Simply Divine

Child Care Is Good Hard Work

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage."

True no more, of course. Gen X and Millennials have been working for some time now to tear down the bridge between love and marriage. And now, Gen Z is doing its best to obliterate the "logical next step" of becoming a parent.

On the day after Valentine's Day this year, The Spectator ran a story entitled "What does Gen Z have against motherhood?"¹ Fertility rates, writes Freya India, are plummeting all across the developed world. And while the reasons for this are varied—career aspirations, feminism, economic insecurity, etc.—an even greater reason may be a simpler one. Writes India, "Increasingly, millennials—and my generation, Gen Z—see parenthood as restrictive, inconvenient, and somewhat irrational."

Nowhere is this more on display than on TikTok, where "thousands of women wonder why anyone would choose to have children and forgo their freedom to party, go on guilt-free girls' nights and maximize their income." Collected under the hashtag #childfree, these women post videos of their globe-trotting, wine-drinking, slimness-maintaining lifestyles and question why anyone would ever give up what they have for a life of diaper-changing, tantrum-extinguishing, and minivan-driving. "These days," India continues, "society presents material comfort as the ultimate goal, encourages us to satisfy our own desires and to cast off responsibility."

Certainly, such comfort-seeking does give fertility numbers a blow. But moms themselves do just as badly by insisting that everyone constantly acknowledge the "brutal reality" of their job. Just as pictures of flat-bellied, youthful-complexioned women drinking margaritas on the beach in Bora Bora tend to turn younger women away from motherhood, so do graphic horror stories of labor and delivery gone wrong, diaper explosions in the backseat, or the viral TikTok video of a mom "broadcasting" her son's timeout for throwing a ketchup-covered fork during a meal at the Olive Garden.²

Overcorrection

At Time, Lucy Huber reacts against such imagery, recalling how comments of friends, family, and strangers alike to her pregnancy all seemed pointedly anti-child: "Hope you're ready to never sleep again." "All your hair is going to fall out." "Just wait until he's a toddler."³ As the months wore on, the comments took their toll on Huber: "I began to wonder if anyone actually liked having children. Nobody seemed to have anything good to say." But then she became a mother and discovered the sheer joy that parenthood can bring. Why aren't more people telling those stories, she asks?

Huber suggests that sometime within the past couple of decades, people decided it was time to be more honest about child-rearing. It is hard work. It's not all puppies and sunshine and rainbows. But somewhere along the way, we actually overcorrected. Now all we hear about parenthood is the sheer exhaustion, grossness, and emotional turmoil it entails. All we see in our Pinterest and Instagram feeds are images of women covered in spit-up and eating chocolate in the seclusion of their pantries while their children stand screaming outside the door.

Greater Rewards

What both the "childless by choice" and "motherhood is brutally hard and exhausting" narratives miss, though, is the simple good of parenthood. By "good," I don't mean some kind of satisfaction or happiness that children bring to parents—although they do, and we should tell a lot more of those stories to counteract the negative narratives. Rather, motherhood—parenthood—is a good because God has created it to be so: "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28). "Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord; the fruit of the womb is a reward" (Psalms 127:3). Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:14). "Children's children are the crown of old men, and the glory of children is their father" (Proverbs 17:6).

Christians accept that children are good, because God has made them so. They accept that family is good, because it is an institution ordained by God. When we accept these gifts from God, we may not find ourselves fashionably sipping cocktails on a rooftop bar in Paris, or shopping for designer duds in Milan (although we may—kids don't exclude all fun), but we will find ourselves reaping rewards far greater. We find ourselves doing God's work, furthering his kingdom, partaking in his creative gift. We receive the blessings of family love and companionship, the joy of watching our children learn to navigate the world by themselves, and the care our children give to us as we get older. And we are sanctified more each day, as the Holy Spirit works within us to help us lay down our selfish ambitions and worldly pride and seek the good of others instead.

Notes
1. Freya India, "What does Gen Z have against motherhood?" The Spectator (Feb. 15, 2022): spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-gen-z-against-motherhood.
2. See tiktok.com/@kaylareporting/video/7048395428055993647.
3. Lucy Huber, "The Hidden Truth About Parenting Isn't That It's Really Hard," Time (Feb. 17, 2022): time.com/6148022/parenting-good-parts-happiness.