Living a lifestyle of ‘having it all’ looks glamorous and completely fulfilling, but the message is warped – because it’s not true.
The attention-grabbing Time magazine cover entitled The Childfree Life: When Having It All Means Not Having Children shows an apparently happy and carefree couple lounging on a white sandy beach.
Given the presumptuous title, my initial thought was, ‘Really! It is not all that simple!’
[If you are suffering from infertility as we did for 19 years, this is NOT written to hurt you! I would never want to add anything to such a painful situation.]
Though not everyone would decide not to have children just to satisfy materialistic life goals, LiveScience.com says new research shows that materialism may mess up your marriage.
In my humble opinion, if a person’s main goal in life is “having it all”, I trust they will certainly not find true fulfillment (happiness) through self-absorption.
I know from personal experience. As a young woman, anxious-to-succeed, I dreamed of living a life filled with nice things, ease, and to use my time for myself and my interests.
At that time in my life, children were not even on my radar screen. I landed a coveted position as a surgical heart nurse right out of nursing school and my young professional friends and I formed a kind of clique – we lived like ‘prima donnas’ in our own minds. It wasn’t just the job, it also had to do with income and who you knew. I didn’t know it then, but I was missing deeper, more eternal truths, and I was terribly unhappy, personally and martially – always striving!
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” ~Matthew 6: 19-21
The Allure of a Childfree Life
There is a longstanding assault on the preciousness of family in America and across the world.
Less and less subtle through time, radical feminism, mainstream media, women’s studies in universities, and others with their own agenda have used many devices to degrade the sacredness of marriage and the blessing of children in an attempt to destroy our discernment as to what is truth and what is deception, making personal hedonism and the ‘have it your way’ philosophy more palatable and even mainstream.
We are bombarded with the message that pleasure is more personally satisfying than responsibility. “Have it your way!” “You deserve it!” “If it feels good, do it!” “Just do it!”
My junior year (1973), our 4 year nursing class at a Big 10 university was required to attend a desensitization session (remember this was the new sexual revolution) with the med students first watching discrete childbirth films, then soft-porn childbirth films, and after lunch, harder content that some of my friends (and I guess the male med students, too by their jokes) found arousing. That day remains a blur in my memory. There were several hundred of us in that auditorium, and we were not told what we were going to witness that day.
I wasn’t grounded in the truth of God’s protective Word nor a believer in the 70s, so these deceptions affected my thinking and many of my fellow nursing students.
A surprising number of us had abortions after Roe v. Wade in ’73, though mine wasn’t until after I was married a few years. I bought into the worldview that the little life growing inside of me was just a blob of tissue at this stage and expendable if it kept me from my professional goals. I’d bought into the “my body and my choice” ideology!
Bottom line, the abortion messed me up in physical ways and emotional ways that left large, raw scars for many years. That abortion had immeasurable effect on both our lives, not the least of which was that we were infertile after it for almost 15 years!
Today, it is a blatant, increasingly frontal attack. Many young people I know are afraid of marriage and of having children. Some have verbalized that they don’t want to have any children at all! It would be disastrous for our collective civic prosperity and character-formation if a childfree life were to become the commonplace life-style.
Nancy Campbell of Above Rubies states, “The devil is the one who comes to “rob, kill and destroy.” (John 10:10) He hates life and has successfully duped God’s people to limit their families and stop having children. In doing so, he has robbed joy from homes and parents and deprived the world of the godly seed that God wanted to fulfill His purposes. This is the devil’s greatest victory in this hour!”
So, is Satan winning? The deceptive, alluring fantasies of the childfree life spun by Big Media, Education, and Hollywood, etc. are being believed by all of us to some degree.
Choosing a Childfree Life
Actress Katharine Hepburn was open about her decision to not have kids. “I had such a wonderful upbringing, that I had a very high standard of how a mother and father should behave,” she told People. “I couldn’t be that way and carry on a movie career.”
In an interview with Oprah magazine when asked about the childfree life, Oprah Winfrey said she has “no regrets whatsoever”.
A Washington Times article suggests that cable TV and soap opera exposure has much to do with changing the cultural norms of women, causing the worldwide birth rate to plummet. I CAN imagine the discontent these women feel, because I felt the same way! TV and media such as this Time magazine cover image paint a deceptive fantasy of the childfree life propagating the idea that children are nothing more than an inconvenience.
