Why Family

"Start Your Family" released

noreply@blogger.com (AuthorMama) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:41:00 +0000

Since we last posted here, we've added another baby to our family and two books to our shelf. Actually, we've added many, many books. But two in particular stand out -- the ones we wrote. The first one, Get Married: What Women Can Do to Help it Happen, made it's debut last January (2008) and has been encouraging single women to pray boldly, seek out mentors and, among other things, live like they're planning to marry.

The newest release, Start Your Family: Inspiration for Having Babies, will hopefully be of special interest to readers of this blog.

Starting a family is a soul-shaping, world-altering experience. Unfortunately, in a culture of competing values and protracted timelines, couples are increasingly backing their way into parenting or missing it altogether. By the time the average couple tries to have kids, they are often beyond their late twenties and surprised to learn they're sliding past the peak of their fertile years.

Start Your Family encourages couples to be intentional about their timeline in the early years of marriage and to trust God to help them boldly launch their families. Responding to the most common doubts and hurdles, we offer biblical inspiration for the questions, "Why have kids?," "When is the best time to start?" and "How can we fit kids into our lives?"

The books explain our move away from Why Family, to the book blog sites. Please join us there. For single women, and others interested in helping them marry well, it's www.helpgetmarried.com.

For couples considering babies, and their community of support, it's www.startyourfamily.com.

Drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you.

It's Nearly a Year!

noreply@blogger.com (AuthorMama) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:57:00 +0000

It's hard to believe next week will mark a year since we starting blogging at Boundless. Blogging for the Boundless Line has been a trememdous experience. Thanks to all the readers here who started reading us there. And thanks to all the participants, that's the best part. We've had over 14,000 contributions since we opened up comments on the blog.

If you haven't visited the blog, please take a minute to read today's posts and leave us a message.

Thanks,
Steve and Candice

New Blog on Boundless.org

noreply@blogger.com (AuthorMama) — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 03:25:00 +0000

Not sure if you heard the news, but Boundless.org launched it's blog, The Line, today. We hope you'll take a minute to check it out. And if it looks like our activity on this blog is a little light in the near future, that's because we're contributing over on The Line. We'll still post here: there are some things that just fit better on whyfamily.

Hopefully we'll see you in both places.

Steve and Candice

It's Not About the Career

noreply@blogger.com (AuthorMama) — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 23:31:00 +0000

Michael Noer is either an incredibly courageous journalist, or an incredibly stupid one.

His article this week in Forbes has raised quite a stir. (Incidentally, after day one, a counter-point was added to the website, written by one of his co-workers.) Entitled, "Don't Marry Career Women," the article shows extensive research that supports the idea that a career woman may be a less ideal choice for a spouse if what you're after is faithfulness in your marriage and a happy mother for your children.

All furor aside, I think he missed a vital point. Whether a woman has a career is not the issue. Her priorities are.

I'm concerned about the implications for single Christian career women who exude so much confidence and self-actualization and independence that they leave single Christian men with little to offer them. If a 25 year old career gal earns enough to pay her way, she doesn't need a provider. If she's fit and strong and maybe a black belt to boot, she doesn't need a protector. There's a strong cult of independence, so strong in fact, that I worry it will render a lot of single Christian women unable, or unwilling, to ever become interdependent enough to want or even be capable of Christian marriage.

I'm not saying the single gal should limit herself to knitting and waiting for prince charming, but what her attitude says about her priorities goes a long way toward determining if she'll ever be getting married or forever staying single.

Does she want marriage? Does she want children? Is she open to or planning on quitting her high-powered job to raise her family when they arrive? Then she should make sure that part of her is as obvious as the driven-career woman part.

Simple fixes to the fertility gap?

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:46:00 +0000

Ten years ago, Candice and I were sitting in a public policy class at Regent University taught by Dr. Hubert Morken. As he addressed a variety of policy challenges, Candice asked a favorite question of hers: "What's the solution?" Dr. Morken's answer caught everyone off guard: "Get married and make babies." His point seemed so crude, but he insisted that regardless of what's going on in the public debate, the people who are having children and raising them consistent with their values tend to have the most impact on future debates. Over the last week, the Wall Street Journal ran two articles reinforcing Dr. Morken's point--specfically the impact of people not having babies.

The first article ("Cash Incentives Aren't Enough to Lift Fertility") covers the impact on the international marketplace. Numerous countries once caught up in concerns about a population boom are now facing the reality of a population bust. Worried they will have a shrinking labor force and consumer base, many are offering cash incentives for their citizens to have more babies. Those incentives, however, haven't created the desired effect and many of those same countries are now looking at the option of loosening their immigration controls--a tactic they know will change the face of their countries.

The second article ("The Fertility Gap") looks at the impact of baby-making on the ballot box. Arthur C. Brooks, a professor at Syracuse University writes, "liberals have a big baby problem" and he isn't talking about infant obesity. He points out a fertility gap of 41% between liberals and conservatives and estimates that by 2020, the current fertility trends alone will push conservatives into the majority in California where liberals currently dominate. He states that all their MTV-esque get-out-the-vote efforts have been in vain because "liberals have been quite successful controlling overpopulation--in the Democratic Party." He ends saying, "Democrat politicians may have no more babies left to kiss."

