I came across this news item recently (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/14/cost-of-raising-a-child-usda_n_3757365.html), which placed the cost of raising a child today till the age of 18 at a quarter of a million dollars. In the Philippines, some of those who championed the RH bill argued that there would be less poverty if there were less children per family. I am for progress and I supported the RH Law. But I feel there is something inherently selfish and self-serving when having and raising children is reduced to a cost-benefit proposition.
Children thrive in a loving environment. Many marriages today are loveless and therefore brittle. More than 50% of marriages in the US end up in divorces. There are more and more single households. Same-sex marriages are becoming more and more common. I would hate to imagine a world without children. There are already some countries facing a major crisis because there are not enough children being born. A world without children is a sad world. It will be a dying world.
Yes, the times – they are a-changing. Some for the better. Other changes I am not sure. But I am praying that some things will never change. I am still inspired and touched when a man leaves his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall be as one. And in love and fidelity, they will have and raise children of their own.
He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Matthew 19:3-6