Our Culture is Anti-Children

 

Here is another excerpt from my upcoming book on marriage and family. Children are one of God’s greatest gifts in this world. But our modern culture is very much against having children, in practice, if not always exactly in statement. I have seen the teaching which I share in this section of the book actually encourage people to invest in their marriages and take delight in having children. I will explore this topic in much more detail in the book.

“Since we have covered in detail how marriage is a sexual union, it is more than appropriate that we move on to talking about the blessing of children. This is the natural fruit of sex in marriage. We are still going to be looking at this from the lens of Matthew 19, and as we move forward we are going to look at marriage from various angles, we will even address the topic of singleness. But it would be remiss of me if I wrote about marriage and did not contemplate the blessing of children. Which is part of this passage anyway.

I want to state right from the start here that I understand not everyone can have children. Maybe you never married and therefore children are off the cards, unless you fall into sin of course. Maybe you are married and this just never worked out for you. If you are in this bracket, I understand that this chapter could bring up some pain and difficulty for you, but I have some stuff for you towards the end, so hang in there.

Even though things can go wrong for some people, that does not mean that we should ignore what the Bible teaches us about one of the core purposes of marriage, or of one of the greatest possible joys you can have in this world. No career matches the joys of being a parent. If you doubt that, just remember how many famous people with dream careers end themselves in tragic ways, or work themselves to the top of the social hierarchy, and find that they are still unhappy. Also consider how many successful people are lonely because they chose career over family.

I remember reading an op-ed in a prominent magazine years ago written by a woman who worked her way to the top of her industry. She was the CEO of an important company. Yet, she found herself walking down the beach one day while on holidays and she realized at that moment that she did not have anyone in the world who she could share such a moment with. It hit her in that moment that she had given up every opportunity to become a wife and mum, and she now regretted that. Sure, it is also true that plenty of parents can become depressed as well, but that is more about how they approach parenting and life, rather than it being a result of being a parent. Parenting is something powerful that God offers to the simple and the great. What a great gift.

It is also important to teach this message to push back against our freedom worshipping anti-children culture. This world goes out of its way to encourage people to avoid having children altogether. To such a degree science has even been corrupted to make it possible for people to enjoy sex without receiving the historically common fruit of sex; children. So, we are going to look at what the Bible says today about the blessings of children, but before we do that, we have to address why our culture hates children so much.

We Live in an Antichrist culture (Matt. 19:13-15)

You might think that this is a strange title for a point about why our culture hates children so much, but it really isn’t, because the passage we are beginning with says this,

“13 Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, 14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” 15 And he laid his hands on them and went away.”

Jesus Christ honoured children in a way that few others have in history, probably like no other. We even see with his disciples that they disdained children because they tried to keep them away. But Jesus had already shown back in chapter 18 that we should regard children highly,

“1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”

We are going to come back to these passages soon, but it is vital to start here because it is important to show that when we say that we live in an anti-child culture that is equivalent to saying we live in an antichrist culture. It is vital that we understand that. It is vital that you understand that. If you have disdain for children you are in opposition to Jesus, it is that simple. There is no room for ambiguity here. In some way, for whatever reason, you have been severely broken, because that is what it takes to hate that which God loves. Sadly, though, this is a common perspective amongst modern people. So why is our culture so antichildren? Well, I think there are many reasons.

Hyper-individualism

We live in a hyper-individualistic, consumeristic culture. This is not an exaggeration, either. The signs of this are all over the place. You see it in how advertising is designed to provoke the love of self. You see it in how politicians seek to put forward policies serving people’s self interest. You see it in how contracts in sport, and other parts of society, really do not mean much today. Self-interest is the highest priority of almost every aspect of our society. Even many people apply this to how they choose their own church and how they choose to leave that church.

We are also a people who want to have experiences, because we are addicted to that. Some people really want to travel overseas and see the world. Kids make that harder, much harder, even if you have money, having children in tow limits what you can do right? Some people just want to van it up and travel the country in their twenties and get their experiences in before they are bogged down with a job, family and kids. Some people just want to experience non-stop socialite culture or be perpetual adolescents.  

