Monday, January 09, 2006

Everyone Is Having a Baby...

...except me. I bet some of you thought I was just about to add myself to the list. No, not me. I still have some time before stretch marks, strange food cravings- well, alright, stranger food cravings, and general body pain become the norm in my life.

I want to have babies, though. Hundreds, possibly thousands. Of course, I think that would get me beyond the point of worrying about stretch marks. No, truly though, my whole life until about three years ago I wanted two children: One boy and one girl. My parents had the same thing and I thought it was a perfect number. THEN, I started to get to know the lovely people at my church and I realized that I had never even thought about the possibility of having more than two. Maybe I could even have three or four!

From the peanut gallery: "What! Four kids! You are nuts- stop watching the Waltons and start plugging in to the 21st century where children are an expensive burden. How are you going to put 4 kids through college? Your husband wants to be what!?! A teacher and a missionary! BRAINWASHED and STUPID, STUPID and BRAINWASHED! Good thing I'm not friends with her anymore. I'd have to feed her and her children all the time anywho."

This is what I think (yes, I actually think): You do not need to have two parents making $70,000+ each to have two children. You don't even need $70,000+ from a one parent to raise 11 children. God provides for His children, He even has mercy on those who are not His children; Man alone cannot provide.

Instead of focusing on how much allowance you are going to be able to give your child so he can get bored and smoke dope, wouldn't it be better to focus on whether or not a man and his wife are spiritually gifted to raise children? Will the child be able to learn how to love and obey through the example and direct guidance of mommy and daddy? When parents teach their child to love the Lord whether or not their child is wearing clothes from Goodwill becomes secondary. Don't worry: Little Jack-Jack won't notice whether or not his clothes are from the P. Diddy baby name brand line. He will make mud pies in any get-up his mommy puts on him.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Four kids is a small family

BLP said...

Are you trying to tell me something :)

Rebecca Nugent said...

I am from a family of five children, and while I lived at home, our income never exceeded 25K. We never used government assistance and we took a summer vacation every year. My parents were EXTREMELY frugal with their money, never bought extras, we always drove to our destinations (never flew), stayed in tents or cottages, not hotels. The money stipulation that society throws out at potential parents is definitely a lie. More often than not, these same people are the ones that have one or two kids that are absolute brats because "Mommy and Daddy" make sure that they have every toy and gadget under the sun.