Choosing Life
When a husband and wife have children according to God’s plan for mankind [Malachi 2:13-16] and strive with God’s help to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, they make an enormous investment in the prosperity of our nation and the world and embark on an unparalleled opportunity to refine their own characters.
Yes, children do separate us from our hard-earned money. Children also require time, sweat, tears, patience and costly love. These intentional investments of oneself tend to yield stronger marriages and the inestimable return of a refined character. God intended to use marriage and raising children to sanctify us and grow us into mature adults. Intentional parenthood is the single best way for adults to develop these traits and protect themselves against the destructive self-absorption of a me-focused life by choice.
Children have an uncanny ability to rearrange our well-honed schedule, to try our patience, mess up our plans and our sleep and to elicit our most intense fears. But children also have the power to teach us the greatest life lessons of all: trust, beauty, love, innocence, humility, playfulness, sacrifice, letting go, compassion, thankfulness, and so much more. Life appears in a new light….and it keeps us young at heart!
As my husband and I grew in our own faith, we invested (as best we could, by the grace of God) into the lives of our children (though imperfectly), cultivating in them a love for God’s Word from their littlest years. We were/are slow learners, but increasingly we did it with the expectation that they would pass their lives of faith onto their children, and their children’s children.
If you feel faint of heart that you have failed miserably (as we have) and don’t know where to begin (as we did), I tell you: Our heavenly Father will never turn His back on you when you come to Him in repentance and faith. I don’t know exactly how He has done it in us, but He has done it! And He will do it for you also.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” ~Jeremiah 29:11-13
The Solution To Deception:
Horace Greeley once stated, ‘It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible-reading people.’ And yet, we are being mentally and socially enslaved. More and more, the majority of this nation are becoming enslaved to humanism, feminism, socialism, and progressivism. And this is not only in the secular world, but in the church as well!
We are no longer a Bible-reading people. Even church-going people are not always Bible-reading people. Let’s become families who make God’s Word the priority in our home, the criteria for everything we believe and the foundation of our lives. Don’t let the allure of a childfree life cause you to miss out on one of God’s best gifts.
I highly recommend Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s Lies Women Believe and Lies Young Women Believe.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” ~Proverbs 29:18
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Diana
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
THANK YOU.
This so needs to be heard, even within the church. Keep speaking the truth!
Jacqueline
it’s my pleasure, Diana, with God’s help! 🙂 God bless you, sweet friend!
Candice Baker
Well said. The world needs more women like you!
Renee
Oh, dear sister… This article indeed was a weighty issue, due to our times. Thank you for writing it. I pray it will reach more than our community, but to the lost as well; that eyes will be opened, and they will humble themselves before our gracious Lord.
Nicole
I really enjoy reading your blog, this post was a blessing to me. Thanks!
Serafina
So important to pay attention to the “whys” of what the media tries to feed us… To dig down deep and see what the root of the issues are, and what the Bible says about them. Thank you for thinking and writing clearly, sharing solutions and inspiration.
Sarah @ A Quiet Home
Jacqueline, this is so well written and needs to be heard. You wrote in truth and with grace as well as love. It was balanced too, and very kind to add the note at the start for those who struggle with infertility. I love the pictures of you and your children…they invoke feelings in me of creating beautiful memories for my son {and children to come}. For some reason, the picture of your son feeding your daughter, with the pj’s on and toys on the floor give me warm feelings of slow, quiet mornings with cuddles from a loving mum and giggles and play. I love being a mother!
Ann
My husband and I are childless but not by choice. Thank you for your honesty. Blessing.
Katie@simplefoody
What truth! We don’t use any form of child prevention and sometimes it stretches my faith, which draws me closer to Him and only strengthens me. I’ve been reading the book, ‘The Power Of Motherhood’ by Nancy Campbell .[http://aboverubiesbookstore.mybigcommerce.com/power-of-motherhood/]
And oh my! It has totally challenged everything I thought to be true and encouraged me to really seek out what the Bible says in regards to all things.
Brenda
Interesting article, but there is a flaw. You write as if Oprah were a bad person for not having children. Well Oprah isn’t married, so as Christians we should be glad she is childless.
Jacqueline
Oops~ Brenda 🙂 You are right!
