Why not have another?

Nicole from 168 Hours (another Christian Australian blogger) just posted about explaining her "theology of family" to a single, childless friend. An excerpt:

I think in this culture, in this generation, this is one way in which we will find ourselves looking more and more different from the society around us, with its individualism and its anxious pursuit of career and money. (Unless we just conform to our society's values and look no different!)

And I think we need to not only live differently in this respect, but also to be able to explain why we live differently - not reinforcing the prejudices of our culture by talking about our kids as if they were an imposition and an interruption that we are keen to minimise (so we can get back to the important things!), but explaining our lives in a way that reveals something about the God we believe in.

She really got me thinking, because most of our single friends are really kind and loving with our kids, listening to them (even when they are so excited they can hardly talk straight), joining in with some of their odd games, inviting us and them along to whatever social thingy is happening, and even (a few of them) offering to babysit. With our four kids all still under five, this is a big offer! And most of my married friends are currently pregnant, one with her fourth and two with their fifth. (Actually, R's baby is due today... praying for you R!) So I don't run into the "why on earth would you have kids?" questioning too often.

I admit, for a while after we were married and bought a house, we had plans to just pay another few years off our mortgage before we had kids. That was, until my sister-in-law Kim asked me how long we were going to wait, and we realised that our 3 years or 5 years or whatever off the mortgage was really just arbitrary. We knew we wanted kids, so we decided to start trying pretty much right then. Joshua was born 13 months later.

Actually, the decision that took much more effort was deciding to stop having more children. After Jeff & I had Joshua, we fell in love with him and asked eachother, "Why not have another?" So we had Anna 14 months later. And fell in love with her and asked eachother, "Why not have another?" So we had Abigail 13 months later. And fell in love with her and asked eachother, "Why not have another?" So we had Samuel 18 months later. And fell in love with him...

But in between Abigail and Samuel, we sold our house, moved states and Jeff started studying at Theological College, and we knew that only two years after Samuel was born, Jeff would be beginning a new job (God-willing) as a church minister. Now it is a big job being a homemaking, homeschooling mum to four kids. My job is going to get even bigger when I'm being a "suitable helper" to a minister, rather than just a theology student. Also, I pretty much sleep through most of my pregnancies, not through laziness but through sheer exhaustion. As in, I was sleeping 12 hours a day for the first and third trimesters with Samuel; if the three big kids were asleep, so was I. So it just seemed like it wouldn't be a wise, godly decision to have any more kids, if we were to be responsible in our present commitments before God. It took a long time (pretty much my entire pregnancy with Samuel), but we finally both agreed that we already knew the answer to the question, "Why not have another?". The answer was, "Because God is calling us to be more than just parents, and we need to be free to do what He wants, including parenting these kids well. And we wouldn't be able to do that if we spread ourselves thinner with another child.

So that's why we only have four.