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We have actually gotten to a place in Western Civilization where people openly wonder why someone would want to have children! We didn’t get here by chance, but by gradual changes in our society which forced us to take the next logical step.
At the beginning of the 1900s, the average Lutheran pastor had 7 children. These children were considered a long term investment. As they grew, they helped around the house with chores. They were part of the family homestead and helped the economy of the home. These children were probably married in the home, and they were expected to care for their parents when the parents were in their old age– the days before social security.
A lifetime of investment in was brought to fruit during the parents older years as they could care for grandkids and be cared for by their adult children.
But something happened in the middle of the 1900s. With the Industrial Revolution, home stopped being the central economy and dad started to go to the factory and the mines, sometimes bringing the children in tow– until child labor laws prevented the abuse of children in these areas.
Then came the wars and the women went to work. The feminists started to sow discontent in the ladies when their husbands returned. They started to convince women that men were the true keepers of value, and that being part of the home was not relevant anymore. And who could blame them– the government had started to suck all the meaning of being home, and children.
Public school systems took the children out of the home. Social Security replaced taking care of mom and dad when children got older. Wives were encouraged to leave the home as well, to find meaning like her husband in the workforce. This devalued children, as they were now things that were viewed as an expense– money for clothing, money for sports, having to haul them to things outside the home.
We destroyed the home and the home economy, and with contraception and abortion we made children optional. And a civilization that fights to permit abortion has to look negatively at children, because there’s no other way to justify the slaughter that they are performing.
Which all leads to authors now asking the question: Why does anyone want children, if they don’t need them and aren’t forced to have them? What are all these babies and children for?
But we can also change it, and some are. We can look at our children and see them as the blessing they are when they are young, and the investment they are as they grow old.
But like Mrs. Mossome’s mom, we need to think of children like the investment they are– and start early having them to be able to reap the ability to see our grandkids and great-grandkids. Children are a treasure from the Lord.