Bekah
Its such a God thing I saw this when I did. God has been really laying this on my heart lately. I have been saying the last 5 years that I only wanted 2 or 3 kids at the max. I’ve hated being pregnant with a passion. I have been prego 6 times, carried and delivered 2 but I had 4 miscarriages and didn’t want to experience that again. I even tried to have a tubal done after my second was born, but God in His mercy, didn’t allow that to happen even at my best efforts! And now that I find myself pregnant for the 7th time (definatly God’s will since we were trying our best to prevent it) and after reading this, I can say from my heart that I now want to let God decide that number and I’m actually excited about being pregnant again!! The thought of 12 kids isn’t freaking me out anymore! I have recently felt called into midwifery and herbalism and because of that I now have a better understanding of my body, pregnancy, birth, and healing myself naturally, so I’m actually not afraid of losing another this time and its not bothering me at all being sick, tired and unable to be as independent as I want to be! I come from a family where we girls had to be as tough as the boys, work just as hard, and learn to do everything for ourselves, rely on no one. I have such a hard time relying on anybody including my hubby to help me, especially with the smallest things like putting on my socks or carrying the laundry basket! Its not in my nature, but I’m learning to change my nature because my fear, independence and feeling comfortable are not as important as God’s will, my marriage, or a childs life! I’m just thankful that I learned this 5 years into my marriage while there is still time to make things right instead of 20! Thank you so much for your posts! I stumbled across your website by “accident” a month or so ago and I can’t tell you how much God has used you to help me since! Thank you for your obedience to the Holy Spirit!!! God Bless you!!
Jacqueline
Oh, dear Bekah, My heart is rejoicing in the goodness of the Lord Jesus! How wonderful to read this sweet testimony of the Lord renewing you and filling you with peace!!! He does that for us, yes? And He gives us a newness of heart and mind…transforming and awakening us to His precious Word!
I am so excited and am already praying that God will strengthen and uphold you during this time. May His grace, mercy, and peace abound to you and your family!
God’s richest blessings 🙂
Jacqueline
Annette Wolf
Great thoughts, Jackie! Your care about so many important issues. We love how you communicate them here. <3
Annette Wolf
*You care*
Jacqueline
After all the infertility, I must be sensitive to this topic 🙂 I appreciate the encouragement, Annette 🙂
Blessings… and a hug!
Charity
Oh…this post was *SOOO* good…it made me cry! It’s terribly sad to see the way our culture views children. Yes, they present all the challenges you mentioned, though observing and being involved as oldest of eight in these struggles, I can say from the bottom of my heart that the blessings FAR out away any burdens! The “older” I get the more convinced I am of it. THANK YOU *very* much for proclaiming this truth that so badly needs to be heard!
You really don’t know how much you blessed me this evening! 🙂 I pray the Lord’s blessings on you! {Numbers 6:24-26}
Charity
P.S. That last picture: PRECIOUS! There’s few joys like cuddling a newborn! 🙂
Jacqueline
Thank you, sweet Charity! You are so blessed to learn in the family setting you are in. Not perfect, I’m sure, but real life and doing it with the Lord’s guidance! It was hard to write, but when I saw the article, I felt I must try to put my thoughts into words. Nancy Campbell says it best! Many blessings to you and the whole family!! <3
Charity
I am…beyond measure. And definitely not perfect by any stretch of imagination, but how wonderful to serve the ONE who is so faithful to correct, teach, and draw us closer to Him! His mercy is new every morning!
By the way, thank you for kombucha tutorial…it was really helpful! I’ll keep praying that “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” as you walk through each day! 🙂
Charity
Jacqueline
Charity, I am glad the tutorial was helpful 🙂 Thank you for your kind words of blessing 🙂
Jedidja
Thank you. It is very distressing to read how some mothers think. Although I sometimes have very dark thoughts about ‘my lost son’, I am often very happy with the opportunities that God has given me to grow through motherhood.
Patricia Todd
What a wonderful article. I have had two young women recently confide in me that they are thinking of not having children. What a wonderful tool you have given me to share with them . I had a career first, and when I finally decided to have a baby, had 5 years of infertility. God gave me my biggest blessing at 38 and then I went straight into menopause, causing me to have an only child who would have really loved siblings. He IS my biggest blessing, and I hope to keep others from almost missing this blessing by selfish desires. Thank you so much!
