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[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]A survey from The Pew Research Center reports what married people rate as the most important features to a successful marriage. 93% report that faithfulness is the most prominent feature to a successful marriage, 70% say a happy sexual relationship. Other important features are adequate incomes, good housing, and shared religious beliefs, all of which are rated “very important” to a successful marriage by fully half of all married Americans. Sadly, the survey reports that only two out of five couples consider children to be “very important” to a successful marriage.
According to the book American Families and Households by James A. Sweet and Larry L. Bumpass, they tracked the married couples having children and evaluated the differences every ten years. Americans have been having less and less children as time goes by and significantly less since the 1980’s. This is no surprise, since, apparently less than half of Americans consider children to be important to a successful marriage, but will rate money and good living situations as of higher importance. It is sad to think that so many married couples in America do not deem the act of having children as being as important to their marriage as material and financial comfort, when the only reason they are alive is because their parents must have considered having children as being of importance, to have them.
Speaking merely from personal experience, I have seen that the most beautiful marriages, the ones that impressed me the most and the ones in which I saw the most love manifested, were from couples who had or were having children. Given that many difficulties and challenges come with having children, there is also great growth that happens in the marriage because of that. I know that in my parents’ life, they grew immensely and learned more about themselves and each other than they would have been able to, had they not had children. Having watched many marriages in family friends and speaking with them about their marriage, I have never had a couple tell me that they regretted having children and in fact, most tell me that they would have had more children and not waited as long until having them.
One of the many reactions parents have after having children is that they now know and understand love on a deeper level than they thought possible and have a more pure understanding of the love of the Father for His children. There is truly something miraculous about a man and a woman creating life and then being able to raise that child and see his/her growth. This miracle is surely a window into God’s love for us.
Personally, I have always loved hanging out with children and babysitting all aged kids for family friends and relatives, often times for free growing up. I’ve found that it is such a blessing to see the child-like innocence in the younger children and complete dependence on their parents and on me when I would watch them. I also enjoy being able to see the crazy energy and love of everything in the children slightly older. One of the sweetest things about children is being able to identify yourself at some point in your life, in them. It’s good to always remember that the same utter dependence that young children have on their parents is how our relationship with God should look like.
Biblically speaking, the first commandment in the Bible is to “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). As simple of a verse as it is, I believe we would do well to recognize that the Lord wishes for married couples to be fruitful. Psalm 127:3-5 says, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” I believe that due to our culture, we have begun to believe that having fewer children is better because it’s less work and leaves more enjoyment between husband and wife, but according to scripture, children are “a reward”.
In John 16:21, it says, “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” Apparently, scripture is saying that true joy actually comes from having children; more so than just or exclusively enjoying one’s spouse, though that is also a blessing. Jesus is saying that all sorrow is forgotten at the birth of a human being, which is a miracle we can’t even fathom. That is why David says in Psalm 139, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before on of them came to be” (Psalm 139:13-16). I pray that we may come to value and love the fact that we were once small and known by the Lord, before we came into being as David does, and let that love manifest itself in our love and appreciation of children; and may we as Christians come to realize the true gift of children in our lives as we go on into the marriages that God has in store for us.
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