And yet another conversation from our West Coast Park outing🙂
Mother while looking at our 7th blessing : How old is she?
Me : 9mths
Mother : Oh! I have my baby at home and I was just wondering how old must my baby be to bring her to the playground.
Me : Anytime 😀
Mother : But if I bring her to the playground then I would have to carry her all the time. It is so cumbersome!
Me : Well, that is parenting, isn’t it? Babies need to be carried.
Mother’s face fell and she kept quiet.
Hmmm….are babies cumbersome? Let me share with you what *I* think 🙂
Yes, babies are cumbersome. And that’s why God gives them to us – to train the selfishness out of us. 🙂 Dying to self is so much easier when it’s you and you alone. Throw in a baby and suddenly you realise how selfish you have been. Throw in a few more babies (oh say, 7? :D) and you realise how much you have not died to self. Well, I certainly have discovered that! I have mentioned to dh more than a few times that the more children I have, the more I realise that I am a very selfish person 🙁
It is easy to be tolerant of a child’s tantrums, demands and even constant nightwakings if you have only one child. Teaching and training them is also manageable. Afterall, you only have to live through it once. But if you have more children, you will have to keep re-living the teaching and training. And yes, the constant interrupted sleep. And don’t let me go on about the number of times you would have to potty train the children!
Babies are a lot of work. So are toddlers and so are pre-teens and teenagers. They tire us out physically. They tire us out emotionally. And that’s why I take issue with pet lovers who equate their pets with babies! I have no problems with people who have pets but please do not equate them with having babies 😀 It’s just not the same.
Anyway, I digress. 🙂
I think this attitude that children are cumbersome, that take up a lot of our time and space and money is very sad. We have become such an inward, self-centred society that we are unable to view children as the blessings God wants them to be viewed as. No wonder birth rates in developed countries are falling rapidly.
Government incentives can only work so much. As long as we view children as a liability no one will be looking forward to their arrival. And much will be done to prevent them from entering the home.
4 Comments on Babies are cumbersome
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I really dislike hearing or seeing this: people viewing babies as “mah fan” (troublesome) whether in words or deeds. But I like how you responded to that parents. Next time I will just say the same thing! 🙂
I agree with you in principle, but not personally – in practical. ;-P
Oh, I understand 🙂
The more I have the more I see how selfish I really still am!
Once I heard a pregnant woman refer to her child as a financial “liability”. I felt something was very wrong with that word but didn’t know what til I asked God about it. He told me that the child was an “investment”. Not an investment in our future but rather an “investment” for His kingdom and His investment in us. That was very humbling, cos He is actually entrusting us with something so precious to Him….