Is It A Moral Duty To Have Children?

It’s an obvious fact that most people like kids. I myself look forward to the day when my husband and I have little ones of our own. However, I hear many people talk about having children as if it’s a moral duty for couples to reproduce. If a couple doesn’t have kids then they’re treated like there’s something very wrong with them and/or they’re living in sin.
This is a very common attitude which I’ve observed, but there are some couples who seem to have had children for selfish motives, and their kids suffer for it. I wondered if it’s possible for people to have kids for the wrong reasons, and I wondered if it’s truly a moral duty for all couples to reproduce. Thinking of a wise, godly person with children of her own to give me a detailed answer, I made the obvious choice and asked my mother.

She sent me the following email:

 

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Anna, you asked whether couples have a moral duty to have children. It’s an interesting discussion, isn’t it? Here are some thoughts of mine.

1. Each time the earth was empty, at creation and after the flood, God told people to be fruitful and fill it.

To Adam and Eve – 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.'”

Genesis 9:1, ” And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.'”

Does this mean that we are sinning if we are not doing this?
A. The Bible says God opens and closes wombs, so we know that childlessness in itself is not sinful. God would never cause sin. Infertile couples are not sinning, nor is their infertility necessarily a result of sin (e.g. Hannah and Sarah, God closed their wombs for many years, but not due to sin, it was because He had particular purpose for their lives.)
B. Paul said that he chose to remain single. In choosing that, he was choosing not to be fruitful and multiply. The Bible indicates that this is a good thing if people are gifted for singleness. Again, singleness and childlessness is good if it is being used for God’s purposes and glory.
C. The admonition to be fruitful and fill the earth may have been intended for the people as a nation, not necessarily for each individual (even though it was spoken to individuals who were beginning the nations). Another example of a command with this difference is that when someone murdered someone else, Israel as a nation was commanded to kill the murderer, but the relatives were not to get revenge on the murderer as individuals.

We are made in the image of God, who creates and cares for His creation. So my belief is that, in most cases, people who are emotionally, physically and spiritually healthy will find a desire in their hearts to have children. However, it seems clear to me that some will not have this desire, and that lack of desire may be there by God’s purpose in their life.

2. The Bible makes is clear that children are a blessing from the Lord, so some argue that if you reject God’s blessing (like Esau scorned his birthright or people reject salvation) then you are rejecting God Himself. For this reason, some people, like the Duggar family, who have 21 kids, will not use birth control. My argument against that is that God expects His blessings to be used wisely by us. Food is also a blessing, but the Bible says it’s gluttony to eat without restraint. If it’s OK to say no to food sometimes, it’s OK to say no to kids sometimes, logically. Kids are indeed a blessing, but these verses aren’t commanding you to have kids, they’re simply saying that if you have them, understand that they were gifted to you by God and value them accordingly.

3. Paul told Timothy 1 Timothy 5:14 “So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.” But what was the sin he was speaking against in this case? He was not calling singleness, nor childlessness, a sin. He was concerned because these young women were acting as gossips and busybodies, stirring up trouble and disunity, and he was telling Timothy, “They need to be busy with something productive in their lives.”

4. There is a cultural aspect. In group-oriented societies, especially where there isn’t much in the way of social security or retirement savings, adult children are expected to care for the elderly. So putting in the hard work of raising responsible children is like what we do in America in setting aside funds for our retirement. It’s work and a sacrifice, but by doing so, you are the wise steward that God called all of us to be, and are not a drain on society in your aged years. Interestingly, even in America often the reason people don’t want kids is because they don’t want to put the work into raising them (saying “I wouldn’t be a good parent” meaning, “I’m not willing to deny my own desires and comfort to raise a child”) and they expect tax-payer money (i.e. the rest of society) to support them in a comfortable way when they’re old. So there is a moral element in that attitude, and that’s where the sin lies, a refusal to be self-disciplined, to make sacrifices and to work as God told us to.

5. Some people have good reasons for not having children. If there is a marriage with active alcoholism, domestic violence, mental illness, a really unstable marriage, or such extreme poverty that there’s not enough food for the people already in the family, I would advise those couples not to have kids until the issue was taken care of. Proverbs calls us to be wise and take an accounting before we embark on a project, and although there is no such thing as a problem-free home, there are families in which the problems are serious enough to have a very high likelihood of harming the child, at least emotionally.

6. Some people choose to have children for very sinful reasons. They do it to collect welfare, or to try to make the man stay with them when they’re not married, or to be the center of attention etc, and not because they love God or the child.

My conclusion is that having or not having children is not in itself the moral issue. It’s the reason why you make your choice that has a moral element. Everything we do should be for the glory of God. If a couple decided not to have kids because they are called to travel all over the world evangelizing and it wouldn’t be good to leave the child behind with relatives all the time, then I believe God would be pleased with their choice (it’s a situation like Paul’s). Other couples might find that having children opens doors for them to witness that they wouldn’t otherwise have (like our friend Vickie who is the only Christian mom at her daughter’s pre-school, and witnesses to the other moms).

This is what I think:
A. As in everything, believers should seek God’s will in the matter, and ask Him to guide the desires of their heart in His direction.
B. One must not only ask, “Should we have kids, God?” But also, “When?” God’s answer may not be super clear. He may simply work through the person’s desires or through common-sense circumstances.
C. There is nothing wrong with longing for children and asking God for them (like Hannah), nor is there anything wrong with not wanting children, those are just feelings. But one should also ask God to reveal any wrong motives that might be there, and He will be faithful to do that if it’s a problem.