If you are anything like me, a planner, then the discussion about having children included talking about everyone’s favorite subject: MONEY! How much do we have right now, how much are we going to have by the time he/she is born, how much is college going to cost us, what if our child is a girl…? You always hear that having children is so expensive. When John and I were first married, we naturally talked about children. We both already knew that we wanted kids, but when and how many? I leaned on the side of waiting a while (maybe 5 years) because we needed to save up a lot of money, while John sided with starting soon so that we could have time for a large family.
During these months of discussion with John, I was working in the Duke ER. There I met an ER nurse, male, in his 40s. He had 6 kids! And his wife stayed at home. He made the same amount of money as me, which was not that much back then. After revealing to me that he had 6 kids I had to ask how they afforded it. And his response shocked me. “What do you mean how do I afford it?” We dialogued about it frequently and after asking some of my “unfiltered” questions, I learned that NO they were not on government assistance as you might think. They lived very simple. One car, small house, no cable, and he wouldn’t change it for anything! He told me they live a very blessed life and was fortunate to have what they did. I thought he was crazy at first, but now I’m not so sure. I have never forgotten his story and what a lesson it was for me.
So, was one more mouth to feed really going to break the bank, or was it the reality of having to love, teach, shape and embrace another person 24 hours a day for the rest of their life that scared me? Considering all this, college funds shouldn’t be a prerequisite to conception. I don’t want to be misinterpreted, we knew we had to be responsible for our child’s well being, food/shelter, but finally realizing that showing a child the love of Christ and raising them up in the Lord was our most important role.
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
John and I had a similar discussion when I decided to stay home as mentioned in an earlier blog. Could we afford for me to stay home? A question that I hear so often from other working moms. When I was doing some web browsing I found a poll that said 90% of working mothers would stay at home if they could afford it. While this might be a reality for some, I can guarantee that this is not true for all 90%. What the 90% should say is I can’t afford my current LIFESTYLE to stay at home with my child. This was a difficult realization for me but was it was necessary for me to finally understand in order for God to use me as he intended in our home. No, we couldn’t afford for me to stay home if I shopped at Nordstrom, bought groceries from Whole Foods, if we were members of a work out club, had 500 channels on cable TV, owned a brand new, high-end “mommy” SUV, and went out to eat multiple times per week. But God called me to have children and let them be a blessing for us, and I wasn’t going to let my fleshly desires get in the way of God’s blessings upon us...
Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
What do you think about putting off children until the bank account is overflowing?
