We were created...

I read something recently that I found both alarming and not the least surprising at the same time. It’s surprising because I can’t imagine how anyone could feel the way the women in that news article apparently do. But it isn’t surprising at all because the thoughts of these women seem to be a reflection of American life in general.

Apparently women in America are choosing not to have children at higher numbers than ever before. The article I read cited the US Census Bureau and labeled anyone between the ages of 15 and 50 as a woman. The article said that according to the census bureau nearly 50 percent of women aged 25-29 were childless in 2014. It also said that 47.6% of women aged 15-44 were childless in 2014.

 

Apparently a good part of the reasoning behind women not having children has to do with delaying getting married and having children so they can focus on their careers and the economy. I’ve heard both reasoning’s personally over the years. I’ve heard women say they’d have children ‘someday’ when their career was established or when they saved enough money, or they made enough money, or they had a big enough house, etc. All my life my mother used to say ‘don’t ever wait to have a baby until you have enough money because you’ll never have one if you do. You’ll never have enough money.’

 

That was something I heard her say from the time I was little bitty and it was something that stuck with me all these years. I’ve never let money be a determining factor in having children. If the Lord gives us a child, He’ll give us the means to take care of it.

 

The article quoted a couple of women’s reasons for not having children, giving their names and a little bit of their story. The thing is the reasons these women gave for not having children had very little to do with wanting to be able to provide better for the child and a whole lot to do with what sounded like selfish reasons to me.  One woman said she wanted to be able to take risks and move. A psychologist is quoted as saying that she sees this in her practice more and more. That men and women are making the choice as to whether or not to have kids the same way they make any other choice. She said that many of her patients have other ‘aspirations’ than having children.

Can I point out that these people with these ‘aspirations’ that don’t include children are…seeing a psychologist?  Something must not be going right in their lives for them to be seeking that sort of help.

The same psychologist also says that it’s ‘totally acceptable’ to not have children.

And she’s right. But then just about everything these days is totally acceptable. In our anything goes society there is very little that is seen as unacceptable.

As I read the article I couldn’t help but think back over my own life. How I spent hours and hours and hours as a child playing with dolls, pretending that they were real and I was ther mother. My mom tells me that when I was a year old if she took me anywhere without a doll that I would cry until we either got back home again or until I had a doll in my arms.

Where we lived while I was growing up there were no toy stores. No big super center stores that sold everything. I didn’t get my love of dolls by being inundated with aisles of dolls that did everything but get up and do the dishes. As I got older I did eventually become influenced by TV commercials and friends but my love of dolls….of babies…started long before that ever happened.

When I was six my teenaged aunt had a baby that I was allowed to hold. She would let me hold the newborn baby unsupervised while refusing to let my older cousin hold the baby. I don’t remember why my cousin couldn’t hold the baby, there may have been a very good reason, I only remember that she couldn’t. And that this cousin used to tell me how she was never allowed to hold the baby. When I handed the baby to my older cousin…as soon as my aunt came through the room (yes, I had the baby without supervision) she immediately told my cousin to give the baby back to me. There have been people I didn’t want holding my babies and I had a reason for it every time so maybe that was the case here. I don’t know. What I do know was that even at the age of six I loved babies and could, apparently, be trusted with even newborns without an adult being present.

When I was 8 we went to visit a couple that had a not yet one year old baby. I was allowed to not only take this baby outside but to go roaming all over a mountain with her.

When I was 10 and 11 I imagined what life would be like when I had a baby. Many times I imagined what I would do with one if I had it in whatever situation I was in at the time.

Being a mother was simply something that was a part of me pretty much from birth. It wasn’t something I chose, wasn’t something I contemplated, thought about, decided on. I was born with the desire to be a mother. I didn’t choose it, it was just there.

When I was 16 I became yet another cousins mother. She wasn’t mine, but because I was allowed to have her pretty much 24/7 she became mine. I loved her as if she was mine. I worked and provided for her as if she was mine. She was a one week old, five pound bundle of baby when she was handed over to me the first time. And I was terrified. I’d never been responsible for a newborn before. And she was so tiny.

But in that terror there was also fulfillment. And love. I wanted her. While I juggled school and work…I wanted her. While I stayed up nights, set with her in the hospital, changed diapers, made bottles, did homework with her in my arms…I wanted her.

It made no difference to me that she wasn’t mine by birth. She was mine by love and that was all that mattered.

Years later when I had my first child, I had been through the pain of losing a child I loved as my own, I knew a new kind of fulfillment. This one I could keep. This one truly was mine. And I was happy. Over the years as I’ve had more children the sense of fulfillment, the completeness, has grown.

I’m not saying I haven’t been fulfilled or completed through other things. I have. But the things that fulfill me are the kind of things that people that choose whether or not to have children probably would say aren’t where I should be looking for fulfillment.

