathering" allows them just the room they need to grow into responsibilities of their own.
Regardless if yours is a small family or a big one, we need to ask ourselves: Do we continue to allow culture to shape our vision of the good life? Does the state of our bank account take priority over all things?
Marilynne Robinson, in The Death of Adam, laments the way economics imperiously rule in our culture today. "Suddenly we act as if the reality of economics were the reality itself, the one Truth to which everything must refer."
Unfortunately, I can't say that my husband and I believed in the benefits of a large family before it became our reality. Even today, as I sit in our basement playroom to type this article, I realize what the mathematical factor of five does to a life. (It's a mess.)
If the good life is measured by financial security, economic flexibility, even Pinterest-perfect homes, having more kids may indeed jeopardize these goals. But if we take our cues from Scripture, we can't help but admit that children aren't liabilities. They are assets (Ps. 127:5).
It will simply require faith to suspend our disbelief.
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audrey ruth
scott roney, there's not much to worry about, really -- almost NO one advocates for large families these days. People who do have large families are not the norm, far from it. I suspect NPR's appeal may have been tongue-in-cheek, since their parent company is pro-abortion. (One would think they'd be asking African-Americans who have fled Chicago in droves in recent decades for the South, especially Atlanta, to return and thus re-build the population that way.) Advocates for abortion are MUCH more numerous than those for large families, also much more vocal, and their destructive agenda which has claimed almost 60 MILLION lives already (and counting, daily) is also a huge impediment to the spiritual health of this nation. Christ Jesus affirmed the value of children and prophesied destruction to those who would harm them. The fruit of the Spirit is love, and God's love does not reject children.
scott roney
I will admit right off I didn't bother to read this article (I have read numerous others by the author). There is NO justification in a world with a population surpassing 7 billion for advocating for larger families. Any supposed justification for larger families is misguided and completely ignores the realities of the earth's current and future challenges regarding sustainability. To advocate for larger families given a population of 7 billion is the height of narcissism, blindness, arrogance, insensitivity, shallowness, and the opposite of the fruit of the spirit as listed by Paul in the epistle to the Galatians. Really Jen you have no shame and you should be ashamed of your behavior in this matter.
Jim Ricker
"One more thing: I think it's amusing how, if a kid has to make her own lunch because Mom has 5 other kids, that's a great character-building asset for the kid. But if the a kid has to make her own lunch because Mom has a prestigious job, suddenly it's a terribly tragedy for the poor neglected child. " It is a character building exercise either bat but one child is doing so because of a need to be helpful to mom who is busy helping other members of the family. The other situation is a kid having to do so because mom wants a prestigious (self-serving egotism) title for herself. One mom is taking care of her family while the other is taking care of herself (the prestigious job is the key. If you said "..because mom left for work to provide for her family...) there might have been a redeeming quality to that mom's actions. But, you specifically focused on mom doing something for herself and so she can have her ego puffed up by prestige. And yes, this would apply to dads....
audrey ruth
Kathi, I've never heard even ONE person say it is shocking or sinful for a husband and wife to grow their family through adoption. MANY families (both Christian and non-) have done this. Stephen Curtis Chapman and his wife have adopted children, and actively promote adoption through his ministry. Unfortunately, I have heard people (even Christians) say it is sinful for the Duggars to have a large family, though there is zero Scripture support for that opinion. Kathleen Mch, did you notice that it's NPR that's calling families to have more children? AFAIK, they haven't mentioned Jesus in that appeal. The real tragedy is that so many American children have been killed by abortion; the death toll is nearing 60 MILLION now. We rightly mourn the deaths of 20 children in CT, but ignore the deaths of other children, even younger and more innocent, with studied and terrible indifference. About making lunches: I do think it's sad when a child is not reared by his or her own parent(s).
Kathleen Mch
One more thing: I think it's amusing how, if a kid has to make her own lunch because Mom has 5 other kids, that's a great character-building asset for the kid. But if the a kid has to make her own lunch because Mom has a prestigious job, suddenly it's a terribly tragedy for the poor neglected child.
Kathleen Mch
This is a shallow and, in my opinion, blinkered article that offers little more than "Have more babies. Because Jesus." The fact is, family health, safety, happiness, education, well-being and other things do NOT automatically increase with higher numbers of children. In fact, often the opposite is true. I prefer the sanity, order, financial security and peace of mind that comes with one child. Had I 3 or 4 children, my world might very well be the chaotic, financially worrisome, scrimping life of so many people who have more children than they can comfortably afford.
Indian motorcycle
If it is your personal choice to have a lot of children, that's fine, but I do not like Christians pressuring other Christians that it's their supposed duty to have a lot of kids. Some Christian women never marry and never have kids- not by choice they could never meet a decent partner. Jesus Christ did not teach that His kingdom would be spread by Christians making babies, but by preaching the Gospel to the lost. Christ also did not teach that flesh and blood family was to take precedence over spiritual family (he taught the opposite, see Matthew 10:37), yet many Christians in America continue to place an un-biblical, insane amount of importance on marrying and having children. This makes any one who is not married with children feel excluded from churches. Approximately 50% of Americans today are single. Christians need to start facing society as it is, (many unmarried people) not how they wish it to be, because it's causing people to drop out of churches.
Jim Ricker
IF you want your kids to be kind, generous, self-starters, respectful and to tie their own shoes - be a parent instead of a helicopter friend that happens to be older than the kid. Having more kids is not the answer, it is raising your kids properly. The only difference between the kids of a large family of helicopter friend/parents and a small family of helicopter friend/parents is that the kids in the larger family will run wilder.
Kathi Vande Guchte
Janet W: you're making a lot of assumptions about me, that I assume adoption is easy - it isn't, especially if a couple is caucasian and wants to adopt a caucasian children under the age of two with the biological parents completely giving up all rights to the child. I'm not saying don't have any biological children, but am advocating for growing families through biology AND adoption. It doesn't have to be a "curtain 1 vs curtain 2" decision. Also, I am someone who was adopted - as were my two older siblings - in the 50's/60's. I also have had a relationship with my birth family - my birth parents married and went on to have two more children together - since age 19 - I am now 47. My birth mother's experience of being young, unmarried, and single was painful to hear - the system was really broken, and it still is broken today, except things have swung the other way. My point is, if Christians want to have large families, why not expand using both options?
Rachel Stephan Simko
When we decided to have our first child, we weren't in the best place economically. But God has provided in miraculous ways. And again with this second child (whom we're waiting on - any day now!). If we had/have the means, I would love to have a lot of children, but there is a reality to deal with. We'll have to see how life plays out. :) It's very tempting to fall into over-mothering (as I see a lot of my peers doing), but I try to remind myself that it's important for my daughter to learn responsibility and learn how to do things on her own. evenonesparrow.blogspot.com
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