The Blessings of Family

 You've captured the essence of parenthood beautifully. It's indeed a profound responsibility that requires selflessness and integrity. Each child deserves a loving and supportive environment, and it's crucial for parents to reflect on their readiness to provide that before deciding to have children. It's a journey that brings immense joy and fulfillment, but also challenges that test one's patience and resilience. Your perspective on the importance and value of parenthood is insightful.

Deciding to bring children into the world takes great thought and sometimes soul-searching reflection. A married couple raising another human being requires unselfish acts and integrity.  Unselfishness for sacrificing what an adult would rather do for the time to be a parent to their children and integrity for maintaining the correct choices in parenting a child.

Not everyone is willing to be a parent, so prayerfully consider whether to add a child into a home. This decision rests only on a couple’s shoulders.  The truth about raising children is that it’s a great responsibility but it is also the most important job we can ever have. It’s not easy but it is well worth the time. 

From The Family: A Proclamation to the World from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “’Children are an heritage of the Lord’ (from Psalms 127:3) Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live.”

Parents who teach correct principles and live to serve their fellow man bring a peace and happiness to themselves and others. Yet, many people watch the activity of a family from a fishbowl point of view judging too harshly at how parents raise their children.  Ultimately, decisions on how to handle difficult situations and consequences for children’s decisions are the choice of the parent. Some people might even judge the wisdom of having as many children as a couple can have. Yet again. this is the decision of the couple.

For example: Both my husband and I were introduced to the lifestyle of homeschooling when we had three of our nine children attending public school but we disagreed on whether we should adopt this program into our family. Through a series of inspired dreams, I realized we should homeschool, but my husband disagreed.  He just didn’t think we could give our children the kind of education the public school offered so we continued to send our children to school.  It wasn’t until our school district became divided over a year-round school schedule that he changed his mind. The first year of the new yearly public-school program was a disaster with overcrowded classrooms and holes in our children’s education shown in tests. We both agreed we should pull  our children our out and school them ourselves. 

Some parents we knew were surprised we took such drastic action and criticized what we did but we knew this was right for us. We have never regretted our decision.

The same situation came when we decided that we should have nine children. We accepted them into our home with open arms. I can testify to anyone who has asked me if I have ever regretted raising nine children and the answer would have to be a big no. Yes, there were stressful situations and little money to go around at times. Yes, the older siblings would take care of the younger ones when we felt burned out. Yes, our time is stretched to the limit but as parents we learned to deal with all of our children along with the challenges and joys. All of them learned to be better people and those of them who are parents are better parents. The blessings of bringing children into a home are countless. 

 

1. We all become very unselfish. What we bring away from our earthly experience is character development and knowledge. We learn to have patience and share with those around us who don’t have as much. We learn that human relationships are important enough to share with others.

2. We realize how unimportant material possessions are and find personal relationships more fulfilling. What is really important are people. Spending time with those we love is much better than spending money on things that eventually will not exist. Material possessions are inanimate objects. People have feelings and concerns and can love another person.

3. We learn to manage our time better so we can spend more of it with each other. This is a never-ending process and parents learn quickly that time spent with children is more important than doing other less important activities. The rewards for a good relationship with a child far outweigh the time spent in doing other things.

4. We learn to sacrifice for each other which help us grow closer together. Sacrifice is a difficult virtue to learn.  Humans are naturally selfish and want what is best for themselves but life has no meaning if we think only about ourselves. There is a time for everything and it might seem that we will never get what we want for ourselves but as children grow and learn by the good example of their parents, the blessing of sacrifice is passed down to the next generation.

It was Jeffrey Holland (LDS Church leader) who said: “I testify that bad days come to an end, that faith always triumphs, and that heavenly promises are always kept.” (Holland, Jeffrey R., “Lessons Learned from Liberty Jail” Ensign, September 2009.

 Life is lived in the best way we know how, with all of its challenges and all of its happiness. We are blessed for sacrificing for another human being. It’s just a matter of whether we realize this in time to make a difference in our own lives.