Yes children can be a handful, but…

This piece is as much about having children as not having them. And I need to begin by stating the obvious: Not all people want to have children. And some do want to have children but are unable to. So I am not picking on anyone here.

If you are quite content with childlessness, read no further if you prefer. Some of these folks who want no children believe that kids are a burden and a foil to their free-flowing and fun lifestyle. Yes they can be that, but they can also be so much more – they can be such an amazing blessing.

Like everything in a fallen world, there are pros and cons. I am now a widower, but I have three children who care and who help, so even though I am now living alone, they make things so much easier. Simply coming around for a visit, or bringing a meal, or helping to do some chores around the home is a great blessing.

But we all differ of course. I know of some folks who have no children and are aging – as we all do. How they will cope remains to be seen, but it could be quite hard on some of them. As we age, as when we are quite young, we are so very dependent on others.

I would think that if you are an only child, and you grow and age and remain childless, well, if nothing else, that particular branch of the family tree will come to an end. Some will not care if it does. But I think of lonely aging people with no kids and no family members. That has got to be tough for so many of them.

Do they just get dumped in an old folks home with only strangers to look after them in their final days? Sure, that sometimes happens to the elderly who DO have children. But presumably the offspring will regularly visit their parents while in such care.

Again, some folks say they quite prefer having no kids. That is up to them, and I judge them not for this. But whether you are a non-believer or a believer, there is something to all this that seems to mitigate against the ‘no-child’ mindset. For example, the evolutionist would say we are meant to reproduce ourselves to keep the species going. That is what our genes do, and are all about.

The Christian would say that children are a gift of God, and a way of reproducing a spiritual heritage. Either way of looking at it, children are a fundamental part of who we are as human beings. Of course the Christian recognises that while having children in a married home is the norm, God has also given some people the gift of singleness (see 1 Corinthians 7 for example).

I repeat: I fully realise that not everyone is called to be married and have children. And some who desperately want kids cannot have them for various reasons. But instead of this article being a lengthy essay on the pros and cons of having children, let me just use it as yet another excuse to highlight a few books I have been discussing a lot lately.

I refer to two important volumes edited by William Bennett: The Book of Virtues (Simon & Schuster, 1995); and The Moral Compass (Simon & Schuster, 1993). I have reviewed both books in recent articles:

https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/01/07/shaping-morality-through-story-telling/

https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/01/18/moral-education-and-story-telling/

Both books remind us that moral education and storytelling are intimately related. One of the chapters of The Moral Compass is on the issue of marriage and family. The chapter celebrates the many joys, blessings – and difficulties – that parents will face. I want to share a poem from it called “The Charge of the Night Brigade”:

A scurry of feet on the bedroom stair,

A twitter along the hall-

And this is the charge of the night brigade,

To capture me heart and all.

And there is the Captain, Sleepy Eyes,

And there is Lieutenant Dream,

While the only arms of love are theirs

As into my heart they stream.

 

A low, little laugh as they form in line

Robed in their slumber gowns-

No armor rude with its harsh intrude,

No helmets that clank and frown;

They come for the hug and the goodnight kiss,

And unto my heart they bring

The song of the bedtime troops of love,

With its old, ineffable ring.

 

I sigh as I think of the lonesome folk

In their fortresses alone,

Where never the children charge with their cheer

Where the bedtime song’s unknown;

Who sit in their childless realm aloof

Nor ever behold at all

The Sleepy Eyes and the Golden Dream

Come marching down through the hall.

 

Who never have felt to run their necks

Nor even upon their lips

The soft caress of a little arm,

Or a kiss with its sweet eclipse;

I do not know what I would do

Were the bedtime troops away,

And I almost dread the time to come

When they all march to the grown up fray.

 

In a single file, to a merry tune,

Whispering, wild with glee,

They turned the nob and opened the door

And rushed to the heart of me;

Retreat is vain, resist I won’t,

So on my lap they leap-

The troops of the night brigade that come

For the kiss of the tender sleep.

