This double-edged truth—that children are a blessing, but not ultimate—cuts across both ancient and modern cultures. To a world that idolizes family, Jesus says, “I am your true identity.” To a world that devalues children, he says, “They are a gift from God.” This perspective brings value to children, purpose to parents, and comfort to the childless.

A Growing Anxiety

When, near the end of April 2025, the Trump administration floated ways to motivate women to have more children—including a $5,000 “baby bonus”—it was focusing on an anxiety shared on both sides of the political aisle. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had recently released a report showing that birthrates had dipped to historic lows—a slump, which according to the New York Times “worries demographers and cultural critics.”

Simply put, women are having fewer and fewer babies.

According to aggregated research, the Total Fertility Rate (average number of children per woman throughout her lifetime) peaked in 1959 at 3.75 births per woman. Today, that number has fallen to 1.62. In order to preserve a population, that number must be something above 2. A shrinking population—and with it, labor shortages, healthcare system overload, school and university closures—is baked into the numbers.

Why Are People Having Fewer Children?

The big question is: Why are people choosing to have fewer children? Obviously, it would require something like divine omniscience to answer that question for each person, but some have cited the exorbitant cost as one factor. Recent estimates put the cost of raising a child at $20,000 per year. Moreover, vehicles and homes tend not to be designed for families larger than six. 

But is the cost of raising children the main reason people are choosing not to have children?

Writing for The Atlantic, Christina Emba argues that while cost may be a factor, the deeper reason is not about money: it’s about meaning. “In trying to solve the fertility puzzle,” she writes,

thinkers have cited people’s concerns over finances, climate change, political instability, or even potential war. But in listening closely to people’s stories, I’ve detected a broader thread of uncertainty—about the value of life and a reason for being. Many in the current generation of young adults don’t seem totally convinced of their own purpose or the purpose of humanity at large, let alone that of a child. It may be that for many people, absent a clear sense of meaning, the perceived challenges of having children outweigh any subsidy the government might offer.

I think Emba is right. An ambiguity toward the meaning of life, combined with an individualistic (“me-centered”) approach to fulfillment and satisfaction, is more effective than any method of birth-control. It’s not only eroding spiritual life; it’s stunting biological life too.

Does It Make Sense to Have Children in a World Without Meaning?

In a worldview in which human value is not anchored in the image of God, and the future is uncertain or bleak, children can be viewed as a burden, even a liability. Add to this worldview a vision of life that is individualistic, career-centered, and self-actualizing, and there is hardly room for a child, much less a home full of them.

Such a view of children would have been unthinkable in ancient agrarian cultures, where children were essential for survival. In a farming society, more children meant more hands to work the land, ensuring the family’s livelihood. Kids were social security, health insurance, legacy.

Infertility, accordingly, wasn’t just a personal sorrow—it was a existential crisis. A woman who couldn’t bear children was a shame to her family. No wonder, in Genesis 30:1, Rachel cries to Jacob, “Give me children, or I will die!”

So, which view is right? The modern model of optional parenthood based on personal fulfillment? Or the ancient view of children as essential for livelihood and legacy?

The Bible’s View: Children Are a Blessing from God

Although the Bible is an ancient book, it’s purpose is not to call us to adopt ancient cultural viewpoints. Rather, it cuts across all cultures, whether ancient or modern. When it comes to children, it affirms their immense value, while grounding our identity and fulfillment in something greater.

Consider how, on the one hand, the Bible affirms the goodness of children—and how this is a direct contrast to the modern view. God told humans to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). Psalm 127 celebrates children as “a heritage from the Lord,” and compares them to “arrows in the hand of a warrior” meaning that they can extend a person’s influence beyond his or her personal reach.

The very storyline of the Bible, in fact, runs on the theme of people having—or struggling to have—babies: from Eve’s giving birth to Cain, Abel, and Seth, to the infertility struggles of Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah, to Mary’s giving birth to Jesus.

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