Wake Up, Look Up

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Hello, everyone.
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Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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I'm Zach Weihrauch.
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In today's episode, we're talking about expensive children.
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We're asking the question, is it financially unwise to be a parent?

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This is prompted by an article in The Wall Street Journal recently that was looking at a particular family in Cincinnati and their struggle to raise their five children on working class wages.
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They have made the choice to have five children despite the fact that they live on about $45,000 a year.
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And the article was looking at this family because it's kind of defying a national trend.
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Increasingly, as we've talked about here on Hulu, Americans are having less children.
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And one of the reasons people are citing having less kids is how expensive it is.

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In fact, a recent study indicates that to raise a child from birth to 18, not counting college, costs about $300,000, which would mean this family in Cincinnati is undergoing a $1,500,000 commitment on $45,000 a year, which you can do the math and realize, that isn't really going to add up.
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And they talk about things like the mom having to navigate.
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Do I work, but childcare is so expensive?
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Wouldn't I just be treading water?
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There's a lot of really good discussion in there, but but what I found most interesting is the mom and dad saying they have no regrets.

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They wouldn't go back and have less kids.
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They wouldn't go back and do anything differently because they think the value of their family supersedes whatever the financial hardship might be.
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And I wanted to take an episode and look at this question because I think it's bouncing around in the hearts of many younger people who are thinking about the kind of life and the kind of future that they might want to have or not want to have.
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Let me start here.
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I believe for those of us that decide to get married that there is a biblical mandate to see children as a positive, to actually want and pursue having children.

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This goes all the way back to Genesis one, which says that god wanted Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and have dominion over it.
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The bible has a very positive view of children time and time again reinforcing their value and reinforcing the blessing they are to their families.
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In fact, I would be so bold as to say, I actually won't marry a couple that says that they're not going to have children.
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I understand couples struggle with infertile infertility.
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I understand couples get married at different stages in life.

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I certainly am not in the business of telling people how many kids they have to have.
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But I think saying you don't want children puts you at odds with what the Bible says is actually valuable.
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You're taking a counter view to children as to what God himself says.
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And that view, by the way, is hurting our culture.
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We've talked about how declining birth rates in the short term might not seem like a big deal, but in the long term have massive implications.

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That's because it's the reversal of the human job, which is to fill the earth, to populate it, to rule it as vice regents under God.
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But here's the second thing.
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Children are expensive, which is why frugality is a biblical value, stewardship.
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Paul says it this way in Philippians four.
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He says, look, I've had times where I've had a lot.

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I've had times where I've had a little.
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But in all things, I have learned to be content.
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Contentment is the secret here.
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Look, I don't know where they get the number that children cost $300,000.
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I have never done the math over how much my kids cost for two reasons.

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One is I don't wanna know.
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And two, I don't place numeric value on the people that I love.
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But I will say this, what makes life expensive is not children.
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What makes life expensive is materialism.
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It's the idea that we have to put our kids in great clothes, take them out to eat instead of making frugal choices like cooking dinner at home or even thrifting.

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There are a lot of ways to raise children that aren't super expensive or they wouldn't do it in Bolivia.
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You you get my point.
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What we need to push back against is not children as though they're born saying, mom and dad, you don't love me unless you put me in Lululemon.
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Children are not the problem.
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It's our own insecurity.

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It's our own desire for status.
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That's why the bible tells us to love kids and to be good stewards of our resources.
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Listen, the church has to lead out in this, championing children, championing the family, and supporting those who are struggling.
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Don't forget that the Bible tells us in Proverbs thirty one nine to defend the rights of the poor and needy.
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Listen.

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I want to see politicians who stop taking shots at each other on Twitter, who stop yelling at each other all the time, and start taking seriously the working class family.
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Because in my book, those are the families in most in need of help.
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They're hustling.
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They're grinding.
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They're doing everything that they can do.

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And in America, if you're a mom and dad who want to work hard and want to take care of your family, you ought to be able to do that.
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And I think we should be pushing more and more for concrete solutions that help.
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Let me end here with that.
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Raising kids isn't easy.
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We know that.

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Which is why you should be finding, if you don't have kids, if your kids are grown, or if you're doing great, you have kids and there's no problem paying the bills, find a way to be generous.
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Grab a young couple with kids and take them to dinner.
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I can remember when people did that for Amy and I.
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It was awesome.
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We never went out to eat.

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Stop by with a couple bags of groceries.
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Show up with a box of diapers.
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And when you give it to them, tell them, hey.
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You are doing exactly what God wants you to do.
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He's with you.

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I'm with you.
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Keep going.
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And what you're gonna find is that tired parents have wind in their sails because of you.
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Children matter, and they're not a number, and the church should be the one saying that.
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This episode of Wake Up, Look Up was produced by Marcus Cunningham and Hallie Andrews.

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Our topic researcher is Shanna Young.
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This episode was directed by Reema Saleh.
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Our podcast coordinator is Hallie Andrews.
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Our production manager and audio wizard is Marcus Cunningham with tech and engineering support from Matthew Adle and Landon Hall.
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I'm your host, Zach Weihrauch.

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Join us for the next episode of Wake Up, Look Up.