I was going to say that now that I am home alone, I no longer have that issue. But I stand corrected. My cat does her best to keep me awake each night as she sleeps with me, and my dog does her best to wake me early each morning when she wants to go out! So even childless adults can still struggle in this area.

But as I say, there are good bits and bad bits to everything, including having children. But most parents would never trade all of this (the easy as well as the difficult) for having no kids at all. The benefits are innumerable. And what good parenting does for children is inestimable.

With that in mind, let me share one more piece from the same volume and chapter. Many of my book-loving friends at least will appreciate this one. It is called “When Mother Reads Aloud.” It goes like this:

When Mother reads aloud, the past
Seems real as every day;
I hear the tramp of armies vast,
I see the spears and lances cast,
I join the thrilling fray;
Brave knights and ladies fair and proud
I meet when Mother reads aloud.

When Mother reads aloud, far lands
Seem very near and true;
I cross the deserts’ gleaming sands,
Or hunt the jungle’s prowling bands,
Or sail the ocean blue.
Far heights, whose peaks the cold mists shroud,
I scale, when Mother reads aloud.

When Mother reads aloud, I long
For noble deeds to do —
To help the right, redress the wrong;
It seems so easy to be strong,
So simple to be true.
Oh, thick and fast the visions crowd
My eyes, when Mother reads aloud.

Yep, this is but one of a million tasks a mother can perform – and fathers too. Indeed, my previous piece was all about this most noble of professions: motherhood and homemaking: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/01/20/the-most-noble-profession/  

But having offered a few more quotes from the fabulous Bill Bennett volumes, let me conclude this brief piece by featuring another one of my favourite authors. G. K. Chesterton, writing in The Superstition of Divorce put it this way:

From its first days in the forest this human group had to fight against wild monsters; and so it is now fighting against these wild machines. It only managed to survive then, and it will only manage to survive now, by a strong internal sanctity; a tacit oath or dedication deeper than that of the city or the tribe. But though this silent promise was always present, it took at a certain turning point of our history a special form which I shall try to sketch in the next chapter. That turning point was the creation of Christendom by the religion which created it. Nothing will destroy the sacred triangle; and even the Christian faith, the most amazing revolution that ever took place in the mind, served only in a sense to turn that triangle upside down. It held up a mystical mirror in which the order of the three things was reversed; and added a holy family of child, mother and father to the human family of father, mother and child.

[1430 words] 

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In praise of homemaking and motherhood:

All jobs, professions and callings are noble and vital if it is God who is behind it. If the Lord calls you to be a Prime Minister or a street sweeper, both careers are of great value if you do it faithfully as onto the Lord. In all we do, we should seek to glorify God. But I nonetheless want to single out one profession. And I begin with a quick story.

In my morning prayer walk with my dog I prayed, as usual, for the neighbours. It is hoped some will come to know the Lord over time. Some of them I have gotten to know a bit and have had chats with. But so many I still do not yet know, or know much about. But my wife would have known most their names and known so much more about them.

Of course when the children were younger she was a full-time homemaker, while I dutifully commuted off to work each day. But reflecting on that this morning, I had this thought: although what I was doing was part of what God had called me to do, and was therefore important work, in so many ways it did not compare with what she had done for so long.

In most families throughout so much of history, it was this way: the husband/father would head off to his job, while the wife/mother would stay home and do a million tasks, most important of which iwa raising the children. So while I did my daily work away from home, she would be there basically 24/7, doing countless tasks – many of them unbeknown to me – as well as capably raising three boys.

It is really only now that she is gone that I see how VERY much she had done, not just as a mother but as a homemaker. As I just told a friend yesterday over a cuppa, we must never take our spouse for granted. The fact that various neighbours showed up to her funeral demonstrates what an impact she had, not just in the home, but in the surrounding community.

So if I had to choose, I would without a moment’s hesitation say that what she had done as a mother and homemaker far outweighed what I had done as a worker – even though my work was involved in key things like pro-family, pro-faith and pro-life activism. The impact of her job as a loving mother will last for all eternity.

