Are you really ready for children?

Children aren’t bargaining chips to secure attention. Reasons like, “I want someone to love me” or “I agreed to have children because my partner wanted them” are immature at best and a recipe for disaster at worst. If you are considering having children, it is vitally important to take time to ask yourself if you are emotionally, financially, and spiritually ready for the job. Becoming a parent means taking on the immense task of being responsible for another human being—for the rest of your life! You can’t exchange them or return them or divorce them when things don’t go well. It’s a lifetime commitment, and you must accept this reality without pretending otherwise. Don’t go starry eyed over the babies you see in strollers at the mall. Don’t deceive yourself about parenthood and think you’ll just “grow into it” after the baby arrives. You will be on call around the clock for the next twenty years or so! Make sure you’re ready for the leap of faith required to love someone more powerfully than ever before. You owe it to them and to yourself. So approach parenthood with prayer, consideration, deliberation, and most of all, a sense of humour before you take that leap. One wrong decision on your part can sentence your entire family to a lifetime of heartbreak. And it can be avoided by praying and waiting a little while longer to do things right! If you’re not ready to lead a totally different lifestyle for the next few decades, slow down. Babies who have babies leave our communities on life support and our marriages on respirators. Think about it, and talk to God about it.