An argument I hear frequently against having a larger family is that “big families are no longer an asset.” Back when life was agrarian or trade-based, having lots of kids meant you could get more done for your family: plow more acres, build more wagons, shoe more horses, sell more clocks. But NOW, now in our modern world where we get in our cars without our kids and drive to work all day, it doesn’t make any difference how many we have back home, we still get the same amount of work done in a day. Conclusion: Having a small army of your very own is outdated and pointless. Kids are no help anymore.
And while I’ll easily concede that for most families, kids don’t usually help much with your professional job and cost a lot more money than they bring in (although their eventual contribution to the economy at large far exceeds the cost of raising them: an estimated lifetime earning of 1.2-4.4 million dollars vs. an estimated 118,000-250,000 dollars to raise a child to adulthood), the “kids are not an asset” argument misses a lot of the blessing and productivity that can come from having lots of children.
Most significantly, it misses the point of life. The point of life is NOT to go to work and do really well for ourselves. The point of life is to glorify God. Changing our focus to that goal suddenly gives a big family a whole new potential. There are so many things a small army can accomplish besides farming and blacksmithing, and when it comes to blessing others, every well-trained child becomes a huge asset.
This point was slammed home to me in a vivid way this past weekend when a wonderful couple from our home fellowship got married. Being both frugal and unbelievably resourceful, they were doing everything themselves with the help of family and friends. So on the day before the wedding, when they got access to the church building where the wedding was to be held, a great mob of dear folks descended to tie ribbons, set tables, organize flowers, cook food, etc., etc., etc. Mr. Parunak and I were part of this group as was another family from our fellowship. We’ll call them the Incredibles, so as to avoid using their real names on the Internet. The Incredibles have six children, ranging in age from three to fourteen. Their second youngest is the same age as our oldest, which means they have four inspiring older children to provoke me to near continual awe.
The Incredibles arrived on the scene and threw the full weight of a large, well organized, hardworking family into assembly line efficiency that wowed everyone. When we finally finished the set-up around 10:30 the night before the wedding, everyone said we could never have done it without the Incredibles.
It was the same the next day, when the Incredibles easily absorbed our four young’uns into their family so I could be up in front as the matron of honor and Mr. Parunak could dash all over as the photographer. And then, when the reception was over, the Incredibles stayed and threw their awesomeness into cleaning up the church.
Now I am quite sure that Mr. and Mrs. Incredible, being the self-sacrificing people that they are, would have been right there helping even if they hadn’t ever had any children at all. But their effort was GREATLY multiplied by the number of very capable hands that they brought with them. They are raising a small army, and they were able to unleash the power of that army this weekend to really bless some people.
And so it can be with any large family if the parents have a vision for glorifying God through reaching out and supporting people. When you’ve got a small army working on something, a lot more gets done in a lot less time. (Duh.) If that work is Kingdom work, then the Industrial Revolution has no effect. Big families are still a big asset.
Amen! Way to illustrate your point! I love the phrase “threw their awesomeness into…” on a very nerdy level.
And boy, were those who received the blessings of the ‘incredibles’ so grateful for that small army. What a beautiful wedding, what a testimony of God’s grace, and what a witness to those in attendance of how great and powerful our God is when his people come together in love, serving for profit, but not monetary profit, a profit of sanctification and eternal riches beyond any earthly reward.
Praise God for His people!
Great example!
Ah yes! I would guess that Mr. and Mrs. Incredible wondered what they had started 10 years ago, and now they can hardly believe the efficient machine they have started with their own hands. Our four have developed into a smallish work crew that was hired out by a neighbor to help her clean up her rental properties. After working with them, she declared, “I can see why people have big families now!” and decided to have another baby within the year! LOL!
I will say that a big (trained) family is an asset, but an untrained group (of any size) is not. Sadly, I have met some biggish families that have not organized the crew into usefulness like they could, which is part of the reason for my blog–getting the crew organized and useful!
by the way, is the Incredible family open for training others?
Amen! Very discerning of you to notice the foundational flaw in that argument. We always need to go back to that most important axiom: Our Primary and Sole Purpose is to Glorify God. Without that as your foundation, you are at the whim of modern (and not so modern) relativistic non-morality.
So glad the wedding was fabulous! Sounds like a beautiful time.
As I see it, the “small army” argument is not really about family size at all but about good people doing God’s work (which is always a great thing!). The blessing was that God’s children showed love to each other. Sharing a surname is great, but the blessing would not have been any less if the Incredibles had brought their small group friends or folks they were mentoring, right?
Kathy,
Absolutely! Having a big family certainly isn’t the only way to get a team together to take care of people’s needs. My point wasn’t that big families are a blessing and no other groups are. My point was that big families ARE a blessing. Like I said in my post, I frequently hear the argument that “big families are no longer an asset.” Check out the comments on this post for example. It seems like a lot of people have no idea what big families can do and view children only as financial liabilities.
Loved this!
A small army is also an asset in caring for one’s elderly parents. When my father was in the hospital after his heart attack and my mother was ill at home, I, my husband, my siblings and their spouses rotated being with my father or mother around the clock, with someone always available to watch the large group of kids. The practical, emotional and faith-filled family support during that time and my father’s eventual death was invaluable. I was glad that my parents had had a large family and had inspired me and my siblings to have large families as well.