Is It Selfish to Not Have Children?
In "Why Women Choose Not to Have Children," Sophie Gilbert argues that it is equally selfish to have children as to not have them. Yet she misses the forest for the trees.
Selfishness hardly ever comes down to any actual action alone. Instead, selfishness is directly tied to motive. Why does a person choose to skip having children? Why does a person choose to have them?
If a person having children is doing so solely for the purpose of making themselves happy or for another form of self-service, that is then, a selfish action. Granted, selfish actions can have simultaneous good purposes, and a selfish desire does not mean we should entirely rule out a certain course of action.
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As Christians, we should instead pray for the right motives as we take the course of action we believe to be best. If we waited for our motives to be 100% perfect before we did anything, there is little many of us would do.
Furthermore, is desiring to experience the happiness children bring truly selfish? God Himself enjoys His creation. Is it so wrong for us?
There are certainly people who have children for purely selfish reasons. However, these people are few and far between, and Gilbert has no right to make the claim that it is equally selfish to have children as to forego having them.
Especially not when you consider the opinions she quotes.
"Cultural critic" Laura Kipnis says, for women, it's about what you get out of having kids:
"[W}hen women acquire critical skills and start weighing their options, they soon wise up to the fact that they're not getting enough recompense for their labors."
Author Lionel Shriver thinks whether or not one lives a fun life or is "fat" is of more importance than having "ungrateful" children:
"I could have afforded children, financially. I just didn't want them. They are untidy, they would have messed up my apartment. In the main, they are ungrateful. They would have siphoned away too much time from my precious books. …
As we age, we are apt to look back on our pasts and question, not, did I serve family, God, and country, but did I ever get to Cuba, or run a marathon? Did I take up landscape painting? Was I fat? We will assess the success of our lives in accordance not with whether they were righteous, but whether they were interesting and fun."
If these are the bases for not having children, how can we argue these types of reasoning are anything but selfish? We should gladly choose the service of God, others, and country over having a perfectly fun, selfish life.
I grant myself too much power when I think I have the complete right to decide whether children have the right to exist; to "mess" with my life; to cause me grief with their supposed ungratefulness.
One thing is clear to me: anyone who can say the things Kipnis and Shriver say have obviously never had children. No matter the other things I do in my life, my children will always, always have been more than worth anything they cost me. They will always have been a better choice than a fast-track career to the top or traveling the world or having a perfectly "un-fat" stomach.
God smiles when He sees children. He calls them to come to Him. And it would seem He does not applaud people who push them away for selfish purposes.
It is also entirely possible for people to choose to not have children for unselfish purposes. There may be those on the mission field, in a certain career track, or who, for other reasons, choose to not have children. As long as their motive is others-focused and not self-focused, I believe this can be a legitimate and unselfish choice, too.
Of course, it goes without saying that the choice to not have children must be accompanied with the choice to give life to any child who does come into existence, despite our plans.
Abortion is an ultimately selfish act – one that declares the way I want to live my life is far more important than the actual life of a new human being. Christians – and all people – ought to also seriously research and consider the forms of contraception they choose to use. Forms that strip the lining of the uterus and stop implantation of a new baby cause miscarriages. The manufacturers of IUDs and hormonal birth control directly admit on their website that these act to stop implantation.
Our life goals, however good and unselfish, are never worth the death of another human being. Our personal accomplishments do not ring true when they come at the cost of another's blood. We must be willing to accept personal responsibility for our own actions, and this includes being well-researched and making life-affirming choices on contraception.
So, in the end, what is our motive? Why do we want children? Are we building into and valuing them as unique individuals, not as an extension of ourselves? Why do we not want children? Are we willing to accept them if they come anyway, realizing that life is always, always worth giving?
