According to the New York Times article, the U.S. Fertility rate has fallen to a record low for a second straight year.
Populations ebb and flow, but it is important to keep humanity around. This thought makes me think of one of the Bible verses read during my wedding ceremony from Genesis 1:28:
“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
As a dad who is working on his spiritual growth, this puts my job into perspective. It’s a big job to usher in the future, to fill the earth if you will. Think about all of the things you pass on to your kids, whether that be genes, habits or quirks.
One of the things that made me want to have kids, and I have always wanted to be a dad, is the idea that I get to live on after I pass through the thoughts and actions of my offspring. Kind of selfish?
Having kids though is one of the most selfless things you can do. Selfishness doesn’t last long when you’re a dad. Or maybe better said, being selfish makes the parenting road 100 times more difficult.
Even a round of selfish thinking, things I could be doing, money I could be spending or wondering where my time is going, can lead me down the road of irritability.
Cheers to all you moms and dads out there who have, for whatever reason or chance of fate, have become parents. You are raising the future of our planet. Raise them wisely. The planet and our world is in a challenging state. It’s a wonderful time to be alive.
There’s a mindset that I occasionally brush up against, where I see myself coaching my son or teaching my daughter, and I wonder how they will use this instruction in their future. There are already things that I don’t even remember saying but my six-year-old son will repeat back to me and say I said them.
As long as dads can pass along a few of the fruits of the spirit as mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23, I like to hang on to the belief that the world can continue to be a better place:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
Father Through Me 