SallyAnn
Great article Jacqueline. I love reading your posts. You are not judgmental and you convey how much you care. God does wonderful work through you. I feel blessed to have found your blog.
I love that last photo. It is so beautiful.
Jacqueline
Oh, Sally Ann,
Thank you for the encouragement. I worry about that sometimes. I used to judge, but I had not realized yet how fallen *I* was. When I saw my sin clearly in the light of the perfection of Christ, I could not judge someone else anymore. Only God can rightfully judge mankind and He does so from a position of holiness and perfection.
Blessings, friend 🙂
Christy
Wonderful Jacqueline! I blogged about your post directing others over here to read! Your blog is such a blessing! Thank you for being willing to speak the truth in love!
Jacqueline
Thank you, Christy 🙂 I appreciate the share! Blessings…and a hug!
Toni
Wonderful post, Jacqueline! Love the photo of you and the baby. We have two granddaughters, but they are teenagers now – I miss the days when they were tiny.
Have a great week.
Sarah
I think like anything in the media it is not something that can be taken on face value. I think couples must be allowed to make their own choices of their own free will and not based on anyone else’s reality but theirs. If having children is right for you that will be wonderful. If not then only that couple can know themselves.
I’d love you to link this inspirational article with us over on my blog. Just follow the link below 🙂
Sarah @ A Cat-Like Curiosity
momstheword
I had a friend who said she didn’t want children because she said they would take up too much of her time and she said that she was selfish with her time.
I found this funny because she had several parrots and other birds and spent hours caring for them, not to mention her dogs and other animals, lol! (She eventually went on to have four kids and now lives on a farm!).
Regarding your comment on my blog: your button will be added on Wednesday, when I add that post to your linky party. It’s only Monday and I just wrote it so I haven’t had a chance to link it up to your blog yet! 🙂
Jacqueline
Yay!! Oh, I am so glad that you will be sharing 🙂 I appreciate you so much! Thanks!!
Tauna
I just wanted to say that I appreciate your posts so much. And I appreciate the truth you communicate and the heart of encouragement you always do it with. Thank you!
John McKeown
> “the blessing of children”
Well, sometimes they are, it depends…. Augustine preached on on Psalm 128: “If you look for those good things with earthly eyes, you will be expecting hordes of children and grandchildren … But these are not the good things of the eternal Jerusalem … Beware of running after blessings that are not from Zion … If you are given these temporal blessings, make good use of them; but give more thought to how you are going to bring up the children already born than to having even more. Happiness lies not in merely having children but in having good ones. If they are already born to you, work hard on their upbringing; If they are not born, give thanks to God, because you will perhaps have fewer worries. (en. Ps. 127[8].15 tr. WSA III/20:101) quoted in chapter 5 from http://www.katav.co.uk/chapters-christian-reproduction/
Renee Bauserman
Well said. I believe that the choice, as Americans, right now boils down to “For God” or “Against God” and the lines are becoming clearer by the day. We have the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we need to read it daily, and pray–with our families, so that we and our children can have the Holy Spirit to be our guide and discern truth. Teaching our children is the greatest good we can do—it is our most important calling, and greatest weapon in these last days.
Jenny
I just want to hug you! This post says so many things that my heart feels but my mind and mouth often fail to put into words. I am a young, homeschooling mom and I feel such loneliness among my peers.
I know the article is referring to the childless couples but even Christian parents fall prey to these same deceptions. They are so “tolerant” and so “open minded”; they are so easily tossed to & fro. And, you’re right, they’re probably not reading their Bibles. My heart aches for them (and the generation that will come after them).
Thank you for taking your Titus 2 responsibility seriously! God bless your heart! <3
Jacqueline
Thank you, Jenny. I love tolerance and open-mindedness, but not to the extent of deception. You encourage me today!
Blessings!
Sarah Wilson
Children are a blessing, and there is an attack on the family today. However, I don’t think it is selfish to choose to be childless. Some people are just not cut out for parenthood. It’s not for everyone, you shouldn’t be pressured into parenthood just because Christian culture says it’s the right thing to do according to the Bible. And sometimes in Christian circles there is sooo much pressure to have lots of children. Three is the limit of what I can do well.
Jacqueline
Dear Sarah,
As an advocate of parental rights, this is just why it is so important. You and your husband are the only ones who can decide that. I don’t judge you at all…
Thanks for sharing your thought here.
