“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, The fruit of the womb a reward.”
Psalm 127:3 ESV
This week The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has been running a series of articles about the expense of raising children in America. These articles have looked at the expense of childcare, medical care, education, and all the other bits and pieces. The overall tone of these articles have been negative and insinuate that having and “properly” raising children is exorbitantly expensive. Of course, their ultimate answer is that government should intervene to help fix this problem, while the birth rate in America continues to fall further below population replacement rate.
After reading these articles I felt it necessary to push back in my own small way and make certain arguments to the people associated with Redeemer Bible Church. Here’s the short of it. First, God designed marriage, and the sexuality of marriage is designed by God to produce children. Both marriage and children are good things ordained by God for our blessing and progress in sanctification. Second, it is a false argument that married couples in affluent America (the richest nation in the world per capita) cannot afford to have and properly raise children. Third, the answers to fixing many of these perceived problems do not primarily rest with government, but with individuals having a godly mindset toward marriage and family.
Let’s take a moment to examine the base assumptions that lead to incorrect conclusions. To begin with WSJ articles are all oriented toward assuming that major unnecessary expenses are truly necessary. The generally agreed upon estimate of what it takes to raise a child from birth to adulthood in these articles is approximated at $350,000 per child. This is absurd. Maria and I have five children. At this approximated cost per child, over 18 years, we would be spending nearly $100,000 a year on raising children. This is not happening in our home, yet contrary to the “experts” we have raised well-rounded, God-honoring kids, who we love and who love us. How is this possible? How do Christian families all across our church not spend anywhere near this amount of money raising children?
This first relates to gender roles in marriage and family. We learn from scripture that men and women are not basically the same in body or marriage role. When it comes to marriage and family, God has created men to primarily lead, provide for, and protect the family. God has created women to primarily create, nurture, and manage the home, and bear or bring children into that home. The starting point of displacement in our culture is that we do not value and prioritize marriage and family like God does. We pay a steep price of relational isolation, sadness, and emotional struggle by trying to replace God’s design of marriage and family with career and material accumulation. Concerning the conversation at hand, the most significant expenses calculated into these equations is that of childcare. Good and continuous childcare is very expensive because it’s a lot of work.
The better and safer the childcare, the more expensive it is. The more you have to pay out for childcare, the more income you must have to offset that expense. But let me say plainly, in the early years of a child’s life you cannot pay anyone enough money to love, discipline, and train your child like you can yourself as mother and father. God has given you your children and no one will love them like you can. Your small children must have appropriate discipline to grow up to live a God-honoring and disciplined life. As a parent you have the unique authority to discipline your children. As a parent, you have the unique charge before God to teach and instruct your children (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). All these things require you to be present in the life of your children, especially mom during the early nurturing period of childhood.
Concerning economics, by mom being present during early childhood the twin major expenses of outside childcare and baby formula are eliminated through the present nursing mother. The present mother also is able to enter into all the other aspects of home economics that make raising children economically feasible. The next major expense area relates to eating and food preparation. Preparing healthy food takes time and expertise. Two parents working outside the home equals much more eating out (paying other people to prepare your food for you). If mom has the time to prepare food for the family, another major cost-savings is introduced.
Lastly, the presumption of our materialistic age is that children need all kinds of expensive things that they do not need. This relates to learning to live simply and within our means. There is a massive industry that revolves around marketing and selling unnecessary gadgets to parents. You do not need multiple specialized mats, carriers, tents, chairs, piles of toys, etc. to raise a child. Perhaps more importantly, what you do need does not have to be new. Despite what the marketers will tell you, little junior does not need the best of everything. Buying used stuff, borrowing, or receiving hand-me-downs is another major cost-saving area in raising kids. We have an entire rotational closet for this at the church. It’s a wonderful part of community in the church that we can pass around durable equipment and use it for many kids. There are major child-oriented used clothing and equipment sales in our area multiple times a year. Maria makes use of these sales every year.
Much more could be said here but can be summarized with the simple principles of embracing biblical gender roles in the home, embracing simple living (Proverbs 15:17) as a source of relational happiness, and walking by faith in the hope that raising children (by birth, adoption, or both) will lead to a future heritage of blessing. The opposite is to hear the message of modern media. That message basically boils down to spending many years to be fully economically prepared to have and raise children so you can give them everything this world says is important. Practically, that ends up majorly delaying having children (which often then relates to fertility issues – which ironically ends up being very expensive!), significantly reducing the number of children couples have, and focusing on economic priorities instead of spiritual priorities as being most important in the life of the child (Matthew 16:26).
Let us walk by faith and believe God. Let us believe that marriage is good. Let us have a positive and hopeful view of children. May we learn to live simply without a materialistic valuation of priorities. May we embrace the gender roles that God has designed, while also understanding that children grow up fast and will soon not need mom to watch over them with such care. There are seasons of life that require different priorities. May we collaborate together in the church to share each other’s burdens and so raise our children in the Lord!
With God all things are possible,
Pastor Vic