Articles like these have to be frustrating to both business-centric conservatives and "get out the vote" social liberals. Because while they make it clear that more babies are needed, that reality flies in the face of the anti-natalism that has become ingrained in social liberals as well as many capitalists who have developed a habit of letting what's best for business trump family interests over the years. The reality is that both of these wings of society are now in a position of wanting to have it both ways. The liberals want to maintain their love affair with abortion, homosexuality and other anti-natal positions while also somehow growing their voter base. Many capitalists on the other hand want to keep growing their labor and consumer base while maintaining their worship of the almighty dollar, even when it means promoting anti-family products like pornography, anti-family work environments where only the single and childless can get ahead and consumptive lifestyles where couples are strapped with debt that make starting a family seem like a fantasy.

At the end of the day, neither financial rewards from capitalists or even extreme get -out-the-vote (by getting pregnant) efforts from liberals can have much effect on a decision as important, intimate and life changing as having a baby. After all, how many liberal couples are going to gaze into each other's eyes and say, "let's make a little voter?" or how many capitalists are going to hop in bed motivated by their desire for a little tax deduction? Parenting requires greater vision than that. The latest reports on the fertility gap show that there are no simple solutions for anti-natalists, while there are suprising results for the men and women who--as Sting so poetically put it--"send their love into the future."

More on Barna's numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 01:56:00 +0000

People who have started looking more closely at Barna's articles (such as Mike Theemling and gortexgrrl) have noticed the same thing we did in our research: Barna doesn't break down gender differences between never married men and women. It would have been helpful if he had. Consequently, we don't know exactly the percentage of never married Christian men vs. the percentage of never married Christian women. In his book Single Focus, Barna offers the percentage of believers among never marrieds, marrieds, divorced and widowed. While he shows a much higher percentage of believers among those who are married or widowed vs. those who have never married, he doesn't divide those marital status categories into gender. That leaves us with his gender gap of 41% to 49% (it isn't broken down by marital status).

Ultimately, this is the primary issue: Barna estimated in 2000 that there were 11 to 13 million more Christian women than Christian men (an estimate he must have arrived at by applying his percentages to Census Bureau data, the same way other statisticians do -- unless he has his own army of headcounters). Nowhere does Barna indicate specifically what several singles writers have implied -- that the gap he is referring to is among never married men and never married women. Until I can track someone down at Barna to see what other information they may have, a reasonable interpretation of what they make available is that the playing field between never married men and never married women is at least mostly level and most likely slightly in favor of men.

-- Steve

I'd like to add that my point in writing the article was not to start a debate about who outnumbers whom, but to clarify that where never marrieds are concerned, the 11-13 million number has absolutely no bearing. It's disingenuous to quote it in the context of a conversation about how many singles aren't getting married and it has the effect of leaving many women feeling unnecessarily depressed.

It is good news for never married women who desire marriage that the 11 million man shortage is a fallacy.

Now that we know there are enough men, or at least nearly enough, we can stop feeling sorry that we live in this generation and start asking the harder questions like what makes for a good potential spouse, where are the good potential spouses to be found, and what part can can I, as a woman, play in God's plan for marriage?

-- Candice

Defending math for more married men

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:29:00 +0000

In a recent post, gortexgrrl wrote:

As much as we were due for a break-down of Barna's 11-13 million man shortfall stat in terms of never married, married, divorced, widowed BELIEVERS (not nec. "AT CHURCH"), you can't just splice together two sets of data, willy-nilly, this set from Barna, that set from census, etc. Statistics just don't work that way.

Since I helped Candice process these numbers, I wanted to respond. The first thing I should point out is that it's perfectly fine to apply percentage estimates to Census Bureau population numbers--it happens all the time as polling groups survey small samples and then project their proportions onto the general population. It's exactly what Barna did. Notice the footnote to Barna's study making the claim that there were 11 to 13 million more single women than men:

The research is based upon six telephone surveys among 4,755 adults over the age of 18 who reside in the 48 continental states - 2,439 of the interviews were with women and 2,316 were among men. The estimated sampling error for the survey is +2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

How in the world did Barna determine there was a gap of 11 to 13 million if he only surveyed 4,755 adults? He obviously applied his percentages to the population estimates made available by the Census Bureau.

Because the Census Bureau clearly shows that never married men outnumber never married women in every age category except those over 75, the gap that Barna points out is clearly among widowed and divorced women--supported by the Census Bureau. Barna affirms this point in another article drawing from his singles research in which he says, "Whereas men slightly outnumber women among those who have never been married and divorced women slightly outnumber divorced men, widowed women dwarf widowed men by a 4.3-to-1 ratio."

The bottom line is that anyone who wants to use Barna's research to accurately characterize the reality of how never married men compare to never married women should refer to the quote above instead of trying to guess which women he's referring to when he says that Christian women in general outnumber Christian men in general.

While eHarmony registration and Christian colleges may skew female, their numbers say more about who is seeking out online matching and higher education than it does about the actual breakdown of never married Christian men and women. Courtney Camerin's global perspective, unfortunately, is only anecdotal. At the end of the day, gortexgrrl is right that there still are many churches and other Christian settings where never married women outnumber never married men on a regular basis. However, there is no way you can legitimately interpret Barna's research, or anyone else's, to show that there are more never married Christian women in American than there are never married Christian men.

Plenty of Men to Go Around!

noreply@blogger.com (AuthorMama) — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 13:48:00 +0000

This week's boundless webzine features two articles of interest to our blog readers. The first revisits my homeownership series, only this time from a purely financial perspective. The second, reflected in the title above, debunks a myth that's lately gained steam. Namely: the belief that Christian single women outnumber the men and therefore doom many to unwanted, lifelong, singleness.

Thanks to Mike Theemling (see comments) for taking the stats even further. He did a little research on his own and found that not only are their more single Christian men than women, but there actually more of them -- the men -- in church. I know that won't square with what a lot of the female readers are experiencing; it's not true in every church, but it's encouraging to know it's true overall.

