Children are a gift

This week there have been so many things that I have learned through reading the first chapter of "Marriage and Family," through research about employed mothers and statistics over the past few decades, as well as beliefs about child-bearing and fertility rates. It's a lot to sift through, but I'll just touch on a few points that I found interesting from my own personal study this week, as well as comments made in class.

From reading in the book I learned, or more so it was re-confirmed to me, that we are all "social creatures." Meaning, we all search for intimacy in our lives whether it be through bonds with family members or friends, co-workers, classmates, etc. When our need for intimacy is not met through interactions with others, we have the tendency to become lonely, or to feel isolated from desired relationships. The family is the closest and most personal way that we fill that need for intimacy. We communicate and interact with our families, in hopes that we can continue to have strong and lasting relationships. For our own personal well-being we look towards others for support, recognition, and love. Children and adults, alike, have a need for intimacy. It's through learning about this that helps me understand more the other things that I have learned this week.

For example, I spent two hours this week researching different articles, via the internet, about employed mothers; the effects it has on children when their mother works full-time, the effects it has on the mothers who are working, as well as the statistics from 1940 compared to now. The major and conflicting views that I studied brought me back to the whole idea of epistemology, or how we come to believe something. How was I supposed to know, as I read through 5 or 6 articles, which ones contained the most accurate information? After all of my study I came to find that while statistics are good, how we personally feel about circumstances, whether it be through our own experiences in the past or based off of personal beliefs, can be equally good in determining whether or not full-time employment for mothers is beneficial. For me, personally, I believe that the father's role is to provide for the family outside of the home and that the mother's role is to nurture and care for the family inside the home. It is my goal and my desire to be a homemaker, to raise my children at home, while my husband works. I know that this isn't the ideal for everyone whether it's because the woman feels she needs to contribute more to the family income, or whatever it may be. In the 1940's, it is reported that only 8.7% of mothers worked full-time outside of the home, while recent reports show that now there are between 70-75% of mothers in America working full-time outside of the home before their child turns one. That's crazy! 75%! Why the change? Based off of an article I found, entitled "The Impact of Working Mothers on Child Development," I found that some of the causes of an increase in women's employment between the 70s and 90s was that women began having smaller families, there was an increase in the number of single mothers, and there was a fall in men's real wage.

Why were women having smaller families? There are so many different views out there about how big the ideal family should be, why and why not have more kids, and how to provide for more than 1 or 2 children. In watching a documentary on BYU TV about fertility rates, I heard many opinions from different interviewees about how many children they wanted to have, whether family matters, etc. It was shocking to hear their responses. Most of the interviewees said that they grew up with just them and one other sibling, and that they would just want two children. Many others who were interviewed said that they wanted small families due to an inability to provide economically. Another view, by Dr. Ehrlick, was that babies are destroying the planet and that having 5 children is comparable to robbing a bank. According to him, if one person has 5 kids, they are taking away from other couples' possibility of having children. All I have to say about that is, if the planet hasn't been destroyed yet due to the number of babies being born and raised since he made his predictions long ago, then I don't think we need to worry.

I believe that children are a gift. The decision of how many children to have and when to have them should be left up to the couple, communicating with the Lord as well. Bringing children into this world is a divine responsibility and forming families is a beautiful thing. Research about families, children, etc. is interesting, but nothing can change my views on how important, as well as how special, the family is.