Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. Psalm 127:5

There was a time when public high schools, in an attempt at teaching parental responsibility, would send students home for a weekend with a baby-doll. The student was then to care for this “baby” for the weekend. The details are now sketchy in my memory but there was a way the school tracked if the baby was left or uncared for. The goal, though not stated this way, was to teach that babies are a pain in the neck that you really don’t want to be burdened by.

Fast forward twenty years to the current rage, Facebook memes. There are many out there to do with the overwhelming responsibility of parenthood. If you see the meme, you must bring wine to the overdone Mom asap!

Others have to do with how horrible the house-keeping work is or how bad the time spent in the van on the way to some sporting event is. The cumulative message is that parenting is a burden. To the world this may seem right but it is a completely ungodly attitude for a mother to have regarding her children and responsibilities at home.

Please do not get me wrong. I know it can be exhausting if you have a bunch of kids and are trying to keep life in every sphere going. But, I also know that we are to be content with what (and whom) God gives us and what He tells us are “rewards and a heritage,” or that (when disciplined) they will bring “delight to your heart,” that we should treat children as gifts from Him, not burdens to tolerate until we can have the next glass of wine or vacation away from them. Whew!

I fear that humanistic teaching has taken root in the children of God. We have taken something God calls a reward and made it a burden, or worse, a punishment. Children, when viewed from the biblical perspective, will be understood as the fruit of obedience to God in “multiplying and filling the earth” as well as an additional help in taking dominion of the earth.

The family is God’s creation. Further, it is His foundation for the structure of every society. Do we really want to hand down teaching that is assisting in dismantling what God has set in place?

Mom, are you distressed because you so believed the teaching (that kids are a royal pain) that you now live like it is true? Do we have a generation (or 2) who have been taught that they are pains, so now they do as expected? Or, can Moms re-frame their thinking to what God says is true, “Children are a reward, a heritage of the Lord” (Psalm 127:3)?