I suspect part of the anecdotal evidence that furthers the perception that women outnumber men comes from mainline churches where, according to journalist Allan Dobras, the pews are filled with older, more female parishioners. In "Men at Church," Dobras blames the exodus of young people, including men, on

the denial of the authority of Scripture which gave rise to an apostate clergy and the "cafeteria Christian" who selects from the Bible those portions of scripture that he/she chooses to accept.

Once Scriptural authority was compromised, it served as an opportunity to rethink human sexuality and introduce the legitimization of homosexuality, which has become the most divisive and polarizing issue in the modern church.

I'd add to that the redefining of the roles men and women play; leaving both sexes confused about how to initiate, function and progress in romantic relationships.

I'll be coming back to this issue in next month's Boundless column.

Till then, I think the best encouragement is that the perception of too few men is a fallacy and the more biblically sound your church is, the more likely it is to appeal to men and more accurately reflect the numbers.

Divorce effect on evolving attitudes of never-married singles

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:59:00 +0000

I have a stack of books on my desk at the office that came out in the 1980s and ‘90s for churches trying to address the growing singles population in their church. In these books I see the beginnings of the ideas on singleness and marriage that have become today’s conventional wisdom. Ideas such as:

Single people can be more spiritual because they don’t have the distraction of family responsibilities
Singles shouldn’t feel pressured into marriage
Marriage can’t complete you
Churches shouldn’t be so family-centric
Singleness is a gift that is scripturally-affirmed, reasonable alternative to marriage

All these concepts have elements of truth. But I believe they’ve now been taken too far. Consider, we have people believing:

Single people are actually spiritually superior to married people—a boast that Paul refuted in his day
That any encouragement or motivation for singles to consider marriage is undue pressure
That marriage does not play a God-given role in meeting some of our primary needs
That any effort to hold up God’s plan for family in a church is a slam on singles
That all singles have the "gift of singleness" and can carry around a spiritual trump card excusing them of any and all lifestyle choices and attitudes against marriage on the basis of the affirmation afforded to them by the Christian community

How did we get to this point?

How did we get to such a standoff between singles and families in churches? A key thing to remember is that the spike in singleness over the past 30 years came not only from a delay in marriage by young adults, but also by a spike in singleness due to an explosion in divorce.

Churches crafting messages to singles during the ‘80s and ‘90s were most often trying to respond to both categories of singles: divorced singles and never marrieds. My concern is that the needs of young adults who have never married have often been addressed with a script too similar to the one prepared for those who were “single again.” In too many circles the script for those who are single again include negative comments about marriage that create an extra level of anxiety and skepticism among never marrieds.

I’m having a hard time tracking it down, but I read an article by a twentysomething girl in Australia a while back who said she and her friends were hopeful about marriage but felt that her parents’ generation was trying to weigh them down with all kinds of warnings and weariness about marriage based on the hurt and bitterness they experienced from divorce.

While it’s understandable that parents would feel the need to warn young adults about the pain that can come from failed marriages (as if the kids of these breakups don’t already feel it), you almost get the sense that some are turning the old cliché on its head and saying that it’s best to never love at all than to go through the experience of love and loss.

Singles who are already surrounded by an anti-marriage culture and anxious because of the divorces they grew up around are finding even more pessimism and caution from churches who are aching from divorce wounds and don’t want to risk the hope that their young adults just might have the potential to forge good marriages.

More on Celibacy

noreply@blogger.com (AuthorMama) — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 14:29:00 +0000

Thanks to Jake for pointing out that the link to MacArthur's teaching on 1 Corinthians 7 was incomplete. Following are the links to the rest of the series:

1 Corinthians 7:8-16
1 Corinthians 7:17-24
1 Corinthians 7:25-31
1 Corinthians 7:32-40

I think you'll see from the full series that the verse explaining why every man should have his own wife and every woman her own husband ("since there is so much immorality," v. 2) is at least as strong as the reason young virgins should remain that way.

One look at our culture is weighty confirmation that the immorality problem remains.

Also, a word about gortexgrrl's exegesis. This is the first I have heard about the word idios in the context of 1 Corinthians 7. I have previously only heard the Greek word charisma. Not being a biblical scholar myself, I tend to defer to trustworthy experts or tools. For the sake of clarity and accuracy, it would help to know the origins of your interpretation on this one.

I did do a quick search in a Greek Lexicon for the word gift. There are nine versions in the New Testament. Though none of them are idios.

Finally, a word about the question of whether a gift of celibacy equals the cessation, or at least significant lessening, of sexual desire. It's incomplete to read 1 Corinthians 7 without also studying what Jesus said in Matthew 19. It seems to me that His choice of the word eunuch is so graphic as to be significant. If being celibate was not dependent on some lessening of the sex drive, why use a word that means "to castrate or neuter a man." He's talking about being cut off (literally or figuratively) from the sex drive.

This is a reminder that we all drift toward proof-texting -- it's just easy to stop searching the Scriptures and be satisfied when we find a passage that proves our point. What's needed is the full counsel of God's revealed Word.

Unpacking Celibacy

noreply@blogger.com (AuthorMama) — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:40:00 +0000

It's great to see such a lively and engaging discussion going on among our faithful blog community. Thank you for taking the time to think deeply about these important issues and for contributing thoughtful comments. It's too bad you don't all live in the same city -- these conversations would be even better, I suspect, over coffee.