I sometimes wonder how much of an impact my work will have. And the longer she is gone, the more I miss her, and the more I see what an amazing woman, wife and mother she was. And I see that she had done so much more than I ever did. Indeed, I do not think I could have done the half of it.

Sure, to her – and most other mothers – it may have seemed like mundane, monotonous, and humdrum daily work. Mothers in the mist of another mountain of dirty diapers to wash and the like will likely not have a very lofty or very glamourous view of the work they are doing.

But it is all part of this wonderful profession and holy calling that we know as motherhood. I would not trade places with my wife for all the money (or books) in the world. What she did was just unbeatable, and I would not have gone the distance had I tried to do what she did.

With this in mind, let me run with an old story. I recently reviewed a terrific volume edited by William Bennett called The Book of Virtues. It contains hundreds of stories, poems and essays celebrating the moral virtues. See my review here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/01/07/shaping-morality-through-story-telling/

And see my review of his follow-up volume, The Moral Compass, which offers more of the same: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/01/18/moral-education-and-story-telling/

In the “Work” section of the first book, Bennett says this about one story: “This old Scandinavian tale teaches us to respect others’ hard work.” It is called, “The Husband Who Was to Mind the House”. It goes like this:

Once upon a time there was a man so surely and cross, he never thought his wife did anything right around the house. One evening, during hay-making time, he came home complaining that dinner wasn’t on the table, the baby was crying, and the cow had not been put in the barn.

 

“I work and I work all day,” he growled, “and you get to stay home and mind the house. I wish I had it so easy. I could get dinner ready on time, I’ll tell you that.

 

“Dear love, don’t be so angry,” said his wife. “Tomorrow let’s change our work. I’ll go out with the mowers and cut the hay, and you stay home and mind the house at house.”

 

The husband thought that would do very well. “I could use a day off,” he said. “I’ll do all your chores in an hour or two, and sleep the afternoon away.”

 

So early next morning the wife put a scythe over her shoulder and trudged out to the hayfield with the mowers. The husband stayed behind to do all the work at home.

 

First of all, he washed some clothes, and then he began to churn the butter. But after he had churned a while, he remembered he needed to hang the clothes up to dry. He went out to the yard, and had just finished hanging his shirts on the line when he saw the pig run into the kitchen.

 

So off he dashed to the kitchen to look after the pig, lest it should upset the churn. But as soon as he got through the door, he saw the pig had already knocked the churn over. There it was, grunting and rooting in the cream, which was running all over the floor. The man became so wild with rage, he quite forgot about his shirts on the line, and ran at the pig as hard as he could.

 

He caught it, too, but it was so slippery from all the butter, it shot out of his arms and right through the door. The man raced into the yard, bound to catch that pig no matter what, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw his goat. It was standing right beneath the clothesline, chewing and chomping at every last shirt. So the man ran off the goat, and locked up the pig, and took what was left of his shirts off the line.

 

Then he went into the dairy and found enough cream to fill the churn again, and so he began to churn, for butter they must have at dinner. When he had churned a bit, he remembered that their cow was still shut up in the barn, and had not had a mouthful to eat or a drop to drink all morning, though the sun was high.

 

He thought it was too far to take her down to the meadow, so he decided to put her on top of the house, for the roof, you must know, was thatched with grass. The house lay next to a steep hill, and he thought if he lay a wide plank from the side of the hill to the roof, he’d easily get the cow up.

 

But still he couldn’t leave the churn, for here was the little baby crawling about on the floor. “If I leave it,” he thought, “the child is sure to upset it.”

 

So he put the churn on his back and went out with it. Then he thought he’d better water the cow before he put her on the roof, and he got a bucket to draw water out of the well. But as he stooped down at the brink of the well, the cream ran out of the churn, over his shoulders, down his back, and into the well!

 

Now it was near dinnertime, and he didn’t even have any butter yet. So as soon as he put the cow on the roof, he thought he’d best boil the porridge. He filled the pot with water, and hung it over the fire.

