Don't Have Kids

In the height of wasting some time online the other night, I came across this gem, "28 Reasons You're Better off Never Having Kids".  [not rated G].

Allow me to get out my soapbox...

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...ok, here we go.

Now, I can fully grasp any number of serious reasons for not having children, and I can completely comprehend that a fulfilling life can be lead sans offspring, and I am well aware that some people are not ready, or not able to have children.

How-ever.

This piece, however playfully meant, does an injustice to parents and those without children alike.

It says to the childless: you can live as selfishly as possible.  You can sleep whenever you want. You can eat whatever you want. You can party, and have a cleaner home, and travel, and go to the bathroom alone, and have more money, and swear (yes, that was on the list...!) all on your own, as much as you would like, with no strings attached...just don't have kids.

And, just as callously, it says to the parents: your life sucks.

just your basic poster-children parents, right here...
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They are wrong, and they are wrong on both counts.  To be childless does not mean that you have any right to be a selfish, self-centered person with nothing better to do than take naps.  To be a parent does not mean that you have no enjoyments in life, and have given up on any indulgences, and all sleep or health. These things have more truism than truth to them.

I would argue, that the strings that children attach to us (heart-strings, if you will, as I'm trying to be dramatic...), are entirely worth it.  Children are everything that that silly internet fodder meme-list is saying they are. Children are annoying, they are messy, they are enormously inconvenient. They take up enormous, and often baffling amounts of time, energy, and money.

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And yet, that is the point.  The demands that our children make upon us take us outside of ourselves, and draw us closer to Heaven. 

heart-strings...

On the flip-side, it is offensive to think that folks with no kids are as shallow as that piece makes them out to be. The people in my life who are childless are in fact extremely generous souls.  One of my dearest friends has no children, and is one of the most mother-ly women I know, caring for her family, friends and community in countless ways.  Another childless friend pours what seems to be every waking minute into caring for those in medical crisis. Those without children are called to live selflessly in other ways, to highlight and bring about the good, the true, and the beautiful with the time, energy, and strength that we parents lack.

source/Shel Silverstein

God calls each person or couple to a certain life. He calls some to have 7 children. He calls some to have no children.  He calls no one to live for the self.  Each of us must pour out our lives, must lay down our selfishness, to make any progress.  It truly is "in giving that we receive, in dying that we are born to eternal life".  The death that St. Francis speaks of in that prayer must for certain be our death to self, for that is what Christ did for us.