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Fewer & Farther Between
Elizabeth Nussen on Generational Spacing & Familial Inertia
The week my son, my mother’s first grandchild, was born, she held him close, noses almost touching. “I promise to live to be an old woman and to dance at your wedding,” she whispered, “if you promise to get married young.” Implicitly she confessed: I may not make it to ninety. Don’t wait until thirty to get married.
But so many of us do wait. We wait to get married, and we wait to have children. This is not without consequences.
Holy Scripture presents the model of one generation teaching another. We are told to “train up a child” (Prov. 22:6) and that “one generation will laud [God’s] works to another” (Psalm 145:4). The second chapter of the Epistle to Titus urges the older men and women to be examples for and to train the younger men and women, respectively. Deuteronomy commands, “you shall teach [the words of God] diligently to your children,” emphasizing that this teaching should happen not only during holy times but also during the course of everyday life—when walking, talking, sitting, and rising (Deut. 6:7). Especially powerful is the image of the generational gifting of the knowledge of God found in Psalm 78:
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might,
and the wonders which he has wrought.
He established a testimony in Jacob,
and appointed a law in Israel,
which he commanded our fathers
to teach to their children;
that the next generation might know them,
the children yet unborn,
and arise and tell them to their children,
so that they should set their hope in God,
and not forget the works of God,
but keep his commandments. . . .
(Psalm 78:2–7)
We are the primary teachers of the faith to our children. The more time we have with them in this life, the greater our influence over them. This is due not merely to overlapping time, but also to the progression of life stages we will witness our children experiencing. The spiritual quandaries of a thirteen-year-old boy are a far cry from the wrestlings of a thirty-year-old man. It is one thing to help a daughter survive middle-school drama with Christ-like patience. It is another to help her bring that same virtue into marriage and motherhood. The more time we have with our children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, the more opportunities we have to speak truth and bring God’s love into their lives.
Who at his deathbed would not want ten more years to walk alongside his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, doing all he could to ensure that the faith of his family was secure and steadfast against the attacks of the enemy? And yet we often waste years and years dating around, extending engagements, and putting off having children. Although on paper any Christian would say that raising up his children in the Lord is his highest priority, many choose to spend the prime of their lives on their education and career, on amassing wealth and establishing financial security, even though our Lord has told us not to be concerned about the things that “moth and rust consume” (Matt. 6:19) and instead to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33).
We have become like the rich fool in Luke 12:19, saying, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease” and now start your family! We stringently amass an earthly inheritance for our children, calculating the cost of private education and college tuition. We would rather be sure we can afford orthodontia than be sure we have enough time to instill orthodoxy. And as we delay having children in order to raise their standard of living, we are ultimately depriving our children of what they need most: sufficient years of spiritual guidance.
Physical Dangers
This debilitating trend of delaying parenthood is pervasive throughout our country. The average age at which women begin childbearing has been rising over the last forty years, and in 2016, for the first time in American history, the birthrate for women in their early thirties was higher than that for women in their twenties. In 1970, the average age of first-time mothers in America was 21. By 2014, the average age was 26, and it has continued to climb. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of childless women in their thirties nearly doubled from 1976 to 2016 (from 15.6 to 30.8 percent for women aged 30–34; and from 10.5 to 18.5 percent for women aged 35–39), and it increased from 30.8 to 53.8 percent among women aged 25–29.
Much has been written on the motivating factors behind this delay: feminism, sexual “liberation,” prioritized career, adulterated courting practices, and so on. Not as much attention has been directed toward the effects of postponing the start of one’s family. Delaying parenthood may seem innocuous, but considering the rising age of first-time mothers, we should ask if this societal trend is good for our families and our faith.
Elizabeth Nussen is a wife and mother residing in northeast Ohio. She holds an M.A. in philosophy from Kent State University and is a part-time humanities tutor in the local homeschool community. She is a traditionalist Christian.
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