Danny ChaiI have no idea why people have kids.
I’m not saying no one has a reason. It’s just that we never really talk about it, why we have kids. We talk about the when a lot, the timing. But not so much the why. It’s pretty much just expected of people after they’ve been married for a while.
That’s not good enough for me. I’ve written about this before, but a KCPC deacon once told me how the Stanford students frustrated him because they couldn’t just do what they’re asked to do, they always need to know why, and wouldn’t do anything without knowing that. It made things slower and more difficult because they always had to explain themselves to these pesky kids. I’m not sure if that’s a Stanford specific thing or what, but it’s definitely true of me; I pretty much can’t do anything in life unless I understand the purpose behind it.
For example, it’s semi well known that early in college I used to go around telling people that I was celibate. As it turned out, I was flamingly wrong about that. But regardless, getting married isn’t something I took for granted, especially in light of how I read Scripture. I needed a specific reason for it.
That applied to having kids also. That it’s just the expected thing to do wasn’t a good enough reason for me. And empirically, I saw that kids often hindered the parents’ ability to be involved in ministry. It seemed that Paul’s reservations about marriage, that it makes people divided in terms of attention (and time) were also applicable to having kids. And if something is going to potentially distract from your ability to serve God and the church, it seemed to me that you need a very good reason to do it, something more compelling than it just being expected of you.
I definitely wasn’t compelled by kids making parents or grandparents happy. That just didn’t make up for the serving tradeoffs, in my mind. Or wanting to have some sort of legacy. It’s all too self-focused.
The best reason I heard for having kids was presented to me in Perspectives: having and raising godly children is a way to grow and maintain the Kingdom. You need them to support the church in the next generation, be a light, and grow the Kingdom. We learned in Perspectives that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. However, that growth comes primarily from Muslims having lots of children. In terms of conversions, Christianity is still the fastest growing religion in the world. I’m not totally sure what the implications of that are; I’m not quite in favor of gigantic families (SN. We saw a bit of Cheaper By The Dozen the other day and both cried multiple times. That’s just embarrassing). But I did find that reasoning compelling, that raising godly children is an important way of supporting the Kingdom in the next generation. That makes sense to me.
So that’s my goal as far as raising Abby is concerned, that she be someone who helps grow the Kingdom, because I personally don’t find any other reason to have children compelling. I’m sure there are other good reasons to have kids, but this is mine. That’s why I’m so obsessed with the character thing. And my hope is that the message gets through to her somehow. My goal for her isn’t that she be famous or rich or change the world of science or politics or music or whatever. It’s just that she be a woman of character and grow the Kingdom. That’s why I wanted to have her. That’s all that matters.
Anyway, I realized last night that I decide a lot of things in my head without informing Jieun, which is a pretty bad habit. This is one of those things I think I just internally decided and never really discussed. Whoops! Sorry Jieun! We’ll see how it goes, anyway.