Now for the recent debate about what Paul really meant in 1 Corinthians 7. It's not surprising to see so many opinions on this passage. It's one that remains hotly debated. And why shouldn't it? There's a lot at stake based on how you interpret what he wrote.

I'd like to recommend the transcript of a CD set that we listened to recently by John MacArthur. This well-respected Bible scholar provides the valuable service of explaining what it was Paul was reacting to (1 Corinthians 7:1 begins, "Now concerning the things about which you wrote ..."). The church at Corinth had rasied some questions and concerns to which Paul was responding. That's helpful to know when trying to make sense of what's better, celibacy or marriage. And what's the gift. And who should stay single. And what being single is for. These are important things to know given the state of our culture when it comes to marriage.

Even though I hold strong opinions on these matters, I'm prayerful that God will continue to broaden my understanding of what's true. The goal, afterall, is His perspective. MacArthur's teachings are a part of that process.

Difference between believers and unbelievers?

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:03:00 +0000

Commenting on the post about the "Test driving" article, one reader wondered if Candice and I have a tendency to generalize--assuming Christians are guilty of actions and attitudes that are primarily problems among non-believers. This is a reasonable concern. It's something that often happens in an environment where there's not a broad range of research available differentiating Christian men and women from their secular peers.

I will say that research by Dr. Brad Wilcox at the University of Virginia and past research by The National Marriage Projet (see the 2004 State of Our Unions report with the essay "The Marrying Kind: Which Men Marry and Why") do make it clear that religious men are more likely to commit and marry well than non-relgious men. This truth is not adequately appreciated or sufficiently encouraged.

Our concern, however, is for the men (and women) who say Christ is the Lord of their lives but still have actions and attitudes that are not very different from what Paul describes in the book of Romans as "the pattern of this world." This is a theme Paul reiterates in several of his letters to fellow believers.

While it's a hopeful sign that Christians are not identical to the world on many key issues, it's still troubling how they seem so close behind in problems such as pornography, divorce, sexual activity and cohabitation (I have studies for each of these on my desk at the office showing gaps between Christians and non-Christians anywhere between 50% difference and neck-and-neck).

Perhaps the most troubling comparison stat is the one George Barna captured showing only 8% of Protestants have a Biblical worldview compared to 5% of the adult general population (see study at Barna Website). This is the most likely reason that Christians are so similar to their secular peers in many studies. It's evidence of a lack of solid Biblical teaching in many of our churches these days.

Even while we wait for better research to help us gauge whether secular problems are also significant within the Christian community, I still think it's fair to start by confronting the individual actions that we do see popping up in the category we call "anecdotal." I know Michael Lawrence's examples come from numerous real stories he has encountered among Christians in Washington, D.C. Candice and I come across the stories we do among friends and Bible studies, but also from the emails coming into Boundless.org over the past 8 years. For each and every issue we've addressed, we've been personally animated by the specific Christian men and women we know who illustrate them.

I appreciate the reminder to recognize the many Christians who are working to resist the incredible inertia of our popular culture in order to be obedient to God's word. I also hope, however, we can find it constructive to be diligent in addressing the problems that still surface among Christians. I'm curious if any other readers see the problems we're mentioned among Christians in their lives or if you also are concerned that we are making unfair generalizations about fellow believers.

How to know if she's the one

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:14:00 +0000

Over the past few years, we've heard numerous stories of guys who are having a hard time taking a dating relationship to the next level—even after a couple of years. Some stories are from the girls who are starting to feel frustrated and even taken advantage of. Others are from the guys who are genuinely wrestling with the question, “Is this the girl I should marry?”

A new article posted on Boundless called "Stop Test Driving Your Girlfriend" is a must read for those who are either in this situation or know someone who is. It was written by Dr. Michael Lawrence who has seen this storyline numerous times in his pastoral work in the nation’s capital. As an associate pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Michael developed a seminar for singles in which he provides Biblical principles to guide a young man to make a wise and timely decision about the potential for the relationship he’s in. This article reflects several key principles from that seminar.

We’re excited about the bold challenge this message brings to young men who often just don’t know how to appropriately guide a relationship. It’s our hope this article will start a much needed conversation among young men and women and that it can encourage more accountability and ultimately more good marriages.

Here's one of the best passages:

Too often in dating relationships we think and act like consumers rather than servants. And not very good consumers at that. After all, no one would ever go down to his local car dealership, take a car out for an extended test drive, park it in his garage, drive it back and forth to work for several weeks, maybe take it on vacation, having put lots of miles on it, and then take it back to the dealer and say, "I'm just not ready to buy a new car."

But so often, that's exactly the way men treat the women they're dating. Endlessly "test driving" the relationship, without any real regard for the spiritual and emotional wear and tear they're putting her through, all the while keeping their eyes out for a better model.

Read the whole article at http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001306.cfm.

State of our Unions

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 03:14:00 +0000

Every Summer for the past few years, I've looked forward to the latest State of Our Unions report produced by David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead with the National Marriage Project. Their research is solid, objective and very readable. Over the past few years, they have produced something of a family report card on topics such as marriage, divorce, cohabitation, parenting, etc. In addition, they have offered essays examining trends such as the quest for soul mates, reasons why men won't commit and a description of men who are "the marrying kind." This year, their essay is called "Life Without Children."

It's a troubling picture of where family fits into our current (and future) culture. Below, I've excerpted a large portion of the conclusion of this essay. This portion summarizes compellingly one of the driving issues for this blog.