Blessings!
Charlotte Moore
You do a wonderful job writing and helping so many people. GOD BLESS you!!
Jacqueline
Aww…thank you Charlotte! I do wish I was a better writer, but when it comes out properly, it is all of the Lord, not me, for I am a mess :-/
Have a blessed week, my friend xoxo
Rachel
I hope that you understand that some people just aren’t fit to be parents. There are numerous reasons besides material gain a person should chose not to have children. Children need loads of love and support; physical, emotional, educational, medical, and financial. Not everyone is capable of meeting all these needs. I’m not talking about infertility. If a person has a congenital issue they could pass to their child or a drastically reduced life expectancy, they should pray long and hard about becoming a parent. Emotional instability such as a history of depression, abuse, neglect, or other ‘mental ‘ health issues should also be of concern. I won’t even start on addicts. Financial stability is also important, not for material gain, but for the simple ability to ensure a SAFE place to live and healthful food to eat, as well as medical care that will arise in the standard course of childhood. Trips to the doctor and emergency room are a fact of parenthood. Both of my children broke bones during normal childhood activities.
The world is full of unwanted children. You don’t have to go overseas to find children that are being neglected because their parents chose to have them instead of using birth control. All you need to do is go to the nearest neighborhood, school, or even church. I’m not implying the world would be better off without them. I don’t believe that for a minute. God doesn’t make mistakes and He has a plan for everyone. I mean simple quality of life. How much better would their lives be if they were cherished by their parents?
My point is, yes I think it is sad that people chose to not have the blessing of children simply because they want more ‘stuff’, but how awful would the lives of children born to these people be?
Jacqueline
Rachel, I am certainly not advocating that all parents have children just for the sake of it. We are to approach it with wisdom for it is a monumental task to raise a child, back ‘then’ and now. I was speaking of the mindset that is becoming more and more prevalent that ‘children are a nuisance and so are not for us’…’let’s be free of them to pursue our own goals’. I, for the most part, agree with you. Especially if they are not in the Lord and have their focus on themselves. I often have said, that I am so thankful that the Lord waited to give us children until I was a believer (we were infertile for almost 19 years) so I could be grounded in what was right and good to raise them for the Lord. I would have been a terrible mother before that time because I was so focused on myself and really trivial things.. I also am challenged when a ‘believing’ couple has child after child and doesn’t have emotional, spiritual, or personal disciplines themselves. We are to use wisdom in all we do and there are safe, non-abortifacient ways to space children. I do believe, however, that we have a great Lord and even when we have nothing materially, that He will provide when we seek HIm and use wisdom, too. That being said, Children are a blessing from the Lord. The Word of God doesn’t qualify how many, under what circumstances, or IF they are born with a disability or not. I personally cannot agree with an abortion for any circumstance. Prayer is the way of faith, as is asking humbly for His will and that that child would be to the glory of God.
Thank you for sharing from your heart!
Daniika
Ha. This is funny.
I quite enjoy my hedonistic, immoral, faithless and educated life. I’m sorry that the author of this article feels so personally attacked by what I choose to do with MY vagina.
By the way, if you’re truly trying to change the minds of childfree people, bible thumping is not the way to go about it. We tune that shit out in an instant.
The day of my sterilization surgery was one of the best days of my life. I finally felt free.
Jacqueline
Daniika, I am sad for you. I hope one day you don’t regret it, but it is a free world and it is your body. ~J
Yolande
Hi Jacqueline. I’ve been reading your blog and find it quite interesting and enjoyable. Your post on homemade stock reminded me about its benefits. After moving to Canada, I haven’t done it in a while, and I’ve been experiencing the side effects.
Even though I’m NOT RELIGIOUS AT ALL :), I agree that there’s been a ‘movement’ against having children. I’d even go so far as to say that the world, especially the US , has become anti-child. I read so many posts where children are called ‘brats, animals, etc’. Children are frowned upon if they make the slightest noise in public. People prefer to have pets instead as their ‘fur babies’ (I DESPISE that word). There’s a form of peer pressure to avoid childbirth, and women seem to compete with each other about how anti-child they are like it’s a badge of honour. Of course some women genuinely do not want to have children. However, many choose not to have children simply because it’s trendy. Then a few years later they regret their decision.