Why Have Them?

Children that is. Many young adults ask themselves this question. It’s understandable why, when you consider it closely.

First of all, in an effort for full disclosure, I am writing this from the perspective of someone who doesn’t have children, but who wants them. That being said, I recognize the enormous responsibility it would entail if I did become a parent. Look at the risks involved. The child could turn out to be a special needs kid. The child could become a royal pain down the line, perhaps to the point of being one of those…you know… “bad” kids! There’s the matter of the amount of time one has to invest in order to be a good parent, and the sacrifices that necessarily entails. And, there are all the inherent risks of raising a child in a world that all too often seems to be a bit darker than the world in which I grew up.

I hear this (i.e., the world’s a darker place) a lot, especially from older parents, whose children are already grown. Many is the time an older (wiser?) parent has told me they would’ve never made the decision to have children if they had to raise them in the world in which we live today. I mean, look at all the ills we have in our society today. There are predators lurking seemingly in every corner, pedophiles on the playgrounds and in our increasingly wireless world, just waiting to pounce on our unsuspecting, innocent children. There are scary diseases that keep cropping up, just when it seems like we’ve made advances on old ones. Then, if that wasn’t enough, there’s the always-present threat of terrorism, a specter that looms over all of us.

It seems like when I was a kid the worst thing my parents had to worry about with me was whether or not I’d skin my knee if I fell off my bicycle. Yes, those were indeed the good old days.

I mean, they were, weren’t they?

As the referees in the NFL like to say, “Upon further review…”.

While I didn’t have Internet predators lurking behind my computer screen, I did grow up in a world that was one push of the button away from nuclear annihilation. While we didn’t have the threat so much of terrorism, we did have the threat of the Soviet Union on our doorstep. We hadn’t advanced in our treatments of diseases to the point that we have today either.

Nostalgia is just that…nostalgia. We tend to look back through rose-colored glasses, and look forwards sometimes through the lens of fear. Perhaps its important to remember this, or recognize this, as we ponder the question of whether or not to have children.

God had this same choice, you know. The one about whether or not to have children? Do you think He sat around and wondered about the same risks that would be involved for Him to bring his “children” into his newly created world? No one can honestly say for sure, although I have a hunch.

Recently, this hunch of mine was further reinforced through the words of a professor in a class I’m taking. It’s a class on religion, and this question actually came up, i.e., why did God create man? The professor asked the class (it’s a continuing education class, made up of mostly adults) why did those in the class with children make the same choice? Before the class could answer, the professor basically said that even with, or perhaps in spite of, all the inherent risks of bringing a child into the world, the rewards, the love that could potentially fill our lives, outweighs even the greatest risk imaginable.

It struck me that the professor was really on to something here. It was a real “Eureka!” type moment for me. Didn’t it stand to reason that God created mankind for the very same reasons that mankind decides to have children of its own? Wouldn’t God desire to have the love of others fill His life/existence, just like we humans desire it, and really need it, to sustain us?

I don’t know if this was the absolute definitive answer for which I’ve searched for years, but it started to really make sense to me at that moment. If we are created in His image, then it does stand to reason our (mankind’s) desire would be for creation of other(s) to share in our love, and our lives, in spite of all the risks each generation must face. That’s quite comforting, in its own way.

So, perhaps we decide to children simply because God decided to create us. Perhaps he instilled in us that longing for the love and sharing of others in our lives, because He knew that longing was part and parcel of living, and would only be satisfied through love. I’m just brainstorming here, but it does make a bit of sense to my feeble mind at least.

Sometimes I just scratch my head, and wonder at it all.

-The Minister