I went to the dentist today . . .

I took my second son to the dentist today, again. Last week we had a morning of dental check-ups - 10 children's teeth were cleaned and examined. The next day, two went back for fillings, and I took the 4 smallest so the big kids could "get something done", but all they got done was help the younger, more dependent schoolers get their stuff done. So today I took one for fillings, and 7 of the youngest 8, with everyone's phonics, handwriting, spelling and math in tow.

Normally when I go to the dentist office I don't talk to people very much. They usually just stare and try to figure me out while I take care of my babies and watch the movie without sound and try to figure out what is happening. But today there was a delightful woman sitting next to me, and we quickly found a great deal of common ground, home schooling, knowing some of the same people, adoption interest, and she had had 5 kids in 4+ years.

Also there was another very pleasant lady who noticed and counted my children and commented frequently, and positively, about our size and how cute they all are and how I'm a saint for having so many.

All good, right?

In the context of these really enjoyable conversations with very positive and gracious women, I bumped into two cultural points of grief. I'm calling them cultural, but really they are just abiblical concepts. They might seem logical, but they are not what the Bible says. Here is the first:

Birth control is like a seatbelt.






I do not know how to spell the agony I feel at this idea. Let me 'splain. A seatbelt keeps you safe in the case that something bad happens. It keeps you alive and in your vehicle and hopefully prevents some whiplash. By contrast, birth control keeps you from having a baby when something good happens.

So in that analogy,
driving a car = a healthy marriage relationship
wearing a seatbelt = birth control
being fertile = a car wreck
getting pregnant = a bad injury or death

Right? Am I missing something? A baby is compared to something really bad. This is very sad and wrong. Babies are not, contrary to popular belief, valued based on how much you want them. Babies are all equally valuable before God!!!!!!! People are all equally valuable to God! Aren't you glad? Maybe you were conceived by "accident". Aren't you glad you are not less valuable???

Second grievious error: you should only have the number of children that you can both provide "comfortably" for and send to college so they can continue in that "comfort". Sigh.

People who grow up having everything they want seem much more likely to go into debt as adults. That's anecdotal, yes, but I bet research would back me up.

Both ideas seem pretty rational, but are not Biblical! The Bible does not teach that prosperity is the ultimate decision making factor. Remember the guy who wanted to follow Jesus, and was told to go sell everything he had? Jesus didn't see earthly wealth as a deal-breaker. At least, not the way we do. In fact, He said it was hard for the wealthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That would be us. Wealthy. So I am sorry, but my children's relative wealth is not a determinant for reproduction.

Like I said, these people I talked to were delightful - not unpleasant at all. They were completely positive about my children and children in general. (except for the whole the-good-thing-about-grandchildren-is-that-you-get-to-give-them-back thing . . . by implication, I would like my children much better if I could just send them away when they are bad, which is a whole nuther can of worms) But these sad "truths" were expressed during our conversation and made my heart sad.

Here is what the Bible says:

Children are a(n) heritage from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward. The Lord opens and closes the womb. Be fruitful and multiply. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. I have been young and now I am old and I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor their children begging bread. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.


Without bias, without deciding ahead of time what you want it to say, search the scripture and see what it says about babies/children/people. God calls them good gifts, ever, only, always. We do not wear seatbelts to protect ourselves from good things.

"Put your seatbelt on honey, so you don't get a raise." "Don't forget to fasten your seatbelt dear, you don't want health and happiness." "Hey, why aren't you wearing a seatbelt, we don't want to be blessed beyond measure, do we?" See, those are ridiculous statements, aren't they? But it's essentially the same thing.

If we had a God with limitations, or no God at all, if life really was measured by how many toys you have at the end, or the cost per plate at your children's wedding receptions, or by how soon you get your kids out of the house, or by how young you retire, if money really did make people happy, then it would make complete sense to limit the size of our families based on money. But none of those things are true.

Seatbelts. Really.