Marriage fulfills me. There is a sense of completeness simply in being married. It’s like it’s what I was made for. Marriage and motherhood are the two most fulfilling roles I’ve ever had. Without either one of those roles there would be something missing in my life, in me.

Could there be a reason for that?

Could it be that Scripture explains it well?

Genesis 1:27 says …male and female he created them.

That has nothing to do with motherhood but it does define the very basics of who and what each and every person on earth is. We are either male or female. Man or woman. Boy or girl. Whether we are male or female affects the very nature of who we are. It is what we were made for, what we were created for.

The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ Genesis 2:18

Again…this verse isn’t about motherhood but it does define the role of a woman. She is to be the helper for man. Not just any man but for her husband. Our society today does not want to acknowledge that women are here to support and help their husbands. There is so much on husbands and wives being equal, on women having as great a role as men, that most people, even ‘Christians’ don’t want to acknowledge that women were quite simply created for the purpose of being a helper to their husband.

Being a wife, being created to help her husband doesn’t get us into motherhood except that one should, and often does, go hand in hand with the other. Once upon a time marriage meant babies. Husbands meant wives became mothers.

There was no choosing. No deciding if a person, be it a man or a woman, wanted to have children. If a couple got married they more often than not became parents. Families weren’t limited to the American idea of the perfect family size of two parents and two children. No one thought of the idea that a couple should only have enough children to replace themselves when they die. If any thought was given to childbearing most likely it was taken from Scripture…

 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” Genesis 9:7

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28

Times were different back then, people were different, the world was different. But was God different? Did His purpose for women change because the earth’s population reached a certain number? Did His plan for woman change because it became acceptable for women to work outside the home? Did His design for the family change because people changed the way they saw the family?

I’m not getting into the often debated birth control. I’m not saying whether it’s right or wrong. I’m simply pointing out the design for woman that started with the beginning of time. Eve wasn’t placed into the Garden of Eden and left to wander around deciding if she would become a wife or if she would live on her own, provide for herself, and remain childless. She was presented to Adam, given to him to be his helper, his wife.

In Genesis 1:28 it starts out And God blessed them. Why? Because as verse 27 says they were ‘male and female’, because as verse 28 goes on to say they were to be ‘fruitful and multiply’. These weren’t curses. They weren’t punishments. They were blessings. Being made a man wasn’t a curse. Being made a woman wasn’t a curse. It was a blessing. The roles given to each weren’t something to try and get away from, to be avoided. They were a blessing because they defined who each one was. Being fruitful and multiplying wasn’t a curse, it wasn’t something to look at as a hinderance to the life you wanted. Quite simply it was the life they were designed for. It was the first requirement God put on Adam and Eve. They were to have children, to fill the earth and subdue it.

God made a helper for Adam, presented her to him, and told them to have children and take control over all the earth and everything on it. There was no choice in that. He didn’t ask them if they’d rather have children or if they’d rather go about their business thinking only of themselves and the things they wanted. He told them to have children.

And God blessed them.

Scripture goes on to give certain roles to each gender. There are roles assigned to wives, to husbands. There are instructions given to parents, to mothers, to fathers. Verse after verse throughout Scripture gives instructions to families, gives them roles, tells them who they are to be, how they are to act.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled Titus 2:3-5

Women…train the young women to love their husbands and children...

How can a woman train, or teach, another woman to love her husband and children unless she herself has loved her husband and children? I can’t teach someone how to build a house because I’ve never built one nor can I teach them how to repair a motor in a vehicle. Those are things I’ve never done. Because I’ve never done them I can’t teach those skills to someone else. Before I could teach them to someone I would first have to learn them, would have to do them often enough to know how so that I could teach someone else.

That same set of verses goes on to say that women are working at home. If we’re working at home…are we chasing careers? Are we putting a job above our family? Do we even have an outside job? We can’t work at home if we’re working in the world.

There are people that would argue that. People that would say you can work at home and in the work place. Maybe you can but our own society defines women one of two ways…you’re either a homemaker or you have a job description. Every form you ever fill out that asks for your type of employment gets one or the other. If you’re a teacher in the public school system you list teacher under employment. You don’t list teacher and homemaker. You can’t be both. You’re either one or the other. Either you work at home, caring for your family, or you work in some field. It’s an either or situation. There is no middle ground. Are you a homemaker or do you have a job?

Are you working at home or in the workforce?

Women were designed for a reason. We were given certain roles in life. We started life as daughters, we may be sisters. We are wives, mothers. This is the role the Lord gave to us. Whatever other plan He may have for us, whatever other work (I’m not talking about a paying job) He may want us to do, whatever else He has in store for us…

We were created to be woman.

We were created to be helpers.

We were created to be wives.

We were created to be mothers.