We are in the midst of a profound change in American life. Demographically, socially and culturally, the nation is shifting from a society of child-rearing families to a society of child-free adults. The percentage of households with children has declined from half of all households in 1960 to less than one-third today—the lowest percentage in the nation’s history. Indeed, if the twentieth century aspired to become the “century of the child,” the twenty-first may well become the century of the child-free.

The repercussions of this change are apparent in nearly every domain of American life.

The physical landscape of communities is changing to fit the lifestyle of the non-child-rearing population. Private housing developers are building condos with health clubs, golf courses, and other adult-only amenities for the growing population of affluent singles, childless couples, and empty nesters. Big cities and small college towns, with a cosmopolitan mix of educational and recreational attractions, are becoming magnets for the childless young and empty-nest old while the child-rearing population is migrating to the exurbs in search of affordable housing, safe streets, and decent schools.
....

Likewise, the popular culture is increasingly oriented to fulfilling the X-rated fantasies and desires of adults. The “adult entertainment industry,” which includes gambling, pornography and sex, is one of the fastest growing and most lucrative sectors of the consumer economy. Not only has this multibillion dollar industry gained respectability and power in the corridors of Washington, it has used its power to defeat every effort to restrict the access of underage children to its most misogynistic and hyperviolent products.

More generally and pervasively, the expressive values of the adult-only world are at odds with the values of the child-rearing world. Indeed, child-rearing values—sacrifice, stability, dependability, maturity—seem stale and musty by comparison. Nor does the bone-wearying and time-consuming work of the child-rearing years comport with a culture of fun and freedom. Indeed, what it takes to raise children is almost the opposite of what popularly defines a satisfying adult life.

The cultural devaluation of child rearing is especially harmful in the American context. In other advanced western societies, parents’ contributions are recognized and compensated with tangible work and family benefits. In American society, the form of compensation has been mainly cultural. Parents have been rewarded (many would argue inadequately) for the unpaid work of caring for children with respect, support and recognition from the larger society. Now this cultural compensation is disappearing. Indeed, in recent years, the entire child-rearing enterprise has been subject to a ruthless debunking. Most notably, the choice of motherhood is now contested terrain, with some critics arguing that the tasks of mothering are unworthy of educated women’s time and talents. Along with the critique of parenthood, a small but aggressively vocal “childfree” movement is organizing to represent the interests of nonparents.

It is hard enough to rear children in a society that is organized to support that essential social task. Consider how much more difficult it becomes when a society is indifferent at best, and hostile, at worst, to those who are caring for the next generation.

Read the entire report at http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2006.htm.

Family mentions at bluegrass concert

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:14:00 +0000

Thanks to the growing community of commenters on this site for keeping an interesting conversation going while we've been between posts. It's nice to have such intelligent and well-spoken men and women dropping by.

Over the weekend, Candice and I sat through the rain for an outdoor concert with Ricky Skaggs and the Kentucky Thunder. We like a pretty eclectic range of music, but over the past couple of years we've grown to especially appreciate the sound, conventions and heritage of bluegrass. Another thing that jumped out at the Ricky Skaggs concert was a pervasive sense of family and community. Throughout the concert, Skaggs talked about his family and band member's families. In a song called the "Simple Life" he slipped in the line, "My favorite thing to hear is, 'Daddy, I'm so glad you're home." In "Black-Eyed Suzie" he sang, "All I need to make me happy is four little kids to call me pappy."

These are the kinds of comments and song lines that make some people groan and complain of sentimentalism. For me, they were refreshing surprises after years of going to concerts where artists find interesting things to say and sing about everything other than the fundamental life relationships that most of us end up experiencing (90% of men and women end up marrying and nearly three-quarters of all marriages include kids).

Is it because artists often suppose people want to transcend mundane things like family that they find so little to sing about it? Does it affect our perception of the value of pursuing family if we have scores of songs in our MP3 players that celebrate sexual energy, romantic pursuits and high jinx, but little that tie those themes to the dailiness of marriage and parenting?

I read an article recently about MP3 players giving people the opportunity to give their lives a soundtrack. Any favorite suggestions out there for soundtrack entries that celebrate marriage and kids?

Even Neo wants marriage and family

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 16:28:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, Keanu Reeves/Neo got some headlines when he made public his desire for a family. He was quoted as saying: “I’m trying not to be alone so much and it’s a struggle. I want to get married. I want to have kids. That’s at the top of the mountain. I’ve got to climb the mountain first. I’ll do it. Just give me some time.”

Apparently, it didn't take much time. This week he made news by acting on it—reportedly proposing to his girlfriend. [Reeves, who is almost 42 came close to family in the past when he conceived a daughter who was stillborn at 8 months and then the girl's mom was killed in a car accident two years later.]

Never much of a celebrity watcher, I have a hard time understanding why the personal whims and desires of the rich and famous are newsworthy. I guess Reeves' confession stood out, however, because leading men aren't typically known for articulating a desire for family. Consistent with what we've been talking about--it just goes against the conventional wisdom.

I appreciated the one comment we received implying that just because men aren't as vocal about these issues doesn't mean they don't matter to them. I hope this discussion can encourage more men to surprise the people around them by simply articulating the desire they've quietly held for family. Of course the bigger surprise will be when those men act boldly on that desire.

What are Men Doing about it?

noreply@blogger.com (AuthorMama) — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 14:15:00 +0000

It's been refreshing to hear from the guys out there. I'm glad to know the CDC report is stirring up conversation. My question for all you male readers, in light of the fact that you agree with these stats, is what specifically are you doing to get to marriage? What steps are you taking to move toward the altar? Maybe the gals are missing your cues and need a little insight.

