Waiting to have children after marriage

Hi, the Bible says be fruitful and multiply. I think when you get married you should be ready to have children. But there is also wisdom in planning your family. You will not really know your husband until you have lived with him for awhile. That is an adjustment. Then to immediately become with child is an adjustment. Then the birth of the baby is an adjustment.

I don't agree with waiting until things are in the right conditions but it will benefit you greatly to give it at least a couple of months before you get pregnant. Also spacing your children is important. I have a friend who just keeps spitting them babies out and she is about to drop. She can bearly recover from one baby before she has another.

Let me make it clear, I don't believe we have the right to play god in deciding how many to children to have, but there is nothing wrong with using a little bit of wisdom.

I know I am babbling... sorry. Hope it helps.

 

There's a difference between waiting until things are perfect and waiting until you're more prepared. You can never be fully prepared for anything, but you can be in a better position than you are right now.

Part of it isn't so much about waiting until you want kids, but about waiting until you can better care for them. I see far too many people keep dropping kids when they're in no position at all to raise them even semi-comfortably. That's just irresponsible, IMO.

I don't know that I would put a set time limit on it, though. I might do a "wait till I'm off this medicine for a year (or whenever thhe doctor says)" or a "wait till we have a two bedroom apartment or a house" - that sort of thing. Just so you don't get tied to the 5 year plan.

But I see no problems - moral or otherwise - with getting married and waiting to have children (or even with not having them at all).

 

Hi,
Psalm 127
Psalm 128
And doing a study on fruitfulness of the womb and barrenness I believe is a good idea too.

HCL

 

Well, if I ever get married, I plan to wait a while. Hey, I'm gonna have the kids that God wants me to have regardless of wether or not I wait a few months or a year or two. God's gonna give 'em to you when He wants you to have them. It's always good to be better prepared tho.

 

Well I wonder just who thinks they are that powerful so I can laugh at them.
No matter when you choose to have a baby, and if you use birthcontrol, when God wants you to have a baby, you will.There are people married 10 years, who ahve tried tobn ahve a baby and don't, with nothing medically wrong with either of them, then suddenly out of the blues their pregnant, then there are people who use burthcontrol,a nd still ahve a baby anyway. If God wants you to have a baby you will.

 

I believe if you are ready for marriage,you should be prepared to have children. The blessed marriage was designed by God to multiply and fill the Earth....so,we should be open to children at anytime,once we are married.

We kinda did things wrong,I think...we planned too much,and now we wished we had not done that. I taught school early in our marriage,waited 3 years,then had baby #1,then 18 months later,was pregnant with baby #2...we thought that was it,at least for a while,then we wanted another baby and I did not get pregnant for a while until now....but,now,we are so different in our thinking on children....we see them as a blessing,instead of work(although it is hard work to raise them correctly). We wish we had been more open to more children in our 20's....now,at 34,we are expecting baby #3,and we are so happy and blessed....but,we still we tried to control it too much in our early married years! I never took birth control,but we still knew what we were doing ....wisdom in this area is good...I don't wish for a baby every year,but I wish we had 5 or so by now.

God may still bless us with more....I do want to trust God in this area.

I wanted to add that I sound like I am full of regrets....actually,I am very content with my family and am so grateful for the children I have....I hope I was not sounding ungrateful. I love my children dearly and would love God to bless us with more. If not,that is okay,too.

[ December 09, 2002, 08:03 PM: Message edited by: Molly ]

 

I want to get married and have babies pretty quickly..but some people choose to wait. I also think that if God wants you to have a baby..you will. My friend and her husband chose to wait a while, and they are thrilled with the two girls they have now. Of course..I don't know if I could handle the age gap. Her girls are 13 months apart. That's kinda close. I think it's between you and your hubby and God.

 

If I get married again, I won't be having any more children. My urologist made sure of that . I've already been fruitful and I've already multpiplied. Now I'm working on the two becoming one.

 

That would be me.

Since you don't believe that you can thwart God's will, you must believe that God wills for you to sin each time you do so?

And yet at the same time you do not trust that God will not give you children He does not will for you if you don't use birth control?

Kind of like saying, "If God wills for me to have this child, He will cause for it to survive the abortion." Abortion should then be allowed by your logic because when God wants you to have a baby you will, right?

Ron

 

Teresa, as your subject line says, it's a very good idea to wait until you are married to have children. I have known several people that did the opposite, everything turned out fine, but they really wish they had waited until after marriage. I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it, had to tease you just a little.
Teresa, don't worry what others think you and Adam should be doing or shouldn't be doing. If you want to wait, that is fine, if you want to have a curtain climber right off the bat, then that is fine too. Just remember to love one another, always, and pray about all things going on your lives. You'll be fine, okay?
Sue

 

That's something entirely up to your own interpretation. I see nothing in scriptures that says when or how you must conceive, or how many times. Plants were given the command to reproduce too, are we sinning by picking dandelions?
Apart from that, there IS some financial obligation involved. If a person wants to wait until a marriage is grounded and they're more financially stable GO FOR IT. I know what it's like to not be ready.
Gina

 

Actually, just to set the record straight...

My comment was that if one is not willing to accept the children that God wills for one, then perhaps it would be better to wait to get married when one is prepared to accept those children.

IMO, starting a marriage with an agreement to avoid having the children that God wills both partners to have, is not a good beginning.