 

When he had done that, he thought the cow might fall off the roof and break her neck. So he climbed onto the house to tie her up. He tied one end of the rope around the cow’s neck, and the other he slipped down the chimney. Then he went back inside and tied it around his own waist. He had to make haste, for the water now began to boil in the pot, and he still had to grind the oatmeal.

 

So he began to grind away. But while he was hard at it, down fell the cow off the housetop after all, and as she fell she dragged the poor man up the chimney by the rope! There he stuck fast. And as for the cow, she hung halfway down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth, for she could neither get down nor up.

 

Meanwhile the wife, who was out in the field, waited and waited for her husband to call her home to dinner. At last she thought she’d waited enough and went home.

 

When she got there and saw the cow hanging in such an ugly place, she ran up and cut the rope with her scythe. But as soon as she did, down came her husband out of the chimney! So when she went inside the kitchen, she found him standing on his head in the porridge pot

 

“Welcome back,” he said, after she had fished him out. “I have something to say to you.”

 

So he said he was sorry, and gave her a kiss, and never complained again.

Never underestimate your wife or take her for granted! Mothers and homemakers do far more than we will ever imagine. God bless them richly!

[1659 words]

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Another must read-volume by Bennett:

I am always interested in alerting people to good books. One way to do this is through book reviews, of which there are now 725 on this site. And these reviews are most often of new books that I want to let people know about. However, sometimes various older works that might be regarded as modern classics also deserve a mention.

This article is another case in point. A few weeks ago I wrote about a book that appeared three decades ago: The Book of Virtues by William Bennett (Simon and Schuster, 1993). A number of people favourable responded to that piece. It is found here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/01/07/shaping-morality-through-story-telling/

In it I mentioned that Bennett had produced a companion volume two years later: The Moral Compass: Stories for a Life’s Journey (Simon & Schuster, 1995). In many ways it picks up on where the previous volume left off, and it very much follows the same format.

While it again covers the same key virtues (Responsibility, Courage, Perseverance, Honesty, Loyalty, Faith, and the like), it is arranged in terms of the stages of life, ranging from new life to old age. All up he has seven chapters dealing with these various stages.

The book again features hundreds of stories, poems and essays – some well-known, some not so much. It again features biblical and non-biblical material, Christian and non-Christian material. Again, each chapter is arranged from the easier to the harder material. And again, both children and parents will benefit greatly from all the great reading found therein.

One valuable aspect of the book – as with the previous volume – is not just the introduction to the book, but Bennett’s introduction to each chapter. In his general introduction he writes:

The basic assumption underlying this volume is that much of life is a moral and spiritual journey and that we undertake it, at least in large part, to find our way morally and spiritually. Thus it makes no sense to send young people forth on such an endeavor having offered them only some timid, vacillating opinions or options about conduct in the hope that in the course of their wanderings, they will stumble onto some more definite personal preferences which will become their “values.” We must give our children better equipment than that. We must raise them as moral and spiritual beings by offering them unequivocal, reliable standards of right and wrong, noble and base, just and unjust….

 

Of course, sound character education cannot come solely through hearing and reading stories, no matter how great they are. The training of the heart and the mind toward the good involves much more. (We would do well to remember that the Greek word charakter means “enduring marks,” traits that can be formed in a person by an almost infinite number of influences.) Moral education must involve following rules of good behavior. It must involve developing good habits, which come only through repeated practice. And character training must provide example by placing children in the company of responsible adults who show an allegiance to good character, who demonstrate the clear difference between right and wrong in their own everyday habits.

 

Nevertheless, the books and stories we share with our children can be important moral influences. They can be invaluable allies for parents and teachers; as President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard observed, “In the campaign for character, no auxiliaries are to be refused.” Literature can be a crucial part of a home, school, community, or culture’s ethos—another ancient Greek term meaning the distinguishing character or guiding beliefs, the habits of the denizens. As every parent and teacher knows, children love stories. Even in an age of computer games and electronic toys, there is still resonant power in the phrase “Once upon a time…” And so what we choose to read to our children matters a great deal. Legends, folktales, sacred stories, biographies, and poems can introduce the youngest children to the virtues; they can clarify notions of right and wrong for young people; and they can serve as powerful reminders of mankind’s best ideals all the way through adulthood. More than one great man or woman at a critical moment has recalled a simple fable, a familiar verse, a childhood hero.

