Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to wake up, look up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weirock. And in today's episode, we're talking about falling birth rates, and we're asking the question, did therapy kill parents? This is prompted by an article I read in the New York Times by Michael Leibowitz about the link between therapy culture and childlessness.

It's an interesting concept. Let me start with this. The United States fertility rate, the rate at which people are having children, has hit a record low. In fact, in 2023, it was lower than it has ever been in the history of the country. And this is overwhelmingly because millennials are having less children than any generation before them.

And the article was making the point that there's a connection between the millennial reluctance to have children and the fact that millennials are going to therapy at a higher rate than any generation before them. And the link is this, the more you go to therapy to process your own childhood, the more childhood experiences are labeled as trauma, and that trauma begins to inform the way you think about yourself, the less interested you are in becoming a parent yourself. It follows pretty simply like this. If my parents screwed me up, then what are the odds that I won't screw my own children up as well? And this is exacerbated by the fact that twenty seven percent of Americans currently report being estranged from at least one family member.

There's at least one family member they're no longer speaking to. So you got all this swirling in the air. I'm processing all the things my parents got wrong. I'm falling apart or away from my own family. So why would I wanna start a family only to repeat that cycle only on the opposite end?

It's increasingly feeling like, at least for millennials, that the tough task of parenting isn't worth it because it leads to trauma for your children and for you. It leads to families falling apart, not coming together. Now on Wooloo, we've covered falling birth rates a few times. It's something I think our society should be worried about. People are just not having kids, and we're going to that's going to lead to some serious problems in the future.

But for now, let's set aside the need to have children and focus more on how we understand our own childhood and particularly how that informs the task of parenting or grandparenting or whatever our interaction with children will be. Let me let me start here. Remember that the gospel is the idea that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God has adopted us into his family. One of the things that salvation in Christ does is swallow up any former attachment. I mean, I sit here as a a middle aged white guy who's a husband, a father, a son, and a brother.

Those identities matter, but none of them are fundamentally my identity because fundamentally who I am is a son of God brought into adoption through Jesus Christ. My primary understanding of myself and even hope for the future is the new birth that brought me into the family of God and the holy spirit of God who lives in me. Christians don't believe we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of previous generations. We're not even doomed to to, commit the the mistakes of our previous lives. We are set free from who we used to be and made new in Christ.

So while therapy might help you process what your parents got wrong or even what you got wrong, it is not predictive of your future because Jesus has and is and will change you. So important to understand. The other thing I'll say is this, is I I've gone to therapy. I've talked about that a lot in Wulu and in other places, and I've had to process even some of the things that that my parents got wrong or things that I got wrong with them. But here's where I eventually had to get.

Forgiveness is where God wants to take me, not bitterness. Forgiveness heals. Psychology diagnoses, but it doesn't ultimately bring the restoration or reconciliation that only Christ can bring. I have to be able to say to my parents, hey. Were you perfect?

No. Did you get some things wrong? Yes. But, ultimately, your hope is the same as my hope, that Jesus Christ took all of your sins, all of your shortcomings, all of your mistakes to the cross, that he paid for them and rose from the dead able to set me free from those things. It is not my job to perpetually hold anyone accountable or punish anyone for what they've got wrong because there's a reckoning coming and that's why Jesus came for you, for me, for my parents, and for yours.

I also want you to keep in mind that God redeems broken past. I mean, think about Joseph in the book of Genesis telling his brothers what you intended for evil, God has used for good. Being aware of past traumas in your family is a reminder that God has worked in and through and around those things to get you to a place of healing to a future that is brighter. Parenting is about stewarding the children God gives us. It's not about perfection.

The hope of a parent is the same hope of a child. That Jesus Christ is our perfection. He stood in our place. So listen, process past heart. Process broken family relationships, but do not be defined by them.

You are not doomed to be your parents. You're not even doomed to be the you you were yesterday because Christ is making all things, including you, new. Hey. Thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up Look Up. If you enjoyed it, please help us get the word out by sharing it with someone you think might benefit from it.

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