The reality remains: despite what we say we want, men and women are marrying later than ever. Best case scenario is that our actions are not matching up with our desires. Now that we've identified the desire, let's talk about actions.

Men of faith also value marriage more than women

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 03:28:00 +0000

I've been digging deeper into the CDC study I mentioned. It's fascinating to see men holding more traditional views on several key issues. I said in my last post that it would be interesting to know what the faith breakdown among participants is. The study sorted out religious factors by asking how important religion was in a person's daily life and then also classified their religious affiliation into the following categories: None, Fundamentalist Protestant, Other Protestant, Catholic and Other Religion. There's plenty to be said about where faith either does or doesn't make a difference on several major issues such as sexual attitudes and activity, cohabitation, divorce, etc.

A key finding is the issue of faith, gender and attitude toward singleness. The conventional wisdom is that Christian women desire marriage but have difficulty finding men who do. As I mentioned previously, the CDC study found that more men than women valued marriage over singleness. This was also true by a large margin between men and women who said religion is very important as well as those categorized as Fundamentalist Protestant.

What follows is a comparison of the percentage of men and women 15-44 years of age who either agree or strongly agree with the statement, "It is better to get married than to go through life being single," according to selected characteristics.

Total males--65.8%
Total females--50.6%

Fundamentalist Protestant males--68%
Fundamentalist Protestant females--59.3%

Males to whom religion is very important--73.6%
Females to whom religion is very important--57%

Males to whom religion is not very important--56.9%
Females to whom religion is not very important--38.7%

Notice that the percentage of men to whom religion is not very important comes in just 0.1% behind females who say religion is very important in their agreement on getting married vs. going through life single.

How would you explain this difference?

Are men more interested in marriage and family?

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 17:19:00 +0000

For years, we’ve heard young Christian women complain about a lack of Christian men interested in marriage and family. News reports bemoan men who won’t commit. Occasionally stories slip through about marriage-minded men who are rebuffed by women who aren’t ready to settle down, but typically, we hear the opposite.

A recent USA Today story turns conventional wisdom on its head and shows that single men may actually desire family more than women.

The article is based on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that asked more than 12,000 men and women ages 15 to 44 about sex, living together, marriage, divorce and parenting. USA Today describes the study as providing “the government's first comprehensive glimpse into the male psyche.”

It includes surprising stats, such as the following:

To the statement "It is better to get married than go through life single," 66% of men agreed, compared with 51% of women.
To the statement "It is more important for a man to spend a lot of time with his family than be successful at his career," 76% of men and 72% of women agreed.
55% of men and 46% of women intend to have a child.

I’m curious what this breakdown looks like within the Christian community. Research has shown that faith is a factor in making men more open to marriage and family—and yet many of our readers say that can’t find those men in their churches.

What do you think about this study?

She's Asking the Wrong Question

noreply@blogger.com (AuthorMama) — Thu, 25 May 2006 16:49:00 +0000

"Men, who needs them?" That's the question author and single woman, Connally Gilliam, poses in an excerpt from her book, Revelations of a Single Woman. (The excerpt is running this week on Crosswalk.com.)

What a question. I'd say it's the wrong question. It makes me wonder, what's a woman who professes Christ doing asking a question that feminists ask rhetorically?

Anyone with a cursory knowledge of Scripture knows that as women, we owe our very existence to the fact that Adam was lonely. God, in His love for Adam, formed a helper from Adam's side: another human, but different from Adam. Because of man, God made woman.

And it's not just husbands we need.

We need our dads. Without them we literally wouldn't be here. Hopefully they were the source of provision and protection God designed them to be.

She spends a lot of words disclaiming her assertion that we do need men, focusing on their fallenness. As in, "men – like women – are fallen image bearers and can be schmucks as fathers, brothers, colleagues, friends, or husbands, and more often than not as strangers. They can spark deep, angry breaths and elicit sad, weary sighs." Though she mentions in passing that women are fallen, she repeatedly reminds readers that men are. It's as if she assumes women are redeemed but is afraid to suggest, or doesn't really believe, that men can be.

And as the great granddaughter of an Orthodox cantor in the Jewish synagogue, I learned at a young age that the word "schmuck" is not to be used in polite company. Either Gilliam doesn't know what the word means or she does and knew her Christian publisher would never run the English equivalent.

In the end, hers is an anemic vision of why women need men (because a compliment sounds better coming from the lips of a guy than a girlfriend). It left little doubt as to why I found her book so discouraging and lacking in practical, biblical wisdom for single women who desire marriage.

This chapter bothered me when I read it in Gilliam's book and it's still bothering me now that I've read it again online. I think I know why. She's asking the wrong question. If I were doing the asking, my question would be, "Since we as women need men so much, what can we do to encourage their biblical masculinity?"

Why family for men? A spiritual legacy

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sat, 13 May 2006 19:31:00 +0000

So far, the reason I've been offering for why men should marry and have family is that family is central to God's purpose for their life and that it is a blessing as well as a crucible that refines character. My last point is that of spiritual legacy.

In the last couple of years, social scientists who once warned about a population explosion and encouraged controls on reproduction are now making a 180 degree turn. Analysts such as Philip Longman warn fellow liberals that conservatives who choose to have children will win tomorrow's debates simply by sending representatives into the future. While it's no guarantee that children will believe and vote the same as their parents, the likelihood is that the majority will. Already there has been talk of a Roe effect in which the anti-reproductive agenda of the Democratic party may have cost them the past two presidential elections by cutting off a supply of future voters.