Have you seen that T.V. show Friends? It is an older show now, but it still rates high on modern streaming platforms. The show is funny at times, but really it is about a bunch of losers who were acting like immature 19 year olds well into their early 30’s. That is what makes the show funny. Their lives are easily made light of, because they act so ludicrously. There was a whole storyline for one of the characters about how terrified he was to turn 30, because that meant he had to “grow up.” The show should really have been called “Arrested Development”, though, of course a show called that does exist, and is also funny, because it touches on some very similar themes.

I watched Friends again not too long ago. I actually never enjoyed it when I was younger, but I wanted to see what it was like to watch one of the most popular nineties comedies in our day and age. Of course, the show is hyper-individualism incarnate. Part of the reason shows like this are funny is because the characters’ lives are a tragedy. The difference between tragedy and comedy is timing, right? But what is a greater tragedy is how many people want to emulate this way of life. You are not supposed to want to be the clown, people, just laugh with and at him. 

We are incredibly self-focused, but in a destructive way in this culture. Selfishness exists in all cultures, but at least many other cultures direct it towards production, we westerners direct it mostly towards consumption, and this influences our anti-child philosophy. In the minds of many people children make it harder to consume what they want, and therefore harder to enjoy life. Hence, for people such as this, their motivation is to avoid having children, as much as possible.  

Education

More specifically the way we do education. Our schooling system, its structure, philosophy, and emphasis is antichildren. Some people will find this incredulous, as the system is created to serve children, and the private system especially requires a steady inflow of new students to make the incredible profits that many Christian schools make. But, let me make my case and then you make your own mind.

Kids are being put into the school system earlier and earlier, and they are trained from almost day dot to answer this one question: what do you want to do when you grow up? The focus of the schooling system is to make sure that young men and women are forged into worker drones and because of this many of them often lack basic life skills. As you have heard many young people say, “Why was I never taught how to do my taxes?” This is just one example of this situation. In high-school young boys and girls are at their most susceptible position in their lives to the suggestions of those they believe to be authorities. This just happens to be exactly when they are filled with all kinds of confusing identity issues and secular values that are designed to trend them towards a sterile economic and self-indulgent existence, and away from thinking about family for some time, often well into adulthood. At this vulnerable age they are constantly asked by their guidance counsellor, career advisor, teachers, parents, youth pastors, friends, parents friends, and basically every single person that they meet: "What do you want to do?" This is because multiple generations have now been conditioned by this very system.

Socialists and communists worked out a long time ago that the longer you keep women in the education system the less children they are likely to have. Did you know that? And as many women find out, the longer you delay having kids the harder it becomes. Often, once a not-so-young-woman starts looking around to find someone, they find that it is not as easy to select someone to have children with as they thought it would be. On top of that, they often find out, quite cruelly, that their body is not as willing as it would have been if they had begun when they were younger. This leaves many women bitter. 

You do not even have to really tell these young women not to have kids, they are trained to suppress all motherly instincts by the system. The boys are also not being trained to be fathers either. How many young men enter adulthood as actual young men, and not oversized boys? This happens in large part because of our current education system. Most parents just expect the schools to teach their kids everything they need to learn. Most schools just assume parents are teaching them the things they are not. Kids sit in the middle of this and miss out on many important aspects of life that they need to be taught to be wise and functioning adults and then move on to this in marriage and family life. In fact, in many ways they are actively steered away from planning for it. And then when they finally do enter it, they are forced to learn how to approach family life while hitting the ground running and when they are already far behind the eightball.   

What impact do you think this has on their psyches as they develop? It causes a delay in development into adulthood. Instead of seeing 18 as adulthood, as it once was, or even 21, like Joey in friends, some think adulthood is for much older people. Now these ages of 18 and 21 are just the legal age where you can act like a cashed-up kid who can drink alcohol and get a credit card. Our western way of raising kids is delaying their development. We have taken Arrested Development and made it a societal strategy…”