In the intro to his first chapter, “Home and Hearth,” he says this in part:

All children need bread and shelter. But a true home, of course, is much more than that. Children also need love and order and, because they are not born knowing the difference between right and wrong, a place where they can begin to develop a moral sense. The transmission of virtues is one important reason for a home, and attention to the virtues is one of the important ties that bind a family together. “It is the peculiarity of man, in comparison with the rest of the animal world,” Aristotle wrote, “that he alone possesses a perception of good and evil, of the just and the unjust, and of other similar qualities; and it is association in these things which makes a family.”

 

And so home is the place where we receive our first instruction in the virtues. It is our first moral training ground, the place where we can come to know right from wrong through the nurturing and protective care of those who love us more than anyone else….

The chapter includes items such as the following: “Hush, Little Baby,” “The Three Billy Goats Gruff,” “The Legend of the Christ Child,” “Joseph and His Brothers,” “The Little Girl Who Dared,” The Drover’s Wife” by Henry Lawson, and “Prayer For Home and Family” by Robert Lewis Stevenson.  

Let me highlight just one other section: “Mothers and Father, Husbands and Wives.” As to marriage, he says this in the introduction to this chapter:

There are many obligations in life, but none more important than the ones we accept when we become husbands and wives, mothers and fathers. In this chapter we find stories illustrating the virtues involved in those parts of life’s journey.

 

In recent history, marriage has devolved from being a sacrament to a contract to a convention to, finally, a convenience. (I am told there is a modern wedding vow that states not “as long as we both shall live,” but rather “as long as we both shall love.”) Of course, some marriages simply will not work. But the enormous number of separations and divorces today suggests that we no longer believe what we say during the ceremony: that marriage is a serious, lifelong commitment made “in the presence of God,” a commitment to give to each other as long as both shall live.

 

As Aristotle long ago pointed out, marriage is in fact a relationship based in no small part on virtues. The most basic of these is responsibility, for marriage is, after all, an arrangement held together by mutual dependence and reciprocal obligations. But successful marriages are about more than fulfilling the conditions of a contract. In good marriages, men and women seek to improve themselves for the sake of their loved one. They offer and draw moral strength, day in and day out, by sharing compassion, courage, self-discipline, and a host of other virtues. Thus the whole of the union becomes stronger and more wonderful than the sum of the parts. “What greater thing is there for human souls,” asked George Eliot, “than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent, unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?” The stories in this chapter inspire us in all of these endeavors.

Selections featured here include: “The Owl and the Pussy Cat” by Edward Lear, “The Three Wishes,” “The Roses of Saint Elizabeth,” “An Excellent Wife” [Proverbs 31], “When Mother Reads Aloud,” “I Know of a Lovely Garden” by Martin Luther, “Monica, Mother of Augustine,” and “The Greatest of These is Love” [1 Corinthians 13].

If I may, let me share just one poem from this chapter: “The Baby” by George MacDonald:

Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here.

Where did you get those eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.

What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
Some of the starry twinkles left in.

Where did you get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.

What makes your forehead so smooth and high?
A soft hand stroked it as I went by.

What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
I saw something better than any one knows.

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.

Where did you get this pearly ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.

Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into bonds and bands.

Feet, whence did you come, you darling things?
From the same box as the cherubs’ wings.

How did they all just come to be you?
God thought about me, and so I grew.

But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought about you, and so I am here.

If you loved The Book of Virtues, you will love The Moral Compass. If you have neither, it is not too late to remedy this major flaw. As you buy for yourself these two volumes, you can always get a second set and give them to someone you love and care for. Thanks again Bill Bennett.

[1594 words]

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