Ron

 

Ron,

That is all fine and good, but you can't make a blanket statement that all couples are to immeadiately have children after their marriage, or say because two people choose to wait to have children until they can feed and clothe them and give them a reasonably good life is thwarting God's will.

 

I've seen many couples who marry and will say in premarital counseling that "the world is too full to add more children" or "we don't want to raise a child in a world like this" and then completely turn around after the wedding and want a house full. I've talked to more who didn't want children, but felt pressured by parents to "make some grandkids for them to spoil."

We waited about 6 years to start actively trying for a family. I believe and counsel that the couple needs to make some important adjustments with each other before complicating the home with a child. A baby is not glue to keep a marriage together, though some try that. Also, I believe a baby feels and is impacted by stress in the home, even if he/she is too young to know or express it.

I think you need to get to know the "real" spouse for a time, and work through the issues which will certainly be revealed shortly after you say I DO, if they haven't surfaced in pre-marital counseling. I was seperated from my wife for almost 4 months within our first 3 years together. If we also had a child in this scenario, we might be another statistic, or else feel miserably trapped. Then we would not be as effective in rooting out the problem because of overlapping roles, relationships, and new responsibilities. Our choice was not about careers; it was about having fun together and getting to deeply know each other fully while we were young. We learned how to work better as a team, and so learned how to become team mates as parents.

So, I suggest to folks I meet with to consider the adjustments before they pick out the decor for the baby room. Family today is tough. I want to challenge couples to make tough commitments to each other before adding kids. Does that make sense?

David

 

Interesting theory. Personally I have never been able to submit completely to God's will...in that I have never been able to let God just take complete control without my having to ever make an active decision about anything. I know that there are many Christians who can...but not me.

I personally know lots of Christian couples who never practice any kind of birth control...and baby after baby after baby comes...and I have nothing against anyone who lives that way...sometimes I wish I was that way...but I'm not. I can't imagine having a baby a year for 20 or so years... can you?

Thwarting God's will.... interesting theory.

 

Well for Patti and me, married 18 years, no children. Soon after we were married Patti was diagonses with a mental illness, and the drugs prescibed were/are usually fatal to fetuses, so we never went down that road.

I also have herditary diseses which would likely be passes on to any child we might have.

We considered adoption, but with a wife who is schizophrenic, no social worker would consider us as suitable candidates.

So we have dogs.

I believe you have to do what you feel is best. There are issues and things in life which are unique to the individual/couple that may have a bearing on these decisions. Prayerful consideration is the way to go.

Jeff

 

Actually, just to set the record straight...

My comment was that if one is not willing to accept the children that God wills for one, then perhaps it would be better to wait to get married when one is prepared to accept those children.

IMO, starting a marriage with an agreement to avoid having the children that God wills both partners to have, is not a good beginning.

Ron</font>[/QUOTE]Ron can you show me even one Bible verse that says "you must have children as soon as possible?" I can't think of any and I do know that love is patient and kind and God is love so I can't imagine God being impatient for a couple to have children who feel they aren't quite emotional and/or financially ready to raise a child yet - or wanting them to take on a burden that they aren't ready to take on, yet. I don't see what's kind in the least about that. I believe God wants us to love and care for the children we have. And I respect any husband and wife who say "we're not ready to do that yet - we will be, but not quite yet".

Also, Paul wrote in 1 Cor 7 that it's better to marry than burn with passion. Which seems to go against your suggestion that people wait to get married unless they're ready to have children right away.

The number of children most Christians have indicates to me that they are actively avoiding conception some of the time. Either that or they are not obeying Paul's exhortation not to withhold themselves from one another except for a short time by mutual consent, to pray. Or they aren't normally fertile. The first of the three seems most likely to me.

If you think it's wrong to avoid conception do you also think it's wrong to accept medical treatment if you're sick? Is that thwarting God's will also? Must we be limited to only avail ourselves of what was around in Bible times, because anything that was discovered/developed/invented since then is not explicitly said to be 'ok' in the Bible?

I respect the beliefs of those who think it's morally wrong to ever try to prevent conception, as long as they are prepared to take care of a large family. If they aren't then I think they are making a mistake.

And I also think it's very unlikely God would supernaturally intervene and prevent a young married couple from conceiving within a matter of months, who are doing nothing to actively prevent conception themselves. He could but I doubt He would. It just doesn't seem to me that that's the way He operates, most of the time...

So, I guess most Christian families today have thwarted God's will, if it is thwarting His will to say "this many children is the number we can afford to have and raise" Including many pastors and their families - because I can think of very few with large families.

Are you married, Ron? Do you have a large family? If so I respect that but I don't see the Biblical basis for saying that preventing conception is always thwarting God's will. Any more than taking medication is thwarting God's will. Or stopping my child thoughtlessly running into the street in front of a moving vehicle is thwarting God's will by keeping him/her alive and safe when the child otherwise would have got hurt.

I suppose I'd say we're free in Christ to make decisions about how many children we bring into the world. God who looks at the heart will judge our motives. But I don't see all motives for 'waiting' or limiting the number of children we have, as 'against God'.

Helen/AITB

 

On large families- I think it is wonderful for those who have large families and can afford it. Unfortunately I have seen some Catholic families who have 12 children, and while their Catholic services think that they are doing them good by giving them central air and big screen TV's, they struggled a great deal just to put food on the table for everyone.

I know that for me, I want children, as many as God wants me to have, and I want to adopt mentally disabled too, but I want to prepare a suitable home first.