Anyone interested in fulfilling the High School graduation cliche' of leaving the world a better place should recognize that leaving descendants can have lots of direct impact. Sting recently released a song called "Send Your Love" that touches on the power of having children in order to affect the years ahead. "Send your love into the future," the song says, "Send your precious love into some distant time." More importantly, Sting has backed up his advice by having six children.

Students of the Bible discover that God sees the idea of leaving a legacy as bigger than politics or personal values. Malachi 2 says:

Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because He was seeking Godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

Author Gary Thomas once observed that those boring genealogy chapters about how so and so begat so and so may be among the most important in the Bible. He points out that for all his writing and speaking, maybe the most significant thing he did was "begat" his three children.

That was the message I got from my dad as he lay dying in the hospital (the family picture here was taken the summer before he died). In his short 56 years, he launched his own church, negotiated over 500 cuts of songs he wrote and chalked up numerous other accomplishments. Yet, he told me, "Marrying your mom and having you and your brothers were the best things I ever did."

Our investment in family doesn't always show a return in our lifetime. One of the scriptures I leaned on the most as a single was Jeremiah 29:11.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Only recently, did I notice that in the scripture just before that passage, the Lord was telling the exiles in Babylon that He would take them back to Jerusalem in seventy years. That means a lot of the exiles who heard that message would be either really old or maybe even dead before that promise was fulfilled. So what "hope and future" was God talking about? To find that, you have to back up a few more verses:

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.

It's important to note that God not only blessed these exiles with hope and prosperity seventy years later, but that He blessed them during those seventy years through the families He encouraged them to form. It's also worth noting that the future blessing not only included a return from exile, but also continuity of a lineage that brought the Messiah into the world.

What legacy have you inherited? Whether you have received a rich or a poor spiritual legacy, you have the opportunity to contribute a significant chapter of your own to God's unfolding story throughout the generations.

This wraps up my attempt to answer the question, "Why should men marry and have children?" If you have any thoughts to either supplement or further elaborate on the concepts of purpose, blessing, crucible and spiritual legacy, I'd love to hear from you.

Why family for men? The crucible

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Fri, 12 May 2006 01:01:00 +0000

I was going to post the next entry in my series on why men should marry and have children last night, but instead I spent most of the night at the emergency room. Moving into the second trimester of her pregnancy, Candice was just getting over morning sickness when she had her worst day yet. She woke up with a migraine and nauseau and then found she couldn't keep down any of the medicine that would treat those problems. She threw up multiple times. Eventually, the doctor's office encouraged us to go to the emergency room and get an IV drip going to avoid dehydration and a health risk for the baby.

Candice needed me through all this:

to bring her breakfast (that she threw up)
to bring her ice chips (that she threw up)
to feed the kids breakfast
to re-arrange my work schedule so I could take our daughter to pre-school
to clear the rest of my work schedule because now Candice really needed me:

to run to the drugstore
to pick our daughter up from pre-school
to feed the kids lunch
to handle numerous phone calls and visitors at the door
to feed the kids dinner (with help from some generous friends)
and then to pack up supplies and arrange for someone (specifically those same generous friends) to take care of our kids while we took off for the emergency room.

So what was the topic I was planning to address in my post last night? The crucible of marriage and family, with crucible defined as "the state of pain or anguish that tests one's resiliency and character." Now my day yesterday is nowhere near the family crucible hall of fame. It's fairly routine for pregnant women to need this level of care and I'm aware of several who needed much more help because of greater complications.

Pregnancy is, however, prime time for me in my roles of provider and protector. It's also a reminder that the blessings of family are interwoven with the responsbilities and challenges. My problem is that it doesn't come naturally for me to lay down my life for my family. I do it because they need me to--because they're counting on me.

In the past nine years of marriage and six years of parenting, I've discovered servant muscles I didn't know I had. When I was single I thought I was a fairly altruistic guy. Having a family has helped me realize how selfish I really was (and can still be at times). Like the crucibles used in the labs to heat substances for refining, the responsibilities of family flare up and work to refine the selfishness out of me. God calls us all to think of others before ourselves--family tests our ability to do that on a regular basis. It adds a level of high heat that is rarely equaled in other settings. It's true that some people melt under the heat and either try to leave the kitchen or let the heat burn the wife and/or kids who need their help (I've been there), but if they can keep the heat contained in the crucible, it can do it's refining work. This is consistent with Romans 5:3 and 4: "We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope."

Reflecting on the difficulties of maintaining happiness within family, Gary Thomas observed that maybe God didn't give us marriage and children to make us happy, but to make us holy. A pervasive myth in our culture is that commitment and sacrifice are barriers to our fulfillment--the crucible of family proves that they are instead the path.

Some family blessings I've enjoyed

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 10 May 2006 02:26:00 +0000

I've had my share of challenges and frustrations as husband and father, but as a postscript to my last post, I'm reminded to count the blessings family brings to me:

Having the sound of the garage door opening drowned out by two little kids screaming, "Dadeee's home!!"
Having all the random "short stories" of my single years turn into a long unfolding novel with Candice.
Rediscovering the world through the eyes of a child
Throwing parties as a team with Candice--where each of us can contribute what we do best.
Rough-housing with a son who keeps saying, "Do it again daddy, do it again."
A steady companion and a regular date who's just as available for a dance in the kitchen as she is for a night on the town.
Dancing with my daughter while she stands on my feet.
Having someone love me enough to tell me my clothes don't match before I leave the house.
Keeping a Saturday morning family pancake breakfast tradition.
Having "remains of the day" conversation on the porch with Candice.
and so on...

