Kerby Anderson

Professor Paul Kengor argues that “You Can Never Have Enough Kids.” He was on my radio program last week to talk about his article.

He confronts what he calls the mindless cliché of our culture: Wait until you have enough money to have kids. He hears it regurgitated by young couples all the time. He then takes the time to calmly ask them a few questions.

“How many kids did your grandparents have? How about your great-grandparents when they came to America dirt poor on packed ships headed to Ellis Island?” When they acknowledge that those ancestors had a bunch of kids, he then asks them: “How much money did they have?”

He has found that the young man or woman is usually taken aback. They haven’t heard that from the culture. They know their ancestors had no money but raised large, intact families and stayed married. In fact, they wouldn’t be alive today without those ancestors bestowing the gifts of life.

He also asks a follow-up question: “How much money will be enough before having that kid? How much cash should be shoveled into this child’s materialistically ideal existence?” People who focus on having enough money will find they will never have enough.

On the radio program, Paul Kengor also reminded us that the greatest gift you can give your child is a sibling. When people find out how many kids his wife and he have, they say, “One kid has been hard enough for us!” His response is that one kid is harder, but two kids are easier. The one child gets a playmate other than you. He explained that when he had only one child, he had to come home and play Legos for several hours. When the second boy came along, he had boundless energy and was all in.

We need messages like this in a culture that doesn’t seem to value children anymore.