Why family for men? The blessing of a yoke

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Wed, 10 May 2006 02:03:00 +0000

As our generation increasingly takes a cost/benefit analysis approach to getting married and starting a family, it seems that the cost side is easier to articulate.

The 20,000 Quips and Quotes book on my shelf offers more entries on the costs of marriage than the benefits—with quotes like, “The trouble with wedlock is that there’s not enough wed and too much lock” and “Marriage is a feminine plot to add to a man’s responsibilities and subtract from his rights.” When it comes to the costs of parenting, there are even calculators available now to let you know how much you can expect to shell out to raise a child over a lifetime (around $170,000 on average according to Parenthood.com).

These examples add to a growing list of costs (financial, emotional, social and otherwise) that we are told come with family. Yet the Bible describes family as a good thing and as a blessing. Proverbs 18:22 says, “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.” And check out how The Message paraphrases Psalm 127:3-5:

3 Don't you see that children are GOD's best gift? The fruit of the womb his generous legacy? 4 Like a warrior's fistful of arrows are the children of a vigorous youth. 5 Oh, how blessed are you parents, with your quivers full of children!

While giving a blessing at our wedding, one of our graduate school professors noted that a blessing is not a passive thing, it’s active—the intense opposite of a curse. Social research consistently reinforces the blessing of marriage in a man’s life—showing that married men are much happier, healthier and wealthier. A study by Ohio State University showed that a person who marries (and stays married) builds nearly twice as much personal wealth as someone who is single or divorced.

One explanation for this blessing is Ecclesiastes 4:9 “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.” The economies of scale mean a husband and wife can pool their resources and efforts to make everything go further. I know I’m also healthier because my wife keeps things like vegetables in my diet and because she encourages me to have a doctor check things that I probably would keep on ignoring.

However, the primary reason men tend to benefit from family is because of the yoke that it places on them. Like the powerful oxen that can be guided with a yoke to cultivate the land, the structure of family channels a man’s energy into productive causes. This is a principle George Gilder articulates well in Men and Marriage (especially in his opening prologue called "The Princess and the Barbarian").

A good recent example of the power of a yoke was the movie Cinderella Man. (check out the Plugged In review). Based on the true story of boxer Jimmy Braddock, the movie shows the desperate times of the Great Depression challenging Jimmy’s desire to be a good provider for his family. Going up against the daunting Max Baer, Jimmy is asked what he’s fighting for. “Milk money,” he says. While Max towers over Jimmy in the ring and even though he is known for killing a man with his powerful punch, he lacks Jimmy’s motivation. In contrast to the earlier scenes of Max in bed with two women, we know Jimmy is doing his best to care for his wife Mae and their three kids. Towards the climax of the fight, Jimmy delivers every other punch following a mental flash of his family. It’s the drive of a provider that ultimately proves to be his competitive edge.

Why Family for Men? Centrality to Purpose

noreply@blogger.com (Steve) — Sun, 07 May 2006 13:59:00 +0000

Upon hearing the story behind the ring Bilbo had left to him, Frodo said, "I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?"

"Such questions cannot be answered," replied Gandalf. "You may be sure that it was not for any merit that others do not possess: not for power or wisdom, at any rate. But you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."

Even though it ended up involving untold peril and hardship, there is something envious about Frodo discovering his purpose in life. For many young single men, a sense of purpose is highly elusive. In an affluent culture, where money can deliver all kinds of stuff and experiences, it becomes that much more frustrating that it can't deliver purpose. Consider this passage from the book A Whole New Mind:

Abundance has brought beautiful things to our lives, but that bevy of material goods has not necessarily made us much happier. The paradox of prosperity is that while living standards have risen steadily decade after decade, personal, family and life satisfaction haven't budged. That's why people--liberated by prosperity but not fulfilled by it--are resolving the paradox by searching for meaning.

Why do you think Purpose-Driven Life has sold 25 million copies?
Why do you think Wild at Heart has been so popular with men? These books offer modern readers an opportunity to rediscover timeless Biblical truth in order to restore purpose and vision to their lives. Unfortunately, these books have little to say about family. Yet family is woven throughout the Bible as an element of purpose--especially in the initial creation and commissioning of humans that takes place in Genesis.

Take a look at Genesis 1:26-29 and Genesis 2:18-24. Theologians find in these two passages a commissioning for men to get out in the world and to be stewards of God's creation--creating and developing the world in His image. It's also clear, however, that God is directing men to take on that challenge and responsibility in partnership with a wife. Using strong verbs, God calls a man to "leave father and mother and be united to his wife" and to "be fruitful and increase in number."

Young men longing for purpose in life should recognize that Genesis offers a rough outline for their calling. While it doesn't tell them what creative or developing work they should take on, it does indicate to them that a wife and family will be central to accomplishing that work. Unless they are among the small minority of men who are given a gift of celibacy that allows them to take on their calling without the companionship of a wife, family will be the organizing structure and central element of their purpose.

A man's calling to create and develop will intersect with family in two ways--both in his pursuit and cultivation of a family and then in how family will bring support and motivation for the creative and developing work a man has been called to do.

A young man who prayerfully discovers whether he has been called to do his work in family or in celibate service will then gain a new perspective for all the other decisions he has to make--regarding his time, his money, his sexual drive, his vocation and his avocations.

One of my favorite lines in It's a Wonderful Life is when George Bailey's mother says to him, "Why don't you go see Mary? She may be able to help you find the answers." While we all know that only God can complete us and that only He has answers to our deepest questions, we can see from Genesis that He created marriage and family as a path